#27--PART 4--HIGHEST PAID HOLLYWOOD ACTOR

                                                WILLIAM “BILL”  FARNUM



It was said that William Farnum was one of the greatest silent movie stars and the highest paid actor of his time. I was skeptical; I had never heard this name mentioned alongside Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford or Rudolph Valentino. Then I started my research and yes!, newspapers—East coast, West coast and Midwest—consistently hailed William  as a Broadway and Hollywood royal. Theatre and film critics were in awe of his work because William was an actor who studied his craft and was serious about always performing to his ultimate. This story will be lengthy, but necessary, to acknowledge my distant cousin and a man who, sadly, has slipped into obscurity. Truly, a movie needs to be made about this movie legend.

 





William Farnum, born July 4, 1876 (centennial of Independence Day) in Boston, was the middle son of Greenleaf and Clara Farnum..

His parents were often on the road so William and his brothers, Dustin and Marshall, were raised by his maternal grandparents in Bucksport, Maine.  He would later attribute his later strength and robust health to a his first winter job in Bucksport where he would put in strenuous ten hour days on the river at twenty below zero cutting ice. 

At age 5, he saw Edwin Booth perform and this inspired him to become an actor. (Booth was a Shakespearian actor and considered the greatest Hamlet of the 19th century, but whose achievements were overshadowed by his brother, John Wilkes Booth, assassin of Abraham Lincoln.). At age 10, William held a spear in an Edwin Booth play. William made his first public appearance at age 5 when he played a cornet solo with the Bucksport band; he played with this band till age 14.

His father often said that “William was born with a hoe and scythe in one hand and a copy of Shakespeare in the other.” Often his grandmother would find him” half asleep in bed, a candle burning at his bedside and a copy of the Bard’s works in his hands as he tried valiantly to remain awake and scan the emotional passages of the celebrated plays. “When his parents would return home from a tour, he and his brothers loved rifling the trunks of costumes and accessories and would then strut around as Spartacus or Julius Caesar, etc..


EARLY INTRODUCTION TO ACTING

Like his brothers, William had an early acting debut. At age 15, he joined his father’s stock company and had just one line.  

At age 16, he got his first real chance in a small town in Ohio when the leading man of the theatrical troupe became ill [drunk] and William volunteered to play his part; overnight he memorized 110 pages of dialogue. When the lead actress came on stage, William was to stab her in the back. But rather than the blade slipping into the handle as it was supposed to, it caught and to William's horror he had pierced her protective girdle about ¾ inch deep; blood spread over her bodice. The actress gasped, then whispered “Never mind, it doesn’t hurt a bit. It’s all right” before she fainted and was taken from the stage. In her dressing room afterwards, the actress said to the very alarmed William “That was a gorgeous performance. Don’t worry. Do the same thing tonight.” This launched William into lead roles.  At age 16 he was featured as the youngest leading man in the world playing legitimate roles; he became leading man for nearly every prominent female star.



His mother advised him to continue with stock companies to gain valuable experience in various roles; he performed classic repertoires with stock companies for 5 or 6 years. At age 21, he was the head of his own stock company which had particular success with Shakespearean dramas in Boston, the Midwest and Great Lakes cities. Then he achieved his childhood ambition to own his own theatre in New York City where his company could play different classical dramas. William’s greatest stage triumph was as the star of Ben-Hur, which he toured for five years and performed over 1000 times. He also starred in The Virginian, The Littlest Rebel (co-starring brother Dustin) and The Prince of India.



William in Ben Hur

SILENT MOVIES

In 1914, Fox Films lured William from the stage and to Hollywood. “Like most stage actors of that day, I thought pictures were something they ran in vaudeville houses to chase audiences out…but Rex Beach [Fox]  wanted me for a picture--probably because he had the fight scene in mind and I had a couple of good fists—and I let him talk me into it.” 



In 1915, William signed a lucrative contract with Fox Film Corp; he would stay with them for 8 years. By 1917, he was Fox’s biggest male box-office attraction, and he became Hollywood’s highest-paying actor earning $10,000 a week for five full years.

In 1914, William starred in The Spoilers, a silent movie set in Alaska during the 1898 Gold Rush. Despite many later successes, it was this film destined to be his best remembered because of its fearsome, knock-down brawl. The final fifth reel of this movie culminates in a spectacular saloon fistfight. For years, critics considered this fight to be the benchmark against which all future screenfights were measured.  William was scheduled for two pictures immediately after The Spoilers, so he told the other actor to go easy as he had to look pretty the next week. William misjudged the other actor’s first swing, and it caught him flush on the nose, breaking it. According to Farnum, “I’m ashamed to say that I thought he’d hit me on purpose, so I waited for an opening. Then I let him have it. After that we were both punch drunk. The people on the sidelines…yelled ‘Stop them! They’re killing one another.’ He caught me over the left eye, and I spurted blood like a stuck pig. I leaped at him, and he bent double, but he straightened up. He was a big man and I landed twelve feet away. Dear old Tom! We got to be great friends afterward. We smashed a bookcase. I found myself with Tom on top of me, and then it went over--it should have killed us. I’ve never been quite the same man since that fight. Besides the broken nose, I had two bent ribs and a crushed sinus in my cheek that gave me dizzy spells for years. At the end I got a good shoulder lock on Tom, and I bent him back and back until I heard him groan ‘For God’s sake, Bill!’ Then I had enough sense to let go. When it was over, messy and bloody as we were, Tom and I went to a Turkish bath and stayed for three days.” The fight, so realistic, laid William up for several months of recuperation from his many injuries; this was before the day of specialized stunt men who can fake vicious fights; nobody had yet learned how to pull punches. So well-known was this fight scene that natives in Samoa had a slang phrase—to “William Farnum” an opponent. “When a Samoan says he will William Farnum his neighbour, he is boasting that he can beat him up; if he doesn’t, then he is merely out-Farnumed.” Fox Films hoped that The Spoilers would make a few thousand dollars; instead the film rang up millions at the box office and made movie history.


                                                                The Spoilers



William had other risky shoots. For The Conqueror…”I was in bed with double pneumonia when I was asked if I was well enough to make a scene on location with 600 Sioux Indians on horseback. I was too proud to say no so I was bandaged so I could breathe easier...on set, I was asked what I was doing there. I explained…that I must ride full gallop past the camera leading the band of Indians...they helped me on my horse and a pistol shot rang out…as I got past the camera, I felt myself going. I passed out. When I woke up, my head was resting on the knee of an Indian...I later learned he had raced his horse up to mine and took me out of the saddle…and saved me from being trampled to death by all the horses behind me.”









In 1919, William was made an honorary member of the California Society of Plainsmen because of his work in various Western pictures; the Plainsmen felt that William had done much to give the public a correct idea of cowboy life. In 1916, William felt he had had enough of fighting and turned to straight dramas. “He turned in his flannel shirt, miner’s boots and slouch hat for the cane, top hat and cane.” In 1917, he starred in Les Miserables and A Tale of Two Cities.




                                                    the set of Tale of Two Cities


Reviews of Farnum’s silent movies are positive and praiseworthy. And they had to be shot on location, not in studio, which presented its own challenges

1919 The Rainbow Trail…More than any other actor playing before the camera, William Farnum has the ability for interpreting the roles of big, powerful men who fight the long hard fight against the powerful forces of nature.

1920 The Joyous Troublemaker...a new canyon was discovered where scenes of the devil’s tumbler will be staged…at present the canyon is full of snakes and cacti that have to be cleared.

1920 Wings of the Morning…scenes were shot aboard the USS Alert at the San Pedro submarine base…many of the ship officers and the “gobs” acted as extras.

1920 The Adventurer…William Farnum is the star of this truly fine photoplay. One of the features is the most exciting and the best dueling scene ever shown on the screen…William Farnum is a perfect swordsman and the skill with which he handles his weapon in The Adventure [is admirable]…This story is a strong one and Farnum never was more happily cast. Few actors can display the versatility of this star, whose every act is one of studied and dignified art. He plays with abandonment and restraint…it is an undiluted joy to see an actor who so completely sinks himself into the role he is playing.

1920 The Adventurer… William Farnum should have been born away back in the days when knighthood was in flower. Such good looks as his are wasted on mere modern civilization. The thought was involuntary as he came clanking forward with high boots, spurs and the black and gold braided glory of Don Caesar de Bazan. And when he bowed and waved his plumed beaver hat, one could not help feeling sorry that the days of the leisured courtliness had [died out].


                                                                                              The Adventurers


1920 Drag Harlan…Farnum is a hero of the rugged, old-fashioned kind—improbable perhaps, but delightfully likeable.

1923 Without Compromise …”is a film replete with action, atmosphere and color and has a plot that sustains interest to the end without flagging. Farnum, of course, dominates the action throughout and as the sheriff of a rough logging town…has many opportunities for that histrionic ability that has won him a unique place in the affections of photoplay lovers. William Farnum’s pictures are never time-killers; they are emotional thrillers.” “A strong and vivid personality is William Farnum. This is as much due to his ability to vitalize his characters as it is to the fitness of the roles he portrays and the excellence of his productions. No actor knows better…the enhancing value of the dramatic power of restraint.”

1923 Moonshine Valley… “William Farnum’s pictures are always blooded thrills. ‘Bill’ represents man as we all wish to see him—a man who fights for right, who battles against injustice, large and small.”

1924 The Man Who Fights Alone…“There’s not a doubt that William Farnum is the most popular western star in motion pictures today.  This is a story of a strong man’s fight against great obstacles—both physical and mental, the kind of story with which Farnum’s name has become associated—a tale of the great outdoors, a real man’s story of love and sacrifice that will restore your faith in motion pictures as a medium of both instruction and entertainment. Comedy? Lots of it relieves the strain of heavier scenes. Action? Thrills? This is the greatest Farnum picture of them all, and you know what that means.”


 


In 1924, William signed a contract with  Paramount Pictures. From 1914 to 1928, he starred in 53 silent movies. Nearly all of Fox’s silent movies made before 1930 were destroyed in a vault fire in 1937. 






 

PHYSICAL STRENGTH & TRAINING

William was a disciplined actor who never took his good fortune as an actor for granted. He worked hard to hone his physical skills.

Good Looks: All success comes with an element of luck. And William was a handsome actor. “He has a mouth as straight as a steel rod. A thickset neck and a stocky, square chin that gives him the appearance of indomitable force and unscrupulous determination. But, his smile is as irresistible as that of a baby.” “William Farnum is gifted by nature with a fine brain, situated in a well-shaped head, squarely set on a vigorous, manly body. He fills the eye as the  fine representative of the rugged, vigorous, cultured American.” "Every director regrets that William Farnum's ruddy cheeks, brown curly hair and steel blue eyes could not be photographed in their natural color."


Exercise: William’s ultimate success was due to diligent hard work and physical training. “Farnum is always in training. His photoplays demand that he keep his body in perfect condition at all times...He spends at least an hour a day in physical exercise and 15 minutes of that time in fencing, which demands quickness of eye and great ability. He mastered the art of the rapier, broadsword and foil.” Expert fencing ability lent credibility to his Shakespearean roles. He was also an excellent marksman and did all the shooting in his films; he was a skilled horseman. (In the 1923 The Gunfighter, his character had to compete in a rodeo—shoot down 6 bottles while dashing past on a horse and then successfully ride an untamable bronco. Farnum performed both feats.)



Sport: Tennis was his sport of choice.  “Some take to golf and some find swimming the thing, but tennis is what keeps my wind good, eye clear and muscles pliable. I’ve been polishing up on my back stroke of late and have also developed a cross-cut with a back spin that will make Bill Tilden green with envy when I spring it on him.” (Ironically, William and Tilden died on the same day in 1953.) William did have one unique training method to keep in shape—walking on all fours. “By reverting to the four-footed method, I mean include in your physical training exercises such stunts as crawling about on all fours, holding the body rigid, resting it in this state on the toes and hands, lowering the head and shoulders to the floor by bending the arms and raising them to the original position by straightening the arm”. “Mr. Farnum has long been a marvel of power and endurance to followers of motion pictures. The fights he has been called up on to participate in on the screen are all real for he knows that a fake fight is very easily detected. All of which proves that William Farnum must have an efficient system of physical culture to keep him as a star of the ring.” (By 1926,Farnum had become an ardent fan of the Los Angeles Angels, never missing a baseball game, sitting right behind the catcher and interested in every play.)

Fighter: William realized that while thousands of people admired him for his dramatic characterizations, many others only remembered him for his masterful screen fights.  “Farnum has fought with nearly every sort of weapon—dagger, sword, club, rifle, pistol, fists—quite a record for a peace-loving man. He hates to fight, yet his record shows that he has probably fought more good battles than any other man on screen or stage. Nature favored him with a handsome body and powerful physique. Something inherent in the human family craves the sight of a physical encounter between two powerful men, probably the outcropping of the old cave-dwelling days. There you have why Billy Farnum has so many fights in his pictures. People demand it.” In 1916, “Farnum was recovering from a 6 week illness and everyone on set worried how he would do in the fight scene…The cameras were started..the fight was the roughest and heaviest that Farnum had ever done for films, yet it proved that even illness could not conquer a real star’s art...chairs and tables were overturned, knives flashed, clothes were torn to tatters. Yet Farnum, rather than giving in under the enormous strain on his strength, seemed to be increasing his energy with each stroke. The joy of combat fired Farnum and he forgot all traces of illness and weakness. When the fight was over, Farnum was victorious, his faced was flushed and he was happy.”



Nature: The outdoors was important to his physical and mental health. William had a great fondness of the outdoor life and spent as little time amid what he calls “barbaric civilization.” Each weekend he was miles from the studio, training through the Maine woods or the San Bernadino Mountains or whatever. He was the last player to arrive at the studio on Monday morning. “Man was never meant to wear white collars and spats.”, he said. “Everything in the city is artificial, unreal. That life is artificial, the people are artificial. The time is coming when I shall throw away my dress clothes, bury my last bit of grease paint, leave the stage and go to the mountains. Someday I’m going to have my fill of the great outdoors, M-m-m, I can smell it now.” "His chief hobby when he is not working is his fine estate at Sag Harbor, Long Island. A great lover of the outdoors, the Fox star finds ample opportunity to do those things for which he is acted in the world of sports—boating and fishing. William Farnum is never happier than when he is close to nature. This accounts for the fact that he always is in perfect trim physically.” 


Routine: “William Farnum conserves every ounce of his strength and brainpower while he is working on a motion picture. The famous Fox star has a system which he follows to the letter. He goes home early in the evening, has a hearty dinner, then walks for about an hour—sometimes accompanied by his little daughter.  Saturday night he spends at his club. Farnum loves to talk to men who are doing things in his profession. And no more popular conversationalist makes his appearance at the Friar’s Club than this film star. Farnum needs to conserve his strength of body and brain. In all his pictures he is called upon to do much work that requires strength and endurance. His fights on the screen are always real fights, for he firmly believes in realism."  



ACTING

William appreciated that acting was an art and that it demanded total dedication.  "I have alternately starved and rolled in luxury, been stranded and feted," William said.  "And I have steadfastly burned the midnight oil, for success did not come to me without labor and study. When I started out, I got $20 a week and was supposed to furnish my own costumes."

Photographer: He owned a completely equipped cinema camera and studied camera art so that he could understand the various positions of light and setting.

Study: Good looks in a movie actor, William asserted, were not as important as ‘the essential gray matter. Concentration [was the key to success.]. “So many people imagine that all one has to do to be a successful movie actor is to look like a Greek god and strut around. I find the screen calls for as much dramatic ability and certainly far more endurance than the legitimate stage. A man may make a hit in one picture without having any dramatic experience, but to be a sustained success a solid foundation is necessary.” (Interestingly, while William decried the necessity of good looks in male actors, he felt that good looks in actresses were important to their success.)



Training: William credited his early years of study and hard work on stage as crucial to his film success. "Talent and good looks are undoubtedly valuable assets. An actor who depends on these two assets alone, however, is not liable to go very far in his profession. The country is full of talented, good-looking youngsters who believe they have everything to enable them to reach the top of the tree. It is true that many of the younger generation of film actors and actresses have not put in long years of training on the legitimate stage. But it cannot be too strongly impressed upon those aspiring to a full career that they have undergone intensive training for their screen work. Talent, personality and training are what make a successful actor. But chief among these is training."

Emotion: “William Farnum comes [by his stardom] because of the interest he takes in every role he enacts, his correctness in minor details of characterization and his remarkable ability to feel and to make live the heroes he impersonates.” William believed that his success was due to being natural, to entering into the spirit of his role and carrying it off as a normal man under the specific circumstances. In the blue shirt of the grubber after gold on the frontier of civilization; in the formal clothes of the man about town; in the unwieldy attire of the ancients; in the simple garb and sou’wester of the fisherfolk, William Farnum always works with wholesome realism and force. ‘Feel in your heart the emotion called for’, he advises, ‘then having that, you will find yourself wrought up to the proper pitch and will be natural. Tame down the false emotion. Get the spirit of the thing and your emotion will be genuine enough.”


It was William’s ability to inject himself into a part that made him a forceful and compelling screen actor. His was the art of being natural plus entering sincerely into the spirit of the role. “Let the characterization grip your heart—feel the spirit of the thing”, he says “and your emotions recorded by the camera will be genuine enough. In a word, it is not the straining after-effect that goes across--it is the presentation of the part in a wholesome manner that will be convincing in its repressed naturalness.”

Music: William also espoused the pairing of acting and music. In the stage production of BenHur, he always wanted the musical accompaniment to be of highest quality to inspire his performance. In films, he was the first screen star to have an orchestra play as his scenes were being photographed. He always had a string orchestra with him even when on location for outdoor scenes. On one film, he was working with his famous horse Flash; one scene required Flash to be completely still but Flash wasn’t cooperating. At Farnum’s suggestion, they tried music; Flash listened and the ‘savage beast' was calmed.


                                                                William & Flash

Romantic Hero: William understood his audience. He believed that people wanted pictures to portray chivalry and gallantry. “How I revel in these old stories of chivalry and romance. I read the book [The Adventurers] that we are now picturizing dozens and dozens of times when I was a boy. And no modern scenario, however satisfactory, equals the classics. What is good in one age is good in another. The up-to-date scenario is an ephemeral affair. I love the jousting, the dueling, the romantic color, the costumes of the Middle Ages. And, do you know, I think the public wants this sort of picture more and more. Is there any wonder that there is gunplay in many of my pictures? I knew how to shoot when I was five years old and I’m afraid I still have the heart of a boy. In some of my pictures I have literally played to the boyhood of the country. Of course, I have liked making my classical pictures best of all, especially Tale of Two Cities and Les Miserables.



American Hero: And perhaps most significantly, William knew his audience wanted strong, manly and American heroes and wanted stories to portray chivalry, gallantry and patriotism. ”We will now raise children who have the twins sparks of gallantry and patriotism in their hearts and it will be because the photoplays have set tenderness, forgiveness and courage on a high plane. The moving pictures have already produced reality in creating a love for the flag, a deeper love than this country has ever known. It is because they have shown that the flag is something worth fighting for, worth dying for and cherishing chivalry is with us today and in our hearts and the motion picture has come to sustain it.” William’s movies were popular because they were “engrained in the ancestry and history of the American people. Americans are a fighting people. Americans are a fighting race! Almost without exception their forefathers, from whatever country they came, were fighters. Frequently, they were driven out of their fatherlands, but they were not whipped or cowed. They came here seeking freedom, and they fought …anybody … who opposed them. So with all these inherited traits, and the true sporting spirit of real Americans, it is no wonder that all classes flock to see that manly American screen actor, William Farnum, who is great in a fight and generous in triumph. Take his fighting face from his pictures in which he has figured as a fighter with the fists, or the foils, guns or knuckles. In all these Farnum applied strictly American methods.”

 

 

MARRIAGES & DIVORCE

Mabel: In 1896 William married Mabel Eaton (1875-1916), who had been a stage actress for 15 years. They had one daughter, Dorothy (1900-1970) who became a free-lance screen writer. William and Mabel divorced in 1905 when Mabel claimed that she had been beaten, choked and hit over the head with a telephone receiver. She received $2500 alimony. In 1906, Mabel became the first woman to open a stock brokerage business in Chicago. She openly confessed she had limited knowledge of this business but was “studying up” and was always a lucky woman. “At the races, I always have been able to pick the winner and I have known when to play a long shot safely. I intend to make money for my customers and am putting my whole soul into the business.” She said that hers would be a high-class brokerage business. (Her office gave off interesting vibes…”a boy at the blackboard, women in automobile cloaks hover around the little instrument [stock ticker] or lounge back in mahogany chairs. There is a place for art calendars, trays of salted almonds, glazed cherries and cork-tipped cigarettes, a divan downy with oriental pillows and a samovar where strong Russian tea is brewed.) After her try at brokerage, she opened a florist shop. Mabel was also quite a good artist in water colours. When she died in 1916, her estate was valued at $100,000, money inherited from her father.



 

Olive: In 1906 William married divorcee Olive Ann White (1872-1964). She had often been his co-star, before she left pictures in 1921.  Olive had her own sailboat, The Olive Ann; she loved fast cars but before purchasing them, she thoroughly familiarized herself with the mechanism so was never fearful of it breaking down and being unable to fix it. 

Theirs was described as an ideal romance-- they traveled, entertained, and lived the good life. They had one adopted daughter, Sara Adele. 

Their marriage lasted nearly a quarter century. In 1931, Olive sued William for divorce; she claimed he left her in May 1928. She charged desertion in her complaint and named Mrs. Isabelle Major as co-respondent. Olive claimed that William and Isabelle were “unduly familiar”, took a transcontinental journey together and that they lived at the same address in New York. Both denied any misconduct. Farnum could not recall whether a woman occupied his compartment on the train trip across the continent. He was positive that there was never any misconduct between him and Mrs. Major; she stated that she lived in the same building as Farnum, but denied any wrong-doing, although she said she was fond of him.

Olive was asking $2,500 support payment a month; she claimed that their communal property was worth a half million dollars and that Farnum could easily earn $20,000 a week. William contended that he had earned $10,00 a week six or seven years ago but now his income had steadily dropped to $1000 during the uncertain theatrical season; he offered her $100 weekly and to divide his Hollywood property.  He claimed that Olive had been ill for the past 15 years and that it was hard for him to get along with her. The court ordered he temporarily pay his wife $100 a week pending the outcome of her petition for separation. William did not pay as required so the court put his $100,000 property into receivership. Farnum’s lawyer said that alimony had not been paid because the actor was not working. “It’s remarkable” said the judge, “how quickly movie actors lose their jobs when they must pay alimony.”



                                                            Olive & Adele 1922


Olive 1931


                                   

Isabelle: In 1932, William, aged 55, wed  Isabelle Lunds Major (1895-1974), aged 37, a Hollywood writer. William became stepfather to Isabelle’s three children—Isabelle, Elizabeth and Thomas who petitioned the court to change his name to William Farnum Jr.  Isabelle and William lived together in a modest home in Los Angeles until his death in 1953.


                                                        Isabelle & William 1947

 

 

WEALTHY LIFESTYLE

William Farnum was the first Hollywood actor to earn $10,000 a week; by 1919 he had a 52-week contract, made $50,000 a year, practically tax-free. (in fact in 1924, he paid a paltry $12 in income tax.) Through the 1920s, he lived lavishly with homes, furnishings, automobiles, stocks and one of the largest yachts, The Algonquin.

His 20-room estate in the Santa Monica Mountains had extensive grounds, orchards and garden; an interior decorator was brought from New York to design the furnishings in a colonial style. “Dignified, old-fashioned furniture is used in most of the rooms.” One of the bedrooms suites was willed to William from his grandmother. “The dignity of the house is, in no sense, oppressive. Gaily colored chintzes, brass candlesticks and quaint window boxes heighten the old-fashioned atmosphere and harmonize beautifully with the soft tones of the mahogany.” William had a summer place in Maine, valued at $450,000; he drove the first automobile seen there. In the early 1920s,while working on Broadway, he stayed at the Algonquin Hotel; by 1926 he had moved into the  newly-opened Buckingham Hotel. These apartment hotels offered long-term rentals with a full complement of hotel services. By the 1920s, it was no longer vogue to build marble mansions, no matter how much money one had; instead, one lived in a hotel apartment with servants. It was the 1920s, the Jazz Age, and the cost of hotel amenities did not matter.





In 1921, William and Olive sailed to Europe for a six month trip to France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Holland. They often holidayed in Bermuda and Hawaii. William enjoyed trips into the Florida Everglades to hunt wild boar and turkey. “But to get William really excited, talk fish to him. In a large sunny room in his home, he has rare specimens of fish. Every one represents a separate struggle. Success on the screen is nothing to Mr. Farnum compared with the joy he derives from a tussle with a swordfish and final mastery. He hates to boast about his work, for he is modest and almost shy, but he boasts of the 298 pound swordfish he caught and the 1500 pound hammerhead shark that he struggled with for all one day and finally lost.”

He was wealthy, and generous. Friends remembered he would "simply give money away."

There were downsides to all his fame and wealth. In 1915, “no more he drives his automobile at life- risking speed over the Long Island roads. He must not again jeopardize his earthly future in his catboat at Sag Harbor. The Maine woods, his former recreation grounds, are barred to him. He may trace this change to the immense popularity he has attained as a Fox star. Following Farnum’s film successes…a great fear began to haunt Fox [studios]. Tales of Farnum’s reckless daring on land and sea reached Fox at frequent intervals and …a vision of the violent and untimely end to Farnum. Fox secured peace of mind by insuring Farnum for $200,000 in the corporation’s favor. The insurance company promptly overruled Farnum’s protests and placed a ban on all hazardous practices.” In 1916, the actor’s face and body were insured for $100,000 against injury or disfiguring accident. The policy prohibited Farnum from going anywhere unaccompanied by a physician; he could not drive his own car, sail his own boat, indulge in swimming or any other sport except under the supervision of this medical guard. His diet was prescribed for him and the insurance company got a weekly report of his condition.

Fame brought out the “crazies.” In 1919, he received a letter from a woman who requested a lock of his hair. The request seemed normal but became quite bizarre when the woman wrote,  “Your lovely locks are just like my father’s hair that I used to comb and curl while sitting on daddy’s lap when I was a little girl, my father’s pet. My daddy died in Africa, far away from me and always my heart yearned for just one lock of the loveliest hair I ever saw. I saw all your pictures and each time I long for a curl of the only hair I have seen that is like daddy’s. Please, Mr. Farnum, for memory’s sake do me this little favor.”  No idea if this request was granted.



Despite his wealth, William had a collection of a score of old trunks with costumes and weapons used in his stage and screen career. While friends called the old stuff “junk”, William could never be cajoled into disposing of them as “…[the theatrical world]… knows from experience that the hardest thing to find when needed is a costume that is merely rags.”

 

DOWNTURN

For a dozen years, William rode the crest in Hollywood. He brought the first Zane Grey western to the screen and did dozens of other films. He was earning $10,000 a week and the popularity of his films warranted that salary.  By mid-1920s, his savings totaled $3 million. Then in 1925, he was seriously injured while making The Man Who Fights Alone. The accident occurred in Glacier National Park. Farnum and a troupe were walking to a new shoot location up a narrow mountain path. William preceded the guide. He slipped and to stop going over the 9,000 foot chasm, he used all his strength to shove one foot through the hard snow, and dug his stick in as deeply as possible. But he was severely injured. The guide threw him a rope which he tied around his waist and he was rescued. He finished the last four reels of the film sitting in a wheel chair. Operations followed and it took him years to recover.


                                            William in The Man Who Fights Alone (note wheelchair)

William decided he had enough; he retired to fish, travel, and enjoy himself. He had $2.5 million in the bank. He wanted to go back on stage, even if it did not pay him as much but he felt it  would be less strenuous work during his recuperation.  He had been considering the speaking stage for some time, the lure of the footlights proving just a little stronger than films. He planned to organize a repertoire company to play classics in NYC. He spent most of the 1920s on Broadway, mostly in Shakespearean roles.

In July 1929 his brother, Dustin, died; the two brothers had been quite close. Later, that year, William was ill with typhoid fever and unconscious for 11 weeks; he was unaware that the Stock Market had crashed; four weeks later, he found out he was completely broke.  He lost his entire fortune.

 

TALKIES

William returned to the film industry, possibly hoping to recoup some of the wealth he had lost in the stock market crash, but his second time in Hollywood was far less profitable. He did have prominent co-starring roles in some major early talkies (Connecticut Yankee, The Painted Desert, Du Barry -Woman of Passion). He returned to the stage for brief appearances.

The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, was the first talking movie; it premiered in 1927. Many silent movies actors were unable to make the transition to talkies and disappeared from the movie industry because they didn’t possess the right kind of voice for talkies. They might even have had perfectly fine voices, but their natural speaking voice—often untrained-- didn’t match the image audiences had of them, based on their silent film personas, or the roles they played in talkies didn’t suit their voices. Some had speech impediments, didn’t speak English, or spoke with a heavy regional or foreign accent. This was not William’s weakness; his was a very strong resonating voice.  It was, instead, his stage-directed predilection for “playing to the back rows” that began to make his sound film performances seem overstated.  Soon he was being eclipsed by younger actors who could more easily adjust to the sound mike.

                                                                    William 1932


Farnum found himself appearing in low budget serials and features. His name still had enough marquee appeal to make him a valuable asset in the eyes of producers of B-films and chapterplays (short weekly action serials). He spent a few more years playing parts of varying size in B-films and he had a few small, but noticeable, roles in some A-Films. (In the 1930s, he tested, unsuccessfully, for the role of Gerald O’Hara in Gone With the Wind.) In 1936 he was hired to appear in more chapterplays (produced on a shoestring budget). The chapterplays gave him a chance to use his dramatic gestures to smoothly cover his occasional slowness in delivering complicated dialogue. In the second half of the 1930s he spent most of his acting time in B-film westerns. 1942 marked his 200th film role, now playing character actors. Through the 1940s he kept working in film and radio, playing major roles in more B-westerns and taking some minor roles in a few A-films. In the late 1940s, he starred in his own west coast radio series, a homespun serialized drama called The Adventures of Uncle Jimmy. By 1949, he had 300 parts to his credit, (200 of them were with Cecil B.DeMille.) He made only a handful of film appearances in the 1950s, including cameos of himself in Roy Roger’s Trail of Robin Hood. His final movie was in Abbot & Costello’s Jack & the Beanstalk in which he played a fairy-tale king.



Throughout the 1940s, he dabbled in radio with quiz shows. One of his greatest thrills was reciting a fan-written Easter poem over the radio. He worked Masquers’ fundraisers in support of US servicemen; members were expected to wait on tables, perform, visit guests; William regularly waited on tables and collected stars’ autographs for his son, Lieut. William Farnum, who was in the armed forces. Willam hosted the annual Shakespearean birthday celebrations. A deeply religious man, he regularly spoke in church for Mothers’ Day, Easter and Christmas. In 1948, he joined the Burbank Symphonic Orchestra in a world premier of a Shakespearean passage set to music and recited Marc Antony’s classic oration from Julius Caesar. He made speaking appearances at Easter sunrise services at the Hollywood Bowl, at civic luncheons, and as Santa Claus at orphanages.


1940 William had a bit part as a vagabond in The Villain Still Pursued Her

In 1940, friends marked his 40th anniversary on the stage, calling his “the best portrayal of Marc Antony who ever trod the boards.” That same year he was given a Veteran of Foreign Wars Citizenship Award; during World War I, over a 10 hours stretch, on the stage of the New York Public Library, he inspired the sale of $37 million worth of Liberty Bonds. 


                                                celebrating 50 years in show business

 In 1950, the Masquers Club presented him with an award for his outstanding service in the entertainment field. He was given a lifetime pass to the games of the Hollywood Stars as he was one of their most avid baseball fans. In 1951, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce “dipped into the past…with a premiere to salute the stars of the silent era.” William was among those honoured and was presented with a certificate for his “help in making Hollywood the film capital of the world.” Awards were handed out by Jack Benny. “The old timers, wearing their best finery arrived at the Academy Award theatre in studio limousines and were profusely photographed and interviewed. They all seemed to enjoy their big night but as one of them said, ’If only we could get a reception like this from the casting office.”

 

                                                                            1950s

 

 

FINAL CURTAIN

Through the 1940s, William lived on a Hollywood sidestreet in a tiny cottage that his wife had  inherited. He died in Hollywood on June 5, 1953, aged 76. The official cause of death was uremia, but he had cancer of the bladder and had undergone 3 operations the previous year for the cancer.

Stars and bit players, producers, directors, writers attended his Hollywood funeral service. Pall bearers included Cecil B DeMille and Jesse Lasky and there were nearly 100 honorary pallbearers. Actor Pat O-Brien delivered the eulogy saying, “Bill would be affronted if I were unduly solemn. I see a great home-coming for Bill through those pearly gates. Greeting him will be his brother Dustin and all his old friends—Barrymore, Booth, Drew…The choir that will greet Bill should have some great voices in it—his friends like Caruso, Jolson…And Bill, the old baseball fan, you’ll be able to give the word to Babe Ruth that his record hasn’t been broken. Bill was a strong man and a gentle man. The greatness of the actor was matched by his simplicity and humility. Bill understood Shakespeare because he understood life. Goodnight, sweet prince.”

On February 8, 1960, William, and his brother Dustin, were among the initial inductees on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.


William, and his third wife, Isabelle, are buried in separate plots in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Glendale, California. This cemetery has more celebrities per square foot but the graves are hard to find.  350,000 people are buried within the 300+ acres. There are five other Forest Lawns in Los Angeles, but the Glendale is the first and populated by stars like Jimmy Stewart, Elizabeth Taylor, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Mary Pickford, Spencer Tracy, Walt Disney. Built in 1917, Forest Lawn was to be a spectacle of art, Christianity, architecture, and American spirit. The cemetery is immaculate; thousands of trees and shrubs stay green all year despite the cemetery being in a desert; even trash cans are camouflaged as fake logs. Forest Lawn is divided into sections like Dawn of Tomorrow, Memory Slope, Whispering Pines, Babyland, Slumberland. There are gigantic replica statues like Michelangelo’s David and what’s called the world’s most perfect statue of George Washington. Forest Lawn was envisioned as a garden temple “filled with towering trees, sweeping lawns, splashing fountains, singing birds, beautiful statuary, cheerful flowers, noble architecture full of light and colour and redolent of the world’s best history and romances.” There are no traditional above-ground gravestones as it was felt that they announced that a dead person lies there; instead, burial spaces would be marked by bronze plaques, embedded flat on the ground, carpeted by vast lawns over which an industrial mower could move.




In 1917, there began an aggressive presale of plots—splashy ads in newspapers, billboards, door-to-door sales. Forest Lawn was pitched as a “destination” and was marketed as a privilege for the elite and upper middle class. The cemetery’s popularity drove up demand and the prices for burial plots. Forest Lawn is like a country club (until 1959, it banned the interment of Jews and minorities). Forest Lawn has expanded to 6 cemeteries and 5 mortuaries and has assets of $900 million. William had decided to be buried with his Hollywood peers, rather than in the Farnum family plot in Maine.





WILLIAN CHARLES FARNUM
        b. July 4, 1876 in Boston, Mass
        m. 1. Mabel Easton (1875-1916) in 1896; divorced 1905
              2. Olive Ann White (1872-1964 ) on Dec 2 1906 in Sag Harbor, NY; divorced 1931
              3. Isabelle Lynds (1895-1974) in  1932 in Santa Barbara, California
        d. June 5, 1953 in Los Angeles, California
my 4th cousin, 4x removed (Homuth, Netterfield line)














WILLIAM'S SILENT MOVIES

Sound movies







Comments

  1. Anonymous22 July 2023 at 17:30

    He truly lived an extraordinary life- from an era when there was only live theater, to silent films and then talking movies. Someone has to make a movie about such a talented actor.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous1 August 2023 at 12:00

    What an interesting story, definitely worth making into a movie.

    ReplyDelete

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