Gene Gauntier

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Gene Gauntier, 1912
Gauntier with luggage, 1912
Gauntier filming On the Firing Line , 1913

Gene Gauntier (born Genevieve Gauntier Liggett on May 17, 1885 in Kansas City , Missouri ; died on December 18, 1966 in Cuernavaca , Mexico ) was an American actress , director and screenwriter during the silent movie era .

Career

Genevieve Liggett was born to James Wesley Liggett and his wife Ada J. Gauntier and grew up with an older brother and a younger sister.

Brother Richard Green Liggett (1880–1941) ran the Gene Gauntier Theater , a large cinema , in Kansas City in the 1910s and 20s . 1909 her sister Marguerite Gauntier Liggett (1891 to 1973) married the Swedish billionaire Axel Wenner-Gren , who in Germany after the Second World War, mainly by co-financed by him and named after him Alweg ( A xel L ennart We nner- G ren) became known, and trained as an opera singer in Berlin .

Genevieve Liggett attended the Fulton and Trueblood School of Oratory in her hometown of Kansas City, one of the most prestigious schools in the country for teaching free speech. In 1904 she went to New York City and began her stage career under the name Gene Gauntier . In the times between her theater engagements , she took on roles in films. In doing so, she obeyed necessity, because, like many of her theater colleagues, she was convinced that film roles would be detrimental to her reputation as a theater actress. Her first film role was in 1906, a stunt in the film The Paymaster of the Biograph Company , where she was thrown into a river. The role and film were irrelevant, but Gauntier met Frank J. Marion and Sidney Olcott on the set , who were co-founders and directors of the Kalem Company the following year. Gauntier then took on the female lead in George Ade's comedy The County Chairman , which was performed at the Grand Opera House in her hometown of Kansas City .

In 1907 Gauntier joined the newly founded Kalem Company . After a few months she was the Kalem Girl , based on the Biograph Girl (successively Florence Lawrence , Marion Leonard and Mary Pickford ) of the competitor American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. At the time, the film companies avoided naming their most important actors in order to avoid an expensive competition for these employees. The name of the company and the titles of the films were in the foreground in the advertising. Unlike in the theater, actors also preferred anonymity in film. After just a few months at Kalem, Gauntier played the leading female role in two mostly action-packed films a week. During the same period, she wrote two or three screenplays, most of them for films in which she starred herself. Her great productivity was made possible because she was able to take the motifs of the scripts from the pool of her earlier theater roles. After a hiatus for a theater engagement, Gauntier was asked in 1908 to write scripts, assist with the direction, and - if she wanted to - play roles. At the same time, the Biograph Company offered her the opportunity to work as a screenwriter and head of studio and production.

Gauntier stayed with Kalem for four years and was the creative head of the company. She and Sidney Olcott had no one free hand over themselves and in production. The small group of artistically responsible employees of the Kalem Company, who were friends with one another, were named the O'Kalems in relation to the activities in Ireland and later, in connection with a trip to the Orient, the El Kalems . Looking back, Gauntier stated that she wrote the script herself for almost all of the 500 films in which she was involved. Other tasks were location scout , co-director with Sidney Olcott, writing and creating the subtitles and promoting the productions.

Gauntier's pioneering achievements as a screenwriter include, after her first screenplay for Tom Sawyer , with which the character from Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer appears in the film, the first film about the American Civil War ( The Days of '61 ) and the first film adaptation of the material from Ben Hur , a novel published by Lew Wallace in 1880 ( Ben Hur ). The novel's owners, Harper and Brothers , the theater production producers Marc Klaw and AL Erlanger, and Lew Wallace's heirs sued the Edison Trust, Kalem Company, and Gene Gauntier for copyright infringement . The proceedings went as far as the United States Supreme Court , which in 1911 subjected the film industry to copyright law and recognized the structure of a film as set out in scripts as an object with material value. The time of unrestrained exploitation of third-party intellectual property was over, since then the right of use must be acquired before exploiting a template. But the work of the scriptwriters has also been drastically upgraded, as scripts were also granted copyright protection.

Gene Gauntier before kissing Blarney Stone , 1911

Gene Gauntier traveled repeatedly to Ireland with a team from Kalem to write scripts and make films. Films set in Ireland were a popular subject because they attracted large audiences in cities with a high proportion of Irish immigrants. After the success of a first trip with a small cast, in which A Lad from Old Ireland was filmed in 1910 , a large team went on the trip in 1911, during which Arrah-na-Pogue and The Colleen Bawn were created, among others . In order to maintain operations in the United States, additional staff were hired there. The winter months, during which outdoor shots in New York were only possible to a very limited extent, were spent by the same team in sunny Florida.

Gene Gauntier (front right), Sidney Olcott (front center) and Jack J. Clark (seated left) with colleagues on the RMS Adriatic , December 1911

At the end of 1911, the Kalem team around Gauntier, Olcott and Clark traveled to Cairo and Jerusalem. As with the previous films, Kalem management didn't really know what to produce. Frank J. Marion gave the instruction, however, that when filming Christian themes, Jesus Christ should be depicted as a shadow and symbol. In the Holy Land , Gauntier had the idea of ​​making a film of the Passion of Christ , according to his own account, in the delirium after a sunstroke . Additional actors were quickly requested in New York, and Marion also met Sidney Olcott in Europe and revoked his original restrictive instruction. In October 1912, From the Manger to the Cross, the film adaptation of the life story of Jesus Christ was released , the script came from Gauntier, who also played the role of the Virgin Mary . The film was a great success. While filming, Gauntier married her colleague, actor and director Jack J. Clark , who played the apostle John in the film .

Advert establishing Gene Gauntier Feature Picture Co., December 21, 2012

Immediately after returning to New York, I went back to Ireland and Scotland. The chaos of the burgeoning film industry had long favored creative women like Gene Gauntier, widely recognized for their excellence. Around 1910 the structures of the film industry began to change, the corporate structures solidified and the management of large companies was dominated by men. Disappointed by this development, which also included the Kalem as a member of the Edison Trust , Gauntier founded their own production company, the Gene Gauntier Feature Players Company, together with her husband Jack J. Clark and Sidney Olcott in December 1912. In doing so, she followed a path that several colleagues followed, such as Florence Lawrence with her Victor Company, Helen Holmes (Signal Film Company), Flora Finch (Flora Finch Company and Film Frolic Picture Corporation) and Marion Leonard (Gem Motion Picture Company, Monopol Film) Company and Mar-Leon Corporation).

In November 1912 and on later occasions, Gauntier also traveled to Ireland with her own staff, with Olcott directing them. For Ireland's Sake, for example, was made for the Gene Gauntier Feature Players Company in 1914. With such films, for which Gauntier mostly wrote the screenplay and played a leading role and Olcott acted as a director, the company became a serious competitor of the Kalem Company.

The role of Nan, a young woman from the southern states, whose role Gauntier had already played in several films for the Kalem Company, was remarkable. She designed the role while shooting the Kalem in Jacksonville , Florida . The subject of the young spy behind enemy lines was well received by the audience, and Gauntier took the role back to her own production company. With A Daughter of the Confederacy , she was able to seamlessly build on her old successes in early 1913. In addition to the role, it mattered that the previous Civil War films almost always glorified the exploits of the Northern Army and its soldiers. The films about the spy Nan, however, showed the civil war from the perspective of the southern states, with soldiers and citizens of the southern states as protagonists.

In early 1914 Sidney Olcott left the company to start his own Sid Olcott International Features. The Gene Gauntier Feature Players Company existed until early 1915 when Gauntier signed a contract with Universal Studios and moved to Hollywood for a short time . However, Gauntier could not get used to the new production methods and left the film business.

In January 1918, the Gauntiers and Clarks were divorced in Kansas City. In 1919 she worked temporarily as a theater and film critic for the Kansas City Post . At the age of 35, Gauntier made another film in 1920, Witch's Gold , and left the film business for good. She had acted in 87 films and, according to official sources, wrote 42 scripts, in fact several hundred. In an interview in 1924, she stated that she had lost her earlier enthusiasm. She felt burned out and powerless and found working under the new conditions of film production to be a burden. She is glad that she managed to leave the film industry so early that she still has a few memories of the "good old days".

Private

Villa Tillberg in Stockholm , around 1924 Gene Gauntier's apartment
Grave of Axel Wenner-Gren , Marguerite Wenner-Gren and Gene Gauntier in Häringe Castle, Sweden

After her final withdrawal from the film business, Gauntier moved permanently to Europe, where her sister was already living. During the winter of the 1920s, she lived with her sister at Laboratoriumsgatan 10 in the diplomatic quarter of Stockholm , in the villa Tillberg, built by the architect Ivar Tengbom, owned by the entrepreneur and MP Knut Tillberg . From March to June she traveled through Europe, mostly to Italy and France, and spent the summer on an island on the west coast of Sweden. She penned an autobiography called Blazing the Trail , which appeared in an abridged series in the Woman's Home Companion in 1928 and 1929 . The manuscript is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art Department of Film in New York City . She also wrote two novels, Cabbages and Harlequins in 1929 and Sporting Lady in 1933 . Gene Gauntier died in Cuernavaca , Mexico, in 1966 at the age of 81 . She is buried with her brother-in-law Axel Wenner-Gren and her sister Marguerite in the park of Häringe Castle in Västerhaninge , Sweden .

Filmography

As an actress

  • 1906: Skyscrapers
  • 1906: Thaw-White Tragedy
  • 1906: The Paymaster
  • 1907: Ben Hur
  • 1908: Evangeline
  • 1908: Way Down East
  • 1908: The Scarlet Letter
  • 1908: Hulda's Lovers
  • 1908: Dolly, the Circus Queen
  • 1908: The Romance of an Egg
  • 1908: The Man in the Box
  • 1908: Thompson's Night Out
  • 1908: The Stage Rustler (not mentioned in the credits)
  • 1908: As You Like It
  • 1908: Betrayed by a Handprint
  • 1908: The Girl and the Outlaw (uncredited)
  • 1908: The Taming of the Shrew
  • 1909: The Cracker's Bride
  • 1909: The Girl Spy: An Incident of the Civil War
  • 1909: The Law of the Mountains
  • 1909: The Wayward Daughter
  • 1909: A Slave to Drink
  • 1910: The Romance of a Trained Nurse
  • 1910: The Man Who Lost
  • 1910: The Stepmother
  • 1910: The Confederate Spy
  • 1910: The Further Adventures of the Girl Spy
  • 1910: The Girl Spy Before Vicksburg
  • 1910: The Forager
  • 1910: The Bravest Girl in the South
  • 1910: The Love Romance of the Girl Spy
  • 1910: The Egret Hunter
  • 1910: The Navajo's Bride
  • 1910: The Castaways
  • 1910: A Child's Faith
  • 1910: A Daughter of Dixie
  • 1910: A Colonial Belle
  • 1910: The Perversity of Fate
  • 1910: The Evil Artist or a Girl Wronged
  • 1910: The Heart of Edna Leslie
  • 1910: A Lad from Old Ireland
  • 1910: Seth's Temptation
  • 1910: The Little Spreewald Maiden
  • 1910: The Stranger
  • 1911: For Love of an Enemy
  • 1911: Her Chum's Brother
  • 1911: Robbie and the Redskins
  • 1911: Little Sister
  • 1911: The Open Road
  • 1911: The Irish Honeymoon
  • 1911: The Little Soldier of '64
  • 1911: A War Time Escape
  • 1911: A Sawmill Hero
  • 1911: The Lass Who Couldn't Forget
  • 1911: In Old Florida
  • 1911: The Fiddle's Requiem
  • 1911: When the Dead Return
  • 1911: The Carnival
  • 1911: In Blossom Time
  • 1911: To the Aid of Stonewall Jackson
  • 1911: The Romance of a Dixie Belle
  • 1911: Special Messenger
  • 1911: Rory O'More
  • 1911: The Colleen Bawn
  • 1911: The Fishermaid of Ballydavid
  • 1911: Arrah-na-Pogue
  • 1911: Tangled Lives
  • 1911: A Hitherto Unrelated Incident of the Girl Spy
  • 1911: To the Aid of Stonewall Jackson
  • 1912: The O'Neill
  • 1912: His Mother
  • 1912: The Vagabonds
  • 1912: Far From Erin's Isle
  • 1912: You Remember Ellen
  • 1912: Captain Rivera's Reward
  • 1912: Victim of Circumstances
  • 1912: The Belle of New Orleans
  • 1912: The Fighting Dervishes of the Desert
  • 1912: Missionaries in Darkest Africa
  • 1912: Dust of the Desert
  • 1912: Captured by Bedouins
  • 1912: Tragedy of the Desert
  • 1912: To Arabian Tragedy
  • 1912: Winning a Widow
  • 1912: A Prisoner of the Harem
  • 1912: Down Through the Ages
  • 1912: The Mayor From Ireland
  • 1912: The Shaughraun
  • 1913: The Wives of Jamestown
  • 1913: Lady Peggy's Escape
  • 1913: A Daughter of the Confederacy
  • 1913: The Mystery of Pine Creek Camp
  • 1913: When Men Hate
  • 1913: In the Power of the Hypnotist
  • 1913: In the Clutches of the Ku Klux Klan
  • 1914: For Ireland's Sake
  • 1914: The Eye of the Government
  • 1914: Come Back to Erin
  • 1914: A Fight for a Birthright
  • 1914: False Evidence
  • 1914: Twilight
  • 1914: His Brother's Wife
  • 1914: The Little Rebel
  • 1914: Through the Fires of Temptation
  • 1915: The Woman Hater's Baby
  • 1915: The Ulster Lass
  • 1915: The Mad Maid of the Forest
  • 1915: Gene of the Northland
  • 1915: The Smuggler's Lass
  • 1920: Witch's Gold

As a screenwriter

  • 1907: Why Girls Leave Home
  • 1907: Tom Sawyer (missing)
  • 1907: The Days of '61
  • 1907: Ben Hur (Directed by Sidney Olcott and Frank Oakes Rose)
  • 1908: Hiawatha
  • 1908: As You Like It (Director: Kenean Buel)
  • 1908: Evangeline
  • 1908: Way Down East (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1908: Washington at Valley Forge
  • 1908: The Scarlet Letter (Sidney Olcott)
  • 1908: Hulda's Lovers (Direction: Wallace McCutcheon sr. )
  • 1908: Dolly, the Circus Queen
  • 1908: The Romance of an Egg (Direction: Wallace McCutcheon sr.)
  • 1909: The Japanese Invasion
  • 1909: The Wayward Daughter
  • 1909: The Girl Spy: An Incident of the Civil War
  • 1909: A Slave to Drink
  • 1909: The Octoroon (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1910: The Man Who Lost
  • 1910: The Romance of a Trained Nurse (Sidney Olcott)
  • 1910: The Stepmother (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1910: The Confederate Spy (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1910: The Forager (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1910: The Castaways (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1910: A Lad from Old Ireland (Sidney Olcott)
  • 1910: The Little Spreewald Maiden (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1910: The Girl Spy Before Vicksburg (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1911: Tangled Lives (Directed by Sidnegiey Olcott)
  • 1911: Last Day of School (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1911: A Hitherto Unrelated Incident of the Girl Spy
  • 1911: The Irish Honeymoon (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1911: A Sawmill Hero (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1911: The Fiddle's Requiem (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1911: The Love of Summer Morn (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1911: Special Messenger (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1911: Rory O'More (Directed by Sidney Olcott and Robert G. Vignola )
  • 1911: The Colleen Bawn (Directed by Sidney Olcott and Gene Gauntier)
  • 1911: The Franciscan Friars of Killarney (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1911: Arrah-na-Pogue (Director: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: The Vengeance Mark (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: Shaun Rhue (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: My Hielan 'Lassie (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: The O'Kalems' Visit to Killarney (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: The O'Neill (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: His Mother (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: Far From Erin's Isle (Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: You Remember Ellen (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: The Fighting Dervishes of the Desert (Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: Luxor, Egypt (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: Missionaries in Darkest Africa (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: Making Photoplays in Egypt (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: An Arabian Tragedy (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: Captured by Bedouins (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: Winning a Widow (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: Down Through the Ages (Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: Along the River Nile (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: The Poacher's Pardon (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: Ancient Temples of Egypt (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: From the Manger to the Cross; or, Jesus of Nazareth (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: The Kerry Gow (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: The Mayor From Ireland (Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: Conway, the Kerry Dancer (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: Ireland, the Oppressed (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1912: The Shaughraun (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1913: The Wives of Jamestown (Directed by Sidney Olcott)
  • 1913: Lady Peggy's Escape (Direction: Sidney Olcott)
  • 1914: A Celebrated Case (Director: George Melford )
  • 1915: Gene of the Northland (Direction: Jack J. Clark)

Novels

  • Cabbages and Harlequins, a Novel . Coward-McCann, New York 1929, OCLC 5398835 .
  • Sporting Lady . 1933.

literature

DVD

  • Blazing the trail. The O'Kalems in Ireland. The O'Kalem collection. 1910-1915 . Published by the Irish Film Institute, 2 DVD's, region code 2.

Web links

Commons : Gene Gauntier  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karen Ward Mahar: True Womanhood in Hollywood: Gendered Business Strategies and the Rise and Fall of the Woman Filmmaker, 1896–1928 . In: Enterprise and Society , March 2001, Volume 2, No. 1, pp. 72-110, doi: 10.1093 / es / 2.1.72 .
  2. Kay Armatage: The Girl from God's Country. Nell Shipman and the Silent Cinema . University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Buffalo and London 2003, ISBN 0-8020-4414-X .
  3. a b c Frederick James Smith: Unwept, Unhonored and Unfilmed , pp. 67 and pp. 101-102.
  4. Edward Azlant: Screenwriting for the Early Silent Movie: Forgotten Pioneers, 1897-1911 . In: Film History 1997, Volume 9, No. 3, pp. 228-256, JSTOR 3815179 .
  5. a b Eileen Bowser : The transformation of cinema, 1907-1915 , pp. 152-155.
  6. Jeffrey L. Staley: From the Manger to the Cross (1912) . In: Adele Reinhartz (Ed.): Bible and Cinema: Fifty Key Films . Routledge, Abingdon and New York 2013, ISBN 978-0-415-67720-2 , pp. 98-103.
  7. a b c d Frederick James Smith: Unwept, Unhonored and Unfilmed , p. 102.
  8. ^ Kalem Sends Company to the Orient . In: The Moving Picture World , Volume 10, No. 11, December 16, 1911, p. 880, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dmoviwor10chal~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D884~doppelseiten%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D .
  9. ^ Edward Wagenknecht: From the Manger to the Cross . In: Anthony Slide and Edward Wagenknecht (eds.): Fifty Great American Silent Films 1912–1920. A Pictorial Survey . Dover Publications, New York 1980, ISBN 0-486-23985-3 .
  10. Gauntier Feature Players . In: The Moving Picture World , Volume 9, No. 12, December 21, 1912, p. 1169, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dmovinwor12chal~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D1175~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D .
  11. ^ Gene Gauntier: Gauntier Players in Ireland . In: The Moving Picture World , Volume 18, No. 1, October 4, 1913, p. 39, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dmovingpicturewor18newy~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D43~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D .
  12. ^ Five Years Ago This Month . In: Photoplay , November 1917, Volume XII, No. 6, p. 98, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dphooct1213chic~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D248~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D .
  13. ^ HC Judson: "A Daughter of the Confederacy." A Fine Spectacular Offering with Gene Gauntier in Her Well-known Role as Nan, the Girl Spy . In: The Moving Picture World , Volume 15, No. 9, March 1, 1913, p. 892, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dmovingpicturewor15newy~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D902~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D .
  14. Eileen Bowser: The transformation of cinema, 1907-1915 , p. 178.
  15. ^ New Picture Making Company. In: The Moving Picture World , Volume 19, No. 2, January 10, 1914, p. 181, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dmovingpicturewor19newy~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D187~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D .
  16. ^ Gene Gauntier with Universal . In: The Moving Picture World , Volume 23, No. 13, March 27, 1915, p. 1942, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dmovingpicturewor23newy~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D1958~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D .
  17. George Blaisdell: Opening of Universal City . In: The Moving Picture World , Volume 24, No. 1, April 3, 1915, p. 78, digitizedhttp: //vorlage_digitalisat.test/1%3D~GB%3D~IA%3Dmovingpicturewor24newy~MDZ%3D%0A~SZ%3D86~ double-sided%3D~LT%3D~PUR%3D .
  18. Frederick James Smith: Unwept, Unhonored and Unfilmed , p. 67.