Clara Kimball Young: Silent Screen Superstar was Ruined by Bad Romatic Liaisons

It seems that one of the oldest stories in Hollywood is of the female movie star who is seduced away from her husband and home by her calculating Svengali of a producer/studio boss. The late Jennifer Jones, the Oscar-winner who died at the age of 91 this past year, was wooed away from her husband by Oscar-winning producer David O. Selznick, who eventually divorced his wife (daughter of M-G-M- boss Louis B. Mayer) and married her. Selznick proceeded to stage-manage every aspect of her career. Selznick went so far as to star his 40 year-old wife in a remake of Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms in the role of a woman half her age. The Nobel Prize-winning Hemingway reportedly was not amused.

Two movie generations earlier, in the era before pictures talked, Selznick's father pulled the same stunt with silent superstar Clara Kimball Young. The first Selznick dalliance with a screen siren was far less successful than the David O. Selznick-Jennifer Jones collaboration. At the height of her career, Clara Kimball Young succeeded in employing not just one, but two Svengalis, the second of which helped scuttle her career.

Unlike Jennifer Jones, who retired gracefully from the screen, Kimball Young helped pioneer another Hollywood cliché, recently on display with the career of Burt Reynolds, who once reigned as the #1 box office star for give straight years as the Jimmy Carter years segued into the era of Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America" and is now a bad joke. Clara Kimball Young was the first of the Hollywood superstars who wound up in the cinematic gutter, he best credit during the eclipse of her career coming in a Three Stooges short.

That classic Three Stooges short, Ants in the Pantry, is better remembered than any of the films that made her a silent screen superstar. Clara Kimball Young is all but forgotten now, though her story is an interesting one that stretches from the days of the one- and two-reel motion picture all the way through to the original Johnny Carson Show.

Debut

Clara Kimball Young was born as Clarisa Kimball, likely while her parents, traveling stock company actors, were on tour. Her birthdate was listed as September 6, 1890. Her parents, Edward M. Kimball and the former Pauline Maddern Garret, were employed by the Holden Co., and it was with that stock company that the young Clarisa made her professional debut as an actress at the age of three, playing child parts in the company's repertoire.

She joined another traveling stock company after ending her formal education. The touring troupe took her out West. Kimball married actor James Young, and sometime between 1909 and 1912, both were hired by the Vitagraph Co., one of the major companies producing motion pictures in the era just after the nickelodeon, when pioneers like D.W. Griffith were creating the modern movie.

Clara Kimball Young took a $50 a week cut in salary to become a Vitragraph contract player, at $25 week, However, the annual contract offered her steady employment. Vitagraph also hired her parents to be part of the company, and her husband James Young - though hired as an actor - soon became one of Vitagraph's most impotant directors. Other Vitagraph stars the Talmadge Sisters, the Sidney Drew family, and Maurice Costello and his daughters.

Though Clara Kimball Young made dozens of movies at Vitagraph, few survive. A tall, dark-haired, full-figured gal that was a popular type of the early 20th century, Clara played both conventional leading ladies and light comedy, the latter of which she excelled at. She quickly became a top star at Vitagraph, ranking seventeenth in a 1913 popularity poll of stars.

Clara Kimball Young would top the popularity charts. In 1914, Vitagraph - which normally produced one- and two-reelers - made several longer feature films, melodramas starring Young and the equally popular Earle Williams as her leading man. My Official Wife," a potboiler directed by her husband James Young, propelled Kimball Young and Williams to the top rank of stardom.

Enter the Snake

Into this cinematic Eden, the snake arrived in the guise of producer Lewis J. Selznick, the vice president of the new World Film Corp. Selznick, the father of Gone With the Wind producer David O. Selznick, signed Clara Kimball Young to a personal contract in 1914 and proceeded to change her image into that of an unbridled sexpot.

In Lola (a.k.a. Without a Soul), which was directed by her husband, Kimball Young played a decent woman who dies and is resurrected, unfortunately lacking a soul. Transformed into a vamp, the heartless Lola sets out to destroy men.

The film was another huge hit and cemented her reputation as a silent screen superstar. However, Selznick had designs on his leading lady. A despairing James Young lamented to Mabel Norman, "[W]here I made my mistake was in ever inviting that fellow to the house."

In 1916, James Young filed a lawsuit against Lewis J. Selznick for alienation of affection, to which Selznick riposted that the marriage was troubled before he had arrived on the scene. Clara filed a bill of divorcement against her husband, charging cruelty, though finally - in 1919 -- it was James Young who obtained a divorce on grounds of desertion. (By then, the Selznick-Kimball Young relationship was on the rocks and in the courts, and there was another correspondent to the divorce.)

After playing man-eating vamps, Clara Kimball Young settled into a series of roles as the traditional silent screen hapless heroine whose travails are resolved with a conventional happy ending. The screenwriter Frances Marion reported that Kimball Young was bored with her roles at World Film and resentful over Selznick's control over her private life. Like many a movie mogul to come after him, Selznick was determined to create a public image for his star that matched the roles she played, that of a gloomy tragedienne.

She got to strut her stuff as a tragedienne with the title roles in Camille and Trilby (both 1915) as well as play decadent hussies in Hearts in Exile (1915) and The Yellow Passport (1916).

Clara Kimball Young Film Corp.

Lewis J. Selznick was an ambitious man who had a habit of alienating his business partners (a trait that would trigger the failure of his last company in 1923). Selznick was ousted as general manager of World Film in February 1916. Three months later, Selznick left World to create the Clara Kimball Young Film Corp., with himself as president, and Selznick Productions, Inc., to distribute both her films and those of other independent production companies.

Now with exclusive control of her career, Selznick seemed determined to turn her back into the sexpot he had when he produced her first movie at World. Leaving behind the five-reelers, he launched her in seven-reel extravaganzas, dressed in fashionable wardrobe and parrying risqué subject matter in The Common Law, The Foolish Virgin, The Price She Paid (all 1916) and The Easiest Way (1917).

Kimball Young had a falling out with Selznick after the initial series of four films for the company named for her, but controlled by him, apparently due to the salaciousness of the subject matter and his complete control over her life and career. At this time, she became associated with the Detroit, Michigan-based movie exhibitor Harry Garson, with whom she entered into a personal relationship as she had earlier with Selznick. In February 1917 a knife-wielding James Young attacked Garson as he exited New York City's Astor Theater with his wife.

It was Garson, anxious to make the leap from exhibition to production that Louis B. Mayer and others had accomplished, who apparently encouraged her legal campaign to become emancipated from Selznick. She filed a lawsuit against Selznick in June, 1917, charging the president of Clara Kimball Young Film Corp. with fraud. She alleged that Selznick had set up dummy corporations to hide profits, and had elected himself president of her production company while not allowing her any input into its management.

Publicly denying the charge, Selznick obtained an injunction forbidding her to appear in movies produced by any other company. Selznick counter-charged that Young was under the influence of Garson and planned to make films with him as director for her new lover's Garson Productions.

The ball now in her court, Clara Kimball Young announced to the press her plans to take complete control of her career, artistically and financially, by forming her own company. Bristling over her former mentor's positioning of her as a public sex pot, she announced that she would no longer make pictures that flouted the mores of the censorship boards.

In the legal round robin that their troubles degenerated into, Selznick then sued Garson to keep Garson Productions from doing business with Selznick Enterprises, which had a contract to release Clara Kimball Young movies. On his part, Garson claimed that Clara Kimball Young's contract with Selznick was broken due to the failure of Selznick's companies to produce and deliver her movies.

C.K.Y. Film Corp.

The machinations of Lewis J. Selznick's nemesis Adolph Zukor (founder of Paramount Pictures), who would later force him into bankruptcy and out of the business in 1923, came into play. Zukor helped finance the formation of the C.K.Y. Film Corp. in August 1917, while secretly acquiring a 50% stake in Selznick's company. For the time being, Zukor left Selznick in charge of the renamed Select Pictures Corp., which would release the movies produced by Kimball Young with her own C.K.Y. Film. Corp.

Clara Kimball Young, her parents, and her "business manager" Harry Garson moved to California in early 1918, and in June of that year, they announced plans to build a studio. To build a stock company for this new studio, Garson hired actress Blanche Sweet and director Marshall Neilan and styled himself a producer.

C.K.Y. Film Corp. eschewed Selznick's seven-reeler features for more modestly budgeted five-reelers. Intended for an adult audience, the movies starring C.K.Y. featured woman characters who could think for themselves and make their own decisions, a case of wishful thinking for this woman who had had not one, but two Svengalis in her life within such a short period.

Kimball Young did branch out beyond her Selznick-construed vamp image, and appeared in a few comedies, including Cheating Cheaters (1919), which was hailed for its ingenious plot and wonderful supporting performances. Unfortunately, none of the movies produced by C.K.Y Film Corp. have survived.

Break With Selznick

Conflict with Lewis J. Selznick came to a head in 1919, when Clara Kimball Young posted a legal notice as an advertisement in the January 11th issue of `Moving Picture World.' In it, Clara Kimball Young declared:

"I have this day served notice upon the C.K.Y. Film Corporation of the termination of all contract relations between that company and myself, because of several flagrant violations of the terms of the agreement under which motion pictures has been produced for distribution through the Select Pictures Corporation."

The ad also stated that Cheating Cheaters would be the last film for the C.K.Y. Film Corp. Declaring themselves independent producers, Clark Kimball Young and Harry Garson began shooting The Better Wife.

Another legal donnybrook between Trilby and her penultimate Svengali ensued. Selznick claimed that Clara Kimball Young was under contract to the C.K.Y. Film Corp. until August 21, 1921, and that Select Pictures owned C.K.Y. Film.

The Better Wife wound up being released by Select Pictures in July 1919, the same month that Equity Pictures Corp. was created to distribute Clara Kimball Young films produced by Garson Productions. Launching their first independent feature, Eyes of Youth (1919), Kimball Young placed another advertisement declaring she had her own independent production company.

Equity got off to a strong start as Eyes of Youth proved to be a huge hit, her biggest box office smash since My Official Wife made her the top female star in motion pictures back in 1914. Arguably the best film she ever made, Eyes of Youth featured high-quality production values and a first-rate supporting cast that included a pre-superstar Rudolph Valentino.

Clara Kimball Young's success was short lived, as Selznick launched another legal battle against her and Equity Pictures. His threats to sue exhibitors who showed Eyes of Youth forced many canceled bookings, causing Equity Pictures to ultimately sustain a loss despite its healthy box office takings.

Decline

After the qualified success of Eyes of Youth, Harry Garson decided he wanted to direct. An uninspired director whose control over the medium seemed to deteriorate with experience, he helmed Clara Kimball Young's next nine films. The movies with weaker scripts turned out badly, and the productions were hampered by a lack of capital.

The decline of the quality of their films became so blatant, the critics lambasted Garson and Young. Always mature looking, even in her youth, Clara Kimball Young was playing characters who were supposed to be possessed of a youthful quality she obviously lacked. She had grown old on-screen, violating one of the cinema's strongest taboos that still is in effect for actresses in the 21st century

The Roaring Twenties proved her demise. By 1921, her film Hush was released on a States Rights basis rather than as a road show, a sure sign of the waning appeal of the woman who was once the #1 female star in America. Exhibitors would not pay top dollar for her films, and the income from her films was sure to decline as under the States Rights contract, exhibitors could show a movie for as many times as they wanted within their territory for a contracted period.

The financial fortunes of Equity took a hit when the courts held for Lewis J. Selznick, ruling that he was owed $25,000 for each of her next ten films. In addition to fighting Selznick's legal barrage, she was subjected to lawsuits by the Harriman National Bank and Fine Arts Film Corp.

The fan magazine Moving Picture World, publishing paid-for editorial content, featured many stories attesting to Young's continued popularity, sometimes accompanied with personal appeals from her to her fans to continue showing their support. By the time Equity released her last two films for the company, What No Man Knows (1921) and The Worldly Madonna (1922), her output had degenerated into the cheap look of what would become known as a Poverty Row production during the Golden Age of Hollywood in the 1930s and '40s.

Equity and Garson Productions wound up shop in 1922.

Downfall

Adolph Zukor reportedly offered Clara Kimball Young a Paramount contract if she would promise to keep Harry Garson out of her career, but she refused and signed with Commonwealth Pictures Corp., owned by Sam Zierler, who allowed her to bring along her favorite director, Harry Garson. Samuel Zierler's Photoplay Corp. was to be the producer of her films, which would be distributed by Commonwealth in the state of New York and by Metro Pictures in all other territories.

But times were changing: boyish figures on women became the rage during the Twenties, and Young had a figure from the late Victorian era, which with the mature appearance that made her look older than her age, made her seem matronly. It was the time of jazz babies and flaming youth, and a more naturalistic style of acting that damned more emphatic players like Young as "old-fashioned."

The movie industry by the 1920s was becoming more vertically and horizontally integrated. The days of the entrepreneur were through. Until Burt Lancaster became a successful independent star-producer after World War II, Charlie Chaplin proved to be the last movie star to successfully create his own production company. Creating new companies to produce and distribute one's films, as Young did, was a difficult process to undertake in the best of times, and the early 1920s saw a decline at the box office due to a post-war recession and an over-expansion of production that did in C.K.Y.'s nemesis, Lewis J. Selznick. It was a Sisyphean task Young had set herself, hampered by a rolling stone named Harry Garson.

Garson was only to direct one film for Zierler, The Hands of Nara (1922), an out-and-out debacle. He was booted upstairs as producer, and experienced directors were assigned to her films, including the tyro King Vidor. Trying to turn around the trajectory of a falling star is difficult, and the uneven quality of her new films hurt her, as did changing tastes.

Critics and exhibitors, already derisive of an aging star playing young, began carping about her overacting. Variety, the show business bible, published a sort of pre-mortem, commenting on how deeply Clara Kimball Young's star had gone into eclipse in just two years due to bad movies.

A Wife's Romance (1923) was the last of her movies released by Metro, though she would make one more silent picture, the independently produced Lying Wives (1925). Young tried the novel career move of playing a villain opposite Madge Kennedy's heroine, but the film fared badly with the critics, and the silent film career of Clara Kimball Young was over.

Aftermath

Clara Kimball Young spent the Rest of the Roaring Twentiesin vaudeville and milking her former stardom with personal appearances. She eventually ditched Harry Garson and married Dr. Arthur Fauman in 1928. With the advent of sound, R.K.O. brought her out of screen retirement for a featured comic role in Kept Husbands (1931), but her attempt to rejuvenate her career was hampered by a public perception that she was a has-been.

She segued over to Poverty Row, for lead roles in and Mother and Son for Monogram and Women Go on Forever for the obscure Tiffany Productions (both 1931). This was the apogee of her career trajectory in talkies, as she was reduced to bit parts in Poverty Row productions and appearances as an extra in movies at the big studios. Her claim to fame at this stage of her career was her appearance in the classic Three Stooges short, Ants in the Pantry (1936).

Her husband Arthur died in 1937, one of a series of personal misfortunes that Clara Kimball Young suffered in the 1930s. Her comeback was derailed by bad publicity, as the press chronicled the sad state she had sunk into, the former top box office star reduced to bit parts and extra work.

The press had built her up, and now it tore her down, as Hollywood did love its clichés. Clara Kimball Young starred in one of its gaudiest, the one about the great star now reduced to the gutter, a morality play for the masses who read movie magazines.

The End

Clara Kimball Young began appearing in westerns, appearing with Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry and Richard Dix. She even appeared on the radio, but her attempts to make a go of it ultimately failed. Years later, she quipped that "during the depression I had half a mind to take up a tin cup and beg for alms."

She announced her retirement in 1941, declaring "I've been working since I was 2 years old. I think I deserve the chance to quit and just enjoy life."

Kimball Young's last appearance was in the movie Mr. Celebrity (a.k.a. Turf Boy), released in 1942, in which she appeared as herself with another silent-screen-star/has-been, Francis X. Bushman.

During the early days of television broadcasting, the major studios' embargo on selling films to TV and a lack of programming meant that many TV stations began airing silent movies to fill air-time. Clara Kimball Young's surviving silents began to be showcased, giving her a new notoriety.

Once again in the public eye, she was interviewed and went on the personal appearance circuit again, this time attending film conventions. She was the Hollywood correspondent on the original The Johnny Carson Show that ran for a single season in 1956-57.

As the new decade of the 1960s dawned, Kimball Young battled with poor health and had to retire to the Motion Picture Home. Frances Marion, the Oscar-winning screenwriter who had remained her friend, said that Young told her, "I was worn out from the long journey, but I have found my way home."

Clara Kimball Young died on October 15, 1960, and was interred at the Grand View Memorial Park in Glendale, California after a funeral attended by several hundred friends.