Frances Marion

And then you have somebody like Jane Murfin who also was working on the script, um, who her backstory was, she literally got into playwriting by assuming a man's name, because she knew that as a woman, nobody would take her work seriously.

And then when Hollywood purchased her play, which was called Smiling Through, she was almost going to have to share credit for with a fictional name of a man, because once again, they didn't believe that she could possibly be the writer of this play, and then her evolution, she got together with Anita Luce and other women of the era, Frances Marion, from that silent era, and started the original Writers Guild, which that blew me away.

I had no idea.

I've never heard, you know, so sometimes as a writer, I'm, you know, you go down a rabbit hole and you go, wait a minute, is this really true? Did she, how come nobody ever talks about Jane Murfin and how she basically created the Writers Guild? And so I try to give her her flowers and try to create the book so that then it's a blueprint so that Women who, you know, they guess it's fascinating and it's interesting, but that you can also now know these names and reference them, you know, in current projects.

I've seen so many of them just really broken by Hollywood, others, you know, who were built by Hollywood.

Here is Frances Marion, author of the screenplays for Stella Dallas, Ninotchka, and The Champ.

Richard Llewellyn was brought out to Hollywood, given $100,000 to do, to write a story.

Um, I interviewed him.

Great many of the foremost writers were brought out there for that.

A great many of them came out there with just the idea that they would make some money, go back and perch comfortably in their own nests, you know, after they'd feathered it in Hollywood, but, and they did, but others were heartbroken by it.

This is Frances Marion, skillful scenario writer for MGM.

And speaking of the colossus, there is one office there that every writer visits sooner or later, the story department.

So, like, you know, it, it's not like we're here, uh, uh, ragging on some movie and performance that has no merit to it, uh, even if it's not, uh, necessarily a great movie either.

Um, s- so we are talking about Their Own Desire from 1929, directed by E. Mason Hopper, written by Francis Marion, James Forbes.

Forbe? I wrote Forbe.

I don't think that's right.

The friendships of Anita Loos are especially interesting and entertaining because Loos loved entertainment, stories, and people exuding life and love for life and intellectual banter.

Amongst her best friends were longtime companion Francis Marion, a fellow screenwriter and stage actress Helen Hayes.

Loos moved within Hollywood's and New York's elite artistic circles.

She held Tuesday Widow Soirees, which came into existence when her husband demanded a day per week off for his infidelities.