Thomas H. Ince | |
|---|---|
 Ince, c. 1918 | |
| Born | Thomas Harper Ince (1880-11-16)November 16, 1880 |
| Died | November 19, 1924(1924-11-19) (aged 44) |
| Other names | Creator of the Hollywood Studio system Father of the Western |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1897–1924 |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
| Relatives | John Ince (brother) Ralph Ince (brother) Willette Kershaw (sister-in-law) |
Thomas Harper Ince (November 16, 1880 – November 19, 1924) was an Americansilent era filmmaker and media proprietor.[1]Ince was known as the "Father of theWestern" and was responsible for making over 800 films.[2]
Ince revolutionized the motion picture industry by creating the first major Hollywood studio facility and inventedmovie production by introducing the "assembly line" system offilmmaking. He was the first mogul to build his own film studio, dubbed "Inceville" inPalisades Highlands. Ince was also instrumental in developing the role of the producer in motion pictures. Three of his films,The Italian (1915), for which he wrote thescreenplay,Hell's Hinges (1916), andCivilization (1916), which he directed, were selected forpreservation by theNational Film Registry. He later entered into a partnership withD. W. Griffith andMack Sennett to form theTriangle Motion Picture Company, whose studios are the present-day site ofSony Pictures. He then built a new studio about a mile from Triangle, which is now the site ofCulver Studios.[3][4]
Ince's untimely death at the height of his career, after he became severely ill aboard the private yacht of media tycoonWilliam Randolph Hearst, has caused much speculation, although the official cause of his death was heart failure.[5]
Thomas Harper Ince was born on November 16, 1880, inNewport, Rhode Island, the middle of three sons and a daughter raised by English immigrants, John E. and Emma Ince.[6] His father was born inWigan,Lancashire in 1841, and was the youngest of nine boys who enlisted in the British Navy as a "powder monkey". He later disembarked atSan Francisco, and found work as a reporter and coal miner. Around 1887, when Ince was about seven, the family moved toManhattan to pursue theater work. Ince's father worked as both an actor and musical agent and his mother, Ince himself, sister Bertha and brothers,John andRalph all worked as actors. Ince made hisBroadway debut at 15 in a small role of a revival 1893 play,Shore Acres byJames A. Herne.[7] He appeared with several stock companies as a child and was later an office boy for theatrical managerDaniel Frohman.[8][9] He later formed an unsuccessfulvaudeville company known as "Thomas H. Ince and His Comedians" inAtlantic Highlands, New Jersey. In 1907, Ince met actressElinor Kershaw ("Nell") and they were married on October 19 of that year. They had three children.
Ince's directing career began in 1910 through a chance encounter inNew York City with an employee from his old acting troupe,William S. Hart. Ince found his first film work as an actor for theBiograph Company, directed by his future partner,D.W. Griffith. Griffith was impressed enough with Ince to hire him as aproduction coordinator at Biograph. This led to more work coordinating productions atCarl Laemmle'sIndependent Motion Pictures Co. (IMP).[8] That same year, a director at IMP was unable to complete work on a small feature film, so in a moment of bravado, Ince suggested that Laemmle hire him as a full-time director to complete the film. Impressed with the young man, Laemmle sent him toCuba to make one-reel shorts with his new stars,Mary Pickford andOwen Moore, out of the reach ofThomas Edison'sMotion Picture Patents Company-—the trust that was attempting to crush all independent production companies and corner the market on film production.[10] Ince's output, however, was small. Although he tackled many different subjects, he was strongly drawn towesterns andAmerican Civil War dramas.
Clashes between the trust and independent films became exacerbated, so Ince moved to California to escape these pressures. He hoped to achieve the effects accomplished with minimal facilities like Griffith, which he believed, could only be accomplished inHollywood. After only a year with IMP, Ince quit. In September 1911, Ince walked into the offices of actor-financierCharles O. Baumann (1874–1931) who co-owned theNew York Motion Picture Company (NYMP) with actor-writerAdam Kessel, Jr. (1866–1946). Ince had found out that NYMPC had recently established a West Coast studio named Bison Studios at 1719 Alessandro (now known as Glendale Blvd.) inEdendale (present-dayEcho Park) to make westerns and he wanted to direct those pictures.[11][12]
The offer came as a distinct shock, but I kept cool and concealed my excitement. I tried to convey the impression that he would have to raise the ante a trifle if he wanted me. That also worked, and I signed a contract for three months at $150 a week. Very soon after that, with Mrs. Ince, my cameraman, property man andEthel Grandin, my leading woman, I turned my face westward.[8]
Together with his young wife and a small entourage, Ince moved to Bison Studios to begin work immediately. He was shocked, however, to discover that the studio was nothing more than a "tract of land graced only by a four-room bungalow and a barn."
Ince's aspirations soon led him to leave the narrow confines of Edendale and find a location that would give him greater scope and variety. He settled upon a 460-acre (1.9 km2) tract of land calledBison Ranch located atSunset Blvd. andPacific Coast Highway in theSanta Monica Mountains, (the present-day location of theSelf-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine) which he rented by the day.[12] By 1912, he had earned enough money to purchase the ranch and was granted permission by NYMP to lease another 18,000 acres (73 km2) in thePalisades Highlands stretching 7.5 miles (12.1 km) up Santa Ynez Canyon betweenSanta Monica andMalibu whereUniversal Studios was eventually established, which was owned byThe Miller Bros ofPonca City, Oklahoma. It was here that Ince built his first movie studio.[11][13]
The "Miller 101 Bison Ranch Studio", which the Millers dubbed "Inceville" (and was later re-christened "Triangle Ranch") was the first of its kind in that it featured silent stages, production offices, printing labs, a commissary large enough to serve lunch to hundreds of workers, dressing rooms, props houses, elaborate sets, and other necessities – all in one location. While the site was under construction, Ince also leased the101 Ranch and Wild West Show from the Miller Bros., bringing the whole troupe from Oklahoma out to California via train. The show consisted of 300cowboys and cowgirls; 600 horses, cattle and other livestock (including steers andbison) and a wholeSioux tribe (200 of them in all) who set up theirteepees on the property. They were then renamed "The Bison-101 Ranch Co.", and specialized in making westerns released under the name World Famous Features.
When construction was completed, the streets were lined with many types of structures, from humble cottages to mansions, mimicking the style and architecture of different countries.[14] Extensive outdoor western sets were built and used on the site for several years. According to Katherine La Hue in her book,Pacific Palisades: Where the Mountains Meet the Sea:
Ince invested $35,000 in building, stages and sets ... a bit of Switzerland, aPuritan settlement, aJapanese village ... beyond the breakers, an ancientbrigantine weighed anchor, cutlassed men swarming over the sides of the ship, while on the shore performing cowboys galloped about, twirling their lassos in pursuit of errant cattle ... The main herds were kept in the hills, where Ince also raised feed and garden produce. Supplies of every sort were needed to house and feed a veritable army of actors, directors and subordinates.
While the cowboys,Native Americans and assorted workmen lived at "Inceville", the main actors came fromLos Angeles and other communities as needed, taking thered trolley cars to theLong Wharf atTemescal Canyon, wherebuckboards conveyed them to the set.
Ince lived in a house overlooking the vast studio, later the location of Marquez Knolls. Here he functioned as the central authority over multiple production units, changing the way films were made by organizing production methods into a disciplined system of filmmaking.[15] Indeed, "Inceville" became a prototype for Hollywood film studios of the future, with a studio head (Ince), producers, directors, production managers, production staff, and writers all working together under one organization (the unit system) and under the supervision of a General Manager,Fred J. Balshofer.
Before this, thedirector andcameraman controlled the production of the picture, but Ince put theproducer in charge of the film from inception to final product. He defined the producer's role in both a creative and industrial sense. He was also one of the first to hire a separatescreenwriter, director, andeditor (instead of the director doing everything themselves). By 1913, the concept of theproduction manager had been created. With the aid of George Stout, an accountant for NYMP, Ince re-organized how films were outputted to bring discipline to the process. After this adjustment the studio's weekly output increased from one to two, and later three two-reel pictures per week, released under such names as "Kay-Bee" (Kessel-Baumann), "Domino" (comedy), and "Broncho" (western) productions. These were written, produced, cut, and assembled, with the finished product delivered within a week. By enabling more than one film to be made at a time, Ince decentralized the process of movie production to meet the increased demand from theaters. This was the dawning of the assembly-line system that all studios eventually adopted.
With this model, developed between 1913 and 1918, Ince gradually exercised even more control over the film production process as a director-general. In 1913 alone, he made over 150 two-reeler movies, mostly Westerns, thereby anchoring the popularity of the genre for decades. While many of Ince's films were praised inEurope, many American critics did not share this high opinion. One such picture wasThe Battle of Gettysburg (1913) which was five reels long. The picture helped bring into vogue the idea of the feature-length film. Another important early movie for Ince wasThe Italian (1915), which depictedimmigrant life inManhattan. Two of his most successful films were among his first,War on the Plains (1912) andCuster's Last Fight (1912), which featured many Native Americans who had actually been in the battle.
Even though he was the first producer-director and directed most of his early productions, by 1913 Ince eventually ceased full-time directing to concentrate on producing,[16] transferring this responsibility to such proteges asFrancis Ford and his brotherJohn Ford,Jack Conway,William Desmond Taylor,Reginald Barker,Fred Niblo,Henry King andFrank Borzage.[17] The story was the preeminent aspect of Ince's pictures. Films such asThe Italian,The Gangsters and the Girl (1914), andThe Clodhopper (1917) are excellent examples of the dramatic structure that resulted from his masterful editing. Film preservationistDavid Shepard said of Ince inThe American Film Heritage:
[He] did everything. He was so proficient at every aspect of film making that even films he didn't direct have the Ince-print, because he exercised such tight control over his scripts and edited so mercilessly that he could delegate direction to others and still get what he wanted. Much of what Ince contributed to the American film took place off the screen; he established production conventions that persisted forbears, and, though his career in films lasted only fourteen years, his influence far outlived him.
Ince also discovered many talents, including his old actor friend, William S. Hart, who made some of the best early westerns, beginning in 1914. Later, a rift developed between the two over sharing of profits.[18] Portentously, on January 16, 1916, a few days after the opening of his firstCulver City studio, a fire broke out at "Inceville", the first of many that eventually destroyed all of the buildings. Eight people were injured, including Ince, and the damage was estimated at $250,000.[19] The cause was possibly a spark igniting a pile of highly flammable nitrate film stock that had been discarded as part of the film editing process.[20] There was an earlier Inceville fire, in 1915, that destroyed a number of sets.[21]
Ince later gave up on the studio and sold it to Hart, who renamed it "Hartville." Three years later, Hart sold the lot toRobertson-Cole Pictures Corporation, which continued filming there until 1922. La Hue writes that "the place was virtually a ghost town when the last remnants of "Inceville" were burned on July 4, 1922, leaving only a "weatherworn oldchurch, which stood sentinel over the charred ruins."
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By 1915, Ince was considered one of the best-known producer-directors. Around this time,real estate mogulHarry Culver noticed Ince shooting a western inBallona Creek. Impressed with his talents, Culver convinced Ince to move from Inceville and re-locate to what was to becomeCulver City. Taking Culver's advice, Ince left NYMP and on July 19 partnered withD.W. Griffith andMack Sennett to formThe Triangle Motion Picture Company based on their prestige as producers. Triangle (so named because from an aerial point of view the property had a triangular shape) was built at 10202 WestWashington Boulevard (which became the Ince/Triangle Studios, before becoming Lot 1 of the prestigious MGM Studios, and is nowSony Pictures Studios) as a result the aftermath of Griffith'sThe Birth of a Nation.[22] Although a box-office success, the film led toriots in major northern cities due to its controversial content.
Triangle was one of the first vertically integrated film companies. By combining production, distribution, and theater operations under one roof, the partners created the most dynamic studio in Hollywood. They attracted directors and stars of the day, including Pickford,Lillian Gish,Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, andDouglas Fairbanks, Sr. They also produced some of the most enduring films of the silent era, including theKeystone Cops comedy franchise. Originally a distributor of films produced by NYMP, the Reliance Motion Picture Corp.,Majestic Motion Picture Co., andThe Keystone Film Co., by November 1916 the company's distribution was handled by Triangle Distributing Corporation.
Though Ince had many credits as a director at Triangle, he only supervised the production of most pictures, working primarily as executive producer. One of his important pictures as a director wasCivilization (1916), an epic plea for peace and American neutrality set in a mythical country and dedicated to the mothers of those who died inWorld War I. The film competed with Griffith's famous epic,Intolerance and beat it at thebox office.Civilization was selected for preservation in theNational Film Registry by theLibrary of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Ince added a few stages and an administration building to Triangle Studios before selling his shares to Griffith and Sennett in 1918. Three years later, the studios were acquired byGoldwyn Pictures, and in 1924 the facility becameMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. Although many believe that such classics asGone with the Wind andKing Kong were later filmed on that same lot, those movies in fact had been shot at 9336 West Washington Blvd at the Thomas H. Ince Studios.
For a while, Ince joined competitorAdolph Zukor to form Paramount-Artcraft Pictures (laterParamount Pictures). However, he yearned to go back to running his own studio. On July 19, 1918, followingSamuel Goldwyn's acquisition of the Triangle lot, he purchased a 14-acre (57,000 m2) property at 9336 West Washington Blvd. on an option basis from Culver along with a $132,000 loan. Thus was formed Thomas H. Ince Studios, which operated from 1919 to 1924. (The area later known asRKO Forty Acres was southeast of the studio.) Ince Studios was to be another Culver City historic landmark.[23] When Ince conceived the idea of building his own studio, he was determined to have it different from the others. Plans submitted to him by architectsMeyer & Holler, included having a whole front administrative building made into a replica ofGeorge Washington's home atMount Vernon. The resulting administration building, known as "The Mansion", was the first building on the lot.
In back of the impressive office building were approximately 40 buildings, most of which were designed in theColonial Revival style. A small group of bungalows, built for various movie stars and designed in styles popular in the 1920s and '30s, were constructed on the west side of the lot. By 1920, two glass stages, ahospital, fire department, reservoir/swimming pool, and the back lot were completed. That same year, PresidentWoodrow Wilson took a tour of the studios as did theKing andQueen of Belgium, along with their son,Prince Leopold, among much pomp and ceremony.[citation needed]
Ince had two or three companies working continuously on the lot at any given time. According to film historian Marc Wanamaker, Ince worked with a team of eight directors but "he retained creative control of his films, developing the shooting scripts" and personally assembling each of his films.[2] By now, Ince had drifted away from westerns in favor of social dramas and he made a few significant films includingAnna Christie (1923), based on the play byEugene O'Neill, andHuman Wreckage (1923), which was an early anti-drug film starringDorothy Davenport (widow of addicted starWallace Reid).
Although Ince found distribution for his films through Paramount and MGM, he was no longer as powerful as he once had been and tried to regain his status in Hollywood. In 1919, with several other independent entrepreneurs (notably his old partner at Triangle, Mack Sennett,Marshall Neilan,Allan Dwan andMaurice Tourneur) he co-founded the independent releasing company, Associated Producers, Inc., to distribute their films. However, Associated Producers merged withFirst National in 1922.
Though Ince still made some significant motion pictures, the studio system was starting to take over Hollywood. With little room for an independent producer and despite his attempts, Ince could not regain the powerful standing he once held in the industry. He and other independent producers tried to form the Cinematic Finance Corporation in 1921, which made loans to producers who already had been successful, but only accomplished its goal in a limited sense.
In 1925, a year after Ince's death, the studio was sold (withPathé America) to Ince's friendCecil B. DeMille. Besides DeMille, among those who had offices on the lot were producerHoward Hughes andSelznick International Pictures. About four years later, DeMille sold his interest to Pathé and the studio became known as the Pathé Culver City Studio. By 1928 after mergers, the studio becameRKO/Pathé. By 1957, a number of other studios followed:Desilu Culver, Culver City Studios, Laird International Studios, etc.
In 1991,Sony Pictures Entertainment purchased the property as the home for itstelevision endeavors, renaming itCulver Studios, and eventually selling it in 2004 to a group of investors; the street intersecting[further explanation needed] the studios was renamed Ince Blvd. The studio is still home toBrooksfilms today.[24]
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Ince's death at the age of 44 has been the subject of much speculation and scandal, with rumors of murder, mystery and jealousy. The official cause of his death washeart failure, and while witnesses (including his widow Nell) corroborate that his medical condition brought about his death, rumors andsensationalism continued decades later, fueled by the 2001 release of the filmThe Cat's Meow.
In late 1924, Ince andWilliam Randolph Hearst had been negotiating a deal under which Hearst'sCosmopolitan Productions would lease Ince's studio. On Saturday November 15, Hearst visited Ince's "Dias Dorados" estate at 1051Benedict Canyon Drive[25] and invited him for a weekend cruise on his yachtOneida to honor Ince's birthday and to work out details of the Cosmopolitan deal.[5]
According to Ince's widow, Nell, Ince took a train toSan Diego, where he joined the other guests the following morning. At dinner that Sunday night, the group celebrated Ince's birthday, but afterward Ince suffered an acute bout ofindigestion due to his consumption of salted almonds and champagne, both forbidden as he hadpeptic ulcers. Accompanied by Dr. Goodman, a licensed though non-practicing physician, Ince traveled by train toDel Mar, where he was taken to a hotel and given medical treatment by a second doctor and a nurse. Ince then summoned Nell and his personal physician, Dr. Ida Cowan Glasgow, with Ince's eldest son William accompanying them. The group traveled by train to his Los Angeles home, where Ince died.[26] Nell said that Ince had been treated for chest pains caused byangina, but years later his son William became a physician and said that his father's illness resembledthrombosis.[27]
Dr. Glasgow signed thedeath certificate citingAngina pectoris as thecause of death.[26] The front page of the Wednesday morningLos Angeles Times supposedly sensationalized the story: '"Movie Producer Shot on Hearst Yacht!",[28][further explanation needed][better source needed] but the headlines vanished in the evening edition. On November 20, theTimes published Ince'sobituary citing heart disease as the cause of death along with his failing health from an automobile accident two years earlier.[29] A month later, theNew York Times reported that the San Diego district attorney had announced that Ince's death was caused by heart failure and no further investigation was necessary.[30] Both Ince and his wife were practicingTheosophists who preferredcremation and had arranged for it long before his death.[27] While rumors prevailed that Nell suddenly departed the country after her husband's death, she actually left for Europe about seven months later in July 1925.[5]
However, several conflicting stories circulated about the incident, often revolving around a claim that Hearst shot Ince in the head after mistaking him forCharlie Chaplin. Chaplin's valet,Toraichi Kono, claimed to have seen Ince when he came ashore via stretcher in San Diego. Kono told his wife that his head was "bleeding from a bullet wound." The story quickly spread among Japanese domestic workers throughoutBeverly Hills.[31]Charles Lederer, the nephew of Hearst's longtime partnerMarion Davies, told a similar story toOrson Welles, who in turn toldPeter Bogdanovich, the director ofThe Cat's Meow.[32]Elinor Glyn, who was present aboardOneida, toldEleanor Boardman that everyone aboard the yacht had been sworn to secrecy about the events, which would indicate more than a death by natural causes.[33] Contrary to these accounts, during Ince's funeral, theLos Angeles Times reported that his casket would remain open for one hour "to afford friends and studio employees to pass for one last glimpse of the man they loved and respected", with no witnesses ever mentioning a bullet wound.[34][35] Ince's body was cremated on November 21 inHollywood Forever Cemetery and the ashes returned to his family on December 24, 1924, who reportedly scattered them at sea.[36]
Hearst movie columnistLouella Parsons' name also figured into the Ince scandal, with some speculating that she had been aboardOneida during the reported shooting. Supposedly, after the Ince affair, Hearst gave her a lifetime contract and expanded hersyndication. However, other sources show that Parsons did not gain her position with Hearst as part of "hush money" but had been the motion picture editor of the Hearst-ownedNew York American in December 1923 and her contract was signed a year before Ince's death.[5] Another story circulated that Hearst provided Nell with atrust fund just before she left for Europe and that Hearst paid off Ince's mortgage on hisChâteau Élysée apartment building in Hollywood. However, Nell was left a very wealthy woman and the Château Élysée was an apartment she had already owned and had built on the grounds where the Ince estate once stood.[27][failed verification]
Years later, Hearst spoke to a journalist about the rumor that he had murdered Ince. "Not only am I innocent of this Ince murder," he said, "So is everybody else." Nell herself was increasingly frustrated over the rumors surrounding her husband's death and remarked: "Do you think I would have done nothing if I even suspected that my husband had been victim of foul play on anyone's part?"[27] Still, the myth of Ince's death overshadowed his reputation as a pioneering filmmaker and his role in the growth of the film industry. His studio was sold soon after he died. His final film,Enticement, a romance set in theFrench Alps, was released posthumously in 1925.
Murder at San Simeon (Scribner), a 1996 novel byPatricia Hearst (William Randolph's granddaughter) and Cordelia Frances Biddle, is a mystery based on the 1924 death of producer Thomas Ince aboard the yacht of William Randolph Hearst. This fictitious version presents Chaplin and Davies as lovers and Hearst as the jealous old man unwilling to share his mistress.
RKO 281 is a 1999 film about the making ofCitizen Kane. The movie includes a scene depicting screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz telling director Orson Welles his account of the incident.
The Cat's Meow, the 2001 film directed byPeter Bogdanovich, is another fictitious version of Ince's death. Bogdanovich notes that he heard the story from directorOrson Welles, who said he heard it from screenwriterCharles Lederer (Marion Davies's nephew).[37] In Bogdanovich's film, Ince is portrayed byCary Elwes. The movie was adapted bySteven Peros from his own play, which premiered in Los Angeles in 1997.
Ince's star on theHollywood Walk of Fame is located at 6727 Hollywood Blvd. inLos Angeles.
A studio publication promotingThomas H. Ince Productions.
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