Douglas Fairbanks Sr.

At 56 years old, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. has this physical status:

Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman (May 23, 1883–December 12, 1939), known professionally as Douglas Fairbanks, was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer.

He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films including The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro but spent the early part of his career making comedies. Fairbanks was a founding member of United Artists.

He was also a founding member of The Motion Picture Academy and hosted the 1st Academy Awards in 1929.

With his marriage to actress and film producer Mary Pickford in 1920, the couple became Hollywood royalty and Fairbanks was referred to as "The King of Hollywood", a nickname later passed on to actor Clark Gable. Though widely considered as one of the biggest stars in Hollywood during the 1910s and 1920s, Fairbanks' career rapidly declined with the advent of the "talkies".

His final film was The Private Life of Don Juan (1934).

Early life

Fairbanks was born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman (spelled "Ulman" by Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in his memoirs) in Denver, Colorado. His parents were Hezekiah Charles Ullman and Ella Adelaide (née Marsh). He had two half-brothers, John Fairbanks Jr. and Norris Wilcox, and a full brother, Robert Payne Ullman.

His father, known as Charles, was born in Berrysburg, Pennsylvania, and raised in Williamsport. He was the fourth child in a Jewish family consisting of six sons and four daughters. Charles's parents, Lazarus Ullman and Lydia Abrahams, had immigrated to the U.S. in 1830 from Baden, Germany. When he was 17, Charles started a small publishing business in Philadelphia. Two years later, he left for New York to study law.

Charles met Ella Adelaide Marsh after she married his friend and client John Fairbanks, a wealthy New Orleans sugar mill and plantation owner. The couple had a son, John, and shortly thereafter John Senior died of tuberculosis. Ella, born into a wealthy southern Roman Catholic family, was overprotected and knew little of her husband's business. Consequently, she was swindled out of her fortune by her husband's partners. Even the efforts of Charles Ullman, acting on her behalf, failed to regain any of the family fortune for her.

Distraught and lonely, she met and married a courtly Georgian, Edward Wilcox, who turned out to be an alcoholic. After they had another son, Norris, she divorced Wilcox, with Charles acting as her own lawyer in the suit. She soon became romantically involved with Charles, and agreed to move to Denver with him to pursue mining investments. They arrived in Denver in 1881 with her son John. (Norris was left in Georgia with relatives and was never sent for by his mother.) They were married; in 1882 they had a son, Robert, and then a second son, Douglas, a year later. Charles purchased several mining interests in the Rocky Mountains, and re-established his law practice. After hearing of his wife's philandering, he abandoned the family when Douglas was five years old. Douglas and his older brother Robert were brought up by their mother, who gave them the family name Fairbanks, after her first husband.

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Career

Douglas Fairbanks began acting on stage at an early age, in amateur theatre on the Denver stage, and other performances produced by Margaret Fealy, who operated an acting school for young people in Denver. He attended Denver East High School and was suspended for cutting the wires on the school piano.

He left school in the spring of 1899 at the age of 15. He has reportedly attended Colorado School of Mines and Harvard University, but neither assertion is true. In September 1899, he began travelling with Frederick Warde's acting troupe, embarking on a cross-country tour. In his second year with Warde, he appeared in both as actor and as the assistant stage manager in two separate roles.

He migrated to New York, where he performed his first Broadway role in Her Lord and Master, which premiered in February 1902. He worked in a hardware store and as a clerk in a Wall Street office between acting jobs. He appeared on Broadway from 1908-09, as the well-known A Gentleman from Mississippi. Anna Beth Sully, the daughter of wealthy industrialist Daniel J. Sully, was married in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, on July 11, 1907. Douglas Fairbanks Jr., a well-known actor, was one of their sons. In 1915, the family moved to Los Angeles.

Fairbanks began working under D. W. Griffith's direction in Los Angeles in 1915 and began working under D. W. Griffith's direction in 1915. In which he debuted the athletic skills that would bring him brisk attention among theatre audiences, his first film, The Lamb, was released. Griffith did not like his athleticism, but he was brought to the attention of Anita Loos and John Emerson, who wrote and directed many of his early romantic comedies.

Fairbanks Film Corporation, founded in 1916, will shortly be employed at Paramount, and Fairbanks will soon have a Paramount film company.

Fairbanks first attended actress Mary Pickford at a 1916 party, and the couple soon began a courtship. They traveled around the country as Four Minute Men in 1917, with Fairbanks' Charlie Chaplin selling war bonds and giving pro-war speeches. At that time, Pickford and Chaplin were the two highest-paid film actors in Hollywood. The major studios attempted to monopolize distributors and exhibitors in order to reduce these actors' astronomical salaries. Fairbanks was Hollywood's most well-known actor by 1918, and Fairbanks' fame and business acumen brought him to the third-highest paid sector in three years.

Fairbanks capitalized on his increasing success in 1917 by releasing Laugh and Live, which introduced the power of positive thinking and self-confidence in improving one's wellbeing, career, and social standings.

Fairbanks, Pickford, Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith formed United Artists in 1919, which gave them complete creative control over their films and the revenues earned to prevent being controlled by the studios and safeguarding their independence.

In late 1918, Sully was given a divorce from Fairbanks, but the decision was released early the next year. After the divorce, the actor was determined to have Pickford become his wife, but actor Owen Moore was already married to actor Owen Moore. Fairbanks gave her an ultimatum. On March 2, 1920, she obtained a quick divorce in Minden, Nevada. Fairbanks leased the Grayhall mansion in Beverly Hills and was rumored to have used it during his courtship of Pickford. On March 28, 1920, the couple married on March 28, 1920. Pickford's divorce from Moore was contested by Nevada politicians, but the controversy was not resolved until 1922. Despite the fact that senators opposed the marriage, the public overwhelmingly supports the idea of "Everybody's Hero" marrying "America's Sweetheart." In fact, the excitement piqued much more than the United States' boundaries. Later, as honeymooners in Europe, Fairbanks and Pickford were welcomed by large crowds in London and Paris. The celebrated couple were known as "Hollywood Royalty" on both international and home, and they were known for entertaining at "Pickfair," their Beverly Hills estate, and later became known for entertaining at "Pickfair."

Fairbanks had made twenty-nine films (twenty-eight films and one two-reel short), which showcased his ebullient screen persona and athletic skills by 1920. Fairbanks had been a comedian in his previous films by 1920, and he had the inspiration of staging a new kind of adventure-costume picture, which was then out of favor with the public. Fairbanks' Mark of Zorro mixed his charming screen persona with the new adventurous costume element. It was a huge success, and the actor was pushed to the top of the charts, putting him a step ahead of him. Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood (1921), The Black Pirate (1926), and The Gaucho (1927) remained to produce and star in ever more sophisticated, dramatic costume films for the remainder of his career in silent films. Fairbanks were spared no money and time in these films, which set the bar for all future swashbuckling films.

Pickford, Chaplin, and others helped establish the Motion Picture Fund in 1921 to benefit those in the industry who could not work or were unable to pay their bills.

Fairbanks and Pickford took their hand and foot prints in wet cement at the recently opened Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on April 30, 1927, during the first celebration of its kind. (How does Harvey Korman's villain character do such spectacular stunts with such little feet?) (In the classic comedy Blazing Saddles, Harvey Korman's villain character sees Fairbanks' prints at Grauman's and asks, "How did he do such spectacular stunts with such little feet?" says Harvey Korman.

Fairbanks was elected first President of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences the same year, and he gave the first Academy Awards at the Roosevelt Hotel. Fairbanks also has a celebrity on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7020 Hollywood Boulevard today.

Although Fairbanks had thrived in the silent genre, the limitations of early sound films muzzled his enthusiasm for filmmaking. His athletic skills and general fitness began to decline at this time, owing in large part to his years of chain-smoking. United Artists assembled Pickford, Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, Norma Talmadge, Gloria Swanson, D. W. Griffith, and Dolores del Ro on March 29, 1928 at Pickford's bungalow to prove that Fairbanks would conquer the challenge of talking movies.

The Iron Mask (1929), a sequel to the 1921 film The Three Musketeers, was Fairbanks' last silent film. Fairbanks' introduction to the Iron Mask contained an introductory prologue. In Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (1929), he and Pickford decided to make their first talkie as a team venture, portraying Petruchio and Kate. Depression-era audiences didn't like this film and his subsequent sound films. The last film in which he appeared was the British film The Private Life of Don Juan (1934), after which he stopped acting.

Fairbanks and Pickford were cut off in 1933 after he began an affair with Sylvia, Lady Ashley. Pickford had been seen in the company of a well-known industrialist. Pickford and Pickford sold the Pickfair estate in 1936, causing Pickford to divorce in 1936. In March 1936, Fairbanks and Ashley were married in Paris.

He continued to be marginally involved in film and entertainment, but his later years fell short of the intense attention of his film years. His health was also declining. During his last years, he lived at 705 Ocean Front (now Pacific Coast Highway) in Santa Monica, California, although much of his time was spent traveling around the world with his third wife, Lady Ashley.

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