A Boa Constrictor

Black |A Boa Constrictor Liza Black University of Washington Wonka354@aol.com A Boa Constrictor Cari Beauchamp. Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women ofEarly Hollywood. The University of California Press, 1998. (475 pages; $17.95) Without Lying Down is the well-deserved biography of an extraordinarily talented, unique, and powerful woman. She wrote hundreds of screenplays and had a profound impact on the lives ofher friends and family. She was a professional woman amongst professional women. She was steadfastly loyal. She was also generous with her influence and power. According to her friend Adela Rogers St. Johns: "Frances Marion had the rugged determination of a boa constrictor where a friend was concerned". Beauchamp ably tells the story ofFrances Marion's professional life. Marion was born in San Francisco in 1888. She moved to Los Angeles with her second husband. Where studio bosses initially noticed her looks instead ofher writing. Others noted her beauty as well, but the only thing Marion took seriously was, first and foremost, her writing and, secondarily, attractive men. Over the course ofher life, she wrote almost 200 produced films. During World War I, she was selected to film American Women in the War in France. She won two Academy Awards for writing 77ie Big House (1930) and The Champ (1931) In 1933, Marion was elected as the first vicepresident ofthe newly-formed Screen Writers' Guild. Without Lying Down is an excellent treatment of this amazing woman's life story. Author Cari Beauchamp relies on Marion's published and unpublished autobiographies. She has done an immense job oflocating newspaper clippings , combing through Frances Marion's personal collection at University of Southern California, her many stories and screenplays, as well as countless interviews with her contemporaries and family members. The title comes from a pithy comment made by Marion: "I spent my life searching for a man to look up to without lying down". Marion searched indeed. She married four men in her lifetime. Her third husband, Fred Thomson, was her one true love. Thomson was a famous cowboy actor who died suddenly and tragically in Marion's arms. Her other husbands were emotionally challenged by her fame and sought comfort in other women and alcohol. Without Lying Down captures the importance of female friendship in Frances Marion's life. Marion certainly rubbed elbows with famous men: L.B. Mayer, Irving Thalberg, Douglas Fairbanks, Cecil B. De Mille, and William Randolph Hearst, just to name a few. Yet, more importantly, Frances Marion was friends with the most famous and powerful women of early Hollywood. Just some ofher close friends were Lois Weber, Jeanie Macpherson, Anita Loos, Dorothy Parker, Bess Meredyth, Caroline Bishop, Lorna Moon, Hedda Hopper, Lillian Gish, and Norma Talmadge. She often held parties on Friday nights just for her women friends. At the parties, they dressed down, laughed, gossiped, and made powerful connections in an all-female forum. Her dearest and most long-term friend was Mary Pickford. They worked together closely but never more closely than when they were in their twenties. They lived together, set each other's hair each night, arrived on the set at seven a.m., returning home well into the night. They constantly looked to one another for support and guidance. Frances was the woman chosen by Mary to create and publish her advice column. Frances also wrote many of Mary's screenplays, including The Poor Little Rich Girl, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, The Little Princess, Stella Maris, and Amarilly ofClothesline Alley. They even took their honeymoons together when Marion married Thomson and Pickford married Douglas. As the years went by, the two remained friends through changes of all kinds. In the end, they were friends for over fifty years. Marion was friends with other important women as well. Actress Marie Dressier saved her from ruin when she was working as a reporter for Hearst in San Francisco. Although Dressier and Hearst were momentarily at odds, Dressier gave her an unforgettable interview. They remained friends for the rest of their lives. In 1926, Dressier retired from the stage. Marion discovered that her life was in absolute ruins and wrote a screenplayjust for her (The Callahans and the...