Marshall Neilan

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Marshall Neilan (1920)

Marshall Ambrose Neilan (also Mickey Neilan ; born April 11, 1891 in San Bernardino , California - † October 27, 1958 in Los Angeles , California) was an American film producer, screenwriter, director and actor.

Life and movies

At the age of eleven, Marshall Neilan dropped out of school because his father died and he had to take every job available to support himself and his mother. As a teenager, he began to play small roles in the theater. He came to film in 1910 when the biographer was preparing to move from the eastern United States to Hollywood . He got a job driving from David Wark Griffith . The director encouraged Neilan to try himself as an actor.

In 1911 he signed a contract with the Kalem company , where he appeared as an actor in short films, often alongside established stars such as Alice Joyce and Ruth Roland. In 1912 he moved to the American Film Company and directed several films under the direction of Allan Dwan . During that time, Marshall Neilan also began writing scripts and directing individual scenes in his own films. After a few more changes, he returned to Kalem in 1914 and soon rose to be primarily responsible for the selection of the film material. The following year he moved to the Selig Polyscope Company , where he worked with Mary Pickford for the first time . He followed Pickford to the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation and has worked exclusively as a director since 1916. From 1917 he took on responsibility for some of Mary Pickford's most successful films, including Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm , The Little Princess (both 1917) and Stella Maris from 1918, in which Pickford played a double role. The film contained one of the first split scenes in film history, i.e. a take in which the actor appears in both roles on the screen in parallel and simultaneously, i.e. without any cut-counter-cut technique.

From 1920 and 1926 Marshall Neilan ran his own production company, Marshall Neilan Productions , which brought its films through Metro and later from its follow-up company MGM for distribution. The main female roles in the films mostly played Blanche Sweet , the then wife of Marshall Neilan. The most famous films included the adaptation of Thomas Hardy's classic Tess of the d'Urbervilles , as well as The Sporting Venus , which showed Blanche Sweet alongside Ronald Colman . The Lotus Eater with John Barrymore was also very successful.

Since the middle of the decade, however, Neilan's alcohol addiction worsened, and he also had affairs with numerous female stars, some at the same time. Mary Pickford had to direct some scenes herself during the filming of Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall because the director was too drunk. In 1929 his career was on the wane, and Neilan went to the newly formed RKO Radio Pictures , for which he directed the films two early musicals , including The Vagabond Lover . In 1930 he was one of the many writers involved in the never-ending shooting of Howard Hughes ' major war film Hellflier . In 1930, work on Forever Yours with Mary Pickford also ended in fiasco, and the film was stopped in the middle of filming.

Neilan ended his film career in 1937. Not until 1957, shortly before his death, did he appear in a supporting role in Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd again in a supporting role as a senator.

David O. Selznick worked through some aspects of his life in the character of the alcohol addicted director who was cast from Constance Bennett in the film What Price Hollywood? made a star by 1932.

Awards

Marshall Neilan received the Directors Guild of America's DGA Honorary Life Member Award in 1940 . A star commemorates him on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (at 6233 Hollywood Blvd).

Filmography as a director (selection)

  • 1914 - The Slavery of Foxicus
  • 1915 - Ham at the Garbage Gentleman's Ball
  • 1915 - Ham at the Fair
  • 1915 - The Come Back of Percy
  • 1915 - A Thing or Two in Movies
  • 1917 - A Strange Adventure
  • 1917 - The Jaguar's Claws
  • 1917 - Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
  • 1917 - The Little Princess
  • 1918 - War relief
  • 1918 - Stella Maris
  • 1918 - Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley
  • 1918 - M'Liss
  • 1918 - Heart of the Wilds
  • 1919 - Daddy Long Legs
  • 1919 - Her Kingdom of Dreams
  • 1919 - In Old Kentucky
  • 1921 - The Lotus Eater
  • 1923 - The Rendezvous
  • 1924 - Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall
  • 1924 - Tess of the D'Urbervilles
  • 1925 - The Sporting Venus
  • 1926 - Everybody's Acting
  • 1927 - Venus of Venice
  • 1927 - Her Wild Oat
  • 1928 - His Last Haul / Pious Crooks
  • 1929 The Awful Truth - directed
  • 1929 - The Vagabond Lover
  • 1930 - Forever Yours
  • 1930 - Sweethearts on Parade
  • 1931 - ex-sweeties
  • 1934 - The Social Register
  • 1934 - Chloe, Love Is Calling You
  • 1934 - The Lemon Drop Kid
  • 1935 - This Is the Life
  • 1937 - Sing While You're Able
  • 1937 - Swing It, Professor / Swing It Buddy
  • 1937 - Thanks for Listening / Partly Confidential

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Neilan, Marshall
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Neilan, Marshal Ambrose (full name); Neilan, Mickey (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film actor and film director
DATE OF BIRTH April 11, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH San Bernardino , California
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1958
Place of death Los Angeles , California