WILLIAM R. LIEB 809 N. BEVERLY GLEN BLVD. LOS ANGELES 24, CALIF. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/lifeadventuresofOOgppu CARL LAEMMLE THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF CARL LAEMMLE H BY JOHN DRINKWATER FOREWORD BY WILL H. HAYS ILLUSTRATED new york G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS London 1931 Copyright, 1931, by G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, mast not be reproduced in any form without permission. Made in the United States of America TO CAROL LAEMMLE BERGERMAN this story of her grandfather for her later cherishing FOREWORD To few men whose lives have been cast in the newer frontiers of civilization is the opportunity given to see, within their own period of vigour, the flowering of their wilderness into the land of their dreams. Such an honoured and fortunate man is Carl Laemmle. Within the past quarter century of his own life- time a great artistic development has been un- folded to the world. Within that brief period the screen has become an astounding vehicle for ex- pression of dramatic and pictorial art. From its early crudities has sprung a form of entertain- ment which knows no limits of race, of age or of geography in its appeal to mankind. It is one of the astonishing and sobering facts of human history. The story of the motion picture, both as an art and as an industry, is inseparable from the story of its pioneers. As Carlyle has said of history so may we say of the motion picture industry: It is the "essence of innumerable biographies." Men dreamt the moving picture into being ; men have dreamt of it as the great democracy of entertain- VI FOREWORD ment; and men are dreaming of its vaster future in the fields of entertainment, information and education. The pioneers of the screen were fired by the same vision that beckons men to the conquest of wilderness in territory or in thought. But the true pioneer is a dreamer, not a drudge. He struggles but to create. He dares but to achieve. Of such stuff and with such vision is Carl Laemmle. At the age of sixty-four he is still a vital figure in the industry which he helped to create. He has as great faith in its future as he had in its past. The motion picture industry has established, it is true, a vast agency of popular entertainment that has brought the stage, the concert hall and even the opera to the crossroads of the world. Year by year higher standards of public appreciation, linked to higher standards of motion picture pro- duction, enlarge its sphere of human service. Year by year technical and artistic progress bring the screen nearer to the day when it will reflect the highest possible entertainment forms to the most exacting and varied cultural groups. Its ulti- mate scope is the whole field of creative litera- ture; of artistic and dramatic progress; of musical culture. The service that it can render covers the realms of entertainment, of information, of edu- cation. What greater challenge to creative effort? Men FOREWORD vii have recreated the flower of their thought through the media of ink, paper and type. Artists have transferred the beauty that moved them to life- less canvas. Stone and clay have perpetuated the immortal genius of the great masters of the past. But with sound and colour, with motion and the promise of three-dimensional perspective, the screen as a medium of artistic creation stirs the faith and imagination of the future. It is not without significance that John Drink- water, the distinguished dramatic poet, whose charming and penetrating studies of Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Robert Burns, Cromwell, Charles II and Pepys have established his status as a biographer, should have turned to industry for a new subject. There was a time when only kings and conquerors were considered fit subjects for the art of the biographer. Later the masters of art, science and literature were added to the rolls. And now leaders of industry whose achievements add to the history of progress have come within the circle of biographical interest. John Drinkwater has found it possible, in the painting of a vivid and living portrait of a man, to portray the phenomenal growth and develop- ment of both an art and an industry. There is drama and there is romance in his pages—drama as great as any placed on the screen; romance as appealing as any contained in a scenario. With that power and felicity of expression which have Vlll FOREWORD made him one of the foremost writers of the English speaking world, the author has set down the story of Carl Laemmle, without which the story of the birth and progress of the motion pic- ture industry would be incomplete. In so doing, Mr. Drinkwater has written a book which should delight the philosopher, inform the student and enthrall the reader who seeks further knowledge of the most romantic enterprise in modern times. Will H. Hays. March 12, 1931. — CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Prelude 3 II. Laupheim and Ichenhausen . .11 III.—New York and Chicago .... 28 IV.—Oshkosh, Wisconsin .... 48 V. The Films. Independence ... 65 VI. The Trust Fight 83 VII. Anti-Trust 102 VIII. Victory 117 IX. Imp 131 X. Toward Universal 153 XI. Universal City 170 XII.—A Man and Motion Pictures . .188 XIII. Character 206 ix — X CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XIV. The "New Universal" .... 224 XV. Carle Laemmle Junior and the Future . 242 XVI. Character Again 261 XVII. In the Fullness of Time . 280 ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Carl Laemmle .... Frontispiece The Birthplace of Carl Laemmle, Laupheim, wurttemberg 12 Carl Laemmle's Father and Mother ... 20 Theodore Regensteiner and Carl Laemmle About 1885 34 An Anti-Trust Advertisement . .104 Carl Laemmle and His Family at the Time of the Anti-Trust Campaign . .120 An Early IMP Company 146 Store Room, Universal City, 1916 . 182 Actors' Waiting Room, Universal City, 1916 . 182 Universal City Street Cleaners, 1916 . 184 Universal City Police, 1916 .... 184 Charlie Chaplin and Carl Laemmle . 198 Carl Laemmle and Mary Pickford . 198 Woodrow Wilson and Carl Laemmle . .212 xi Xii ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Andre Herriot and Carl Laemmle . 212 Universal City, California, 1930 . 226 Carl Laemmle and Jack Dempsey . 246 Carl Laemmle and Erich Remarque . 246 ROSABELLE LaEMMLE, CaRL LaEMMLE AND CARL Laemmle, Junior 24^ Carl Laemmle with Some Friends . 26C Carl Laemmle and Carol Laemmle Bergerman 286 CARL LAEMMLE i THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF CARL LAEMMLE CHAPTER I PRELUDE Carl Laemmle is a remarkable man. At the age of sixty-four he is one of the most prominent figures in an industry that is, they tell us, the fourth largest in the world. There is nothing re- markable in that. Every industry must have its leaders, and they are often a mediocre, unimpres- sive lot. No one could call Laemmle's talents mediocre, but even so there are industrial leaders in any quantity who with first rate ability are not notable. They may direct affairs of astonishing magnitude, but it will never be said of them, "let us now praise famous men," for they are not famous, but notorious. They have achieved suc- cess, but no more. Success, on this large scale, may denote intelligence, power, tenacity, but it does not necessarily denote character; indeed, it often 4 CARL LAEMMLE denotes a conspicuous lack of it. Many millions have been made, and piously disbursed, by mean, cruel, and unscrupulous men—bad men, in fact; and character implies goodness. The minor psychologists of our time would have us believe that about goodness there is some- thing drab and unattractive. To which the answer is that if it is that, it isn't good. The idea is, pre- sumably, a survival in their minds of Victorian Sunday afternoons. But let us not be intimidated by amateurs of diabolism. If they find virtue dull, let them. For some of us the true tedium is in- duced by the crooks of international eminence who make fortunes, dominate gulls, and come to ends, complacent it may be, or apprehensive, but in any case unlamented. The richest man in the world may have a dry, featureless soul. He may engage none but market attention, and be of none but market significance. To manufacture, control, or distribute more motor cars, more oil, more chewing gum, more cocoa, more newspapers than anyone else is in itself a wholly unimpressive achievement. I have known a good many of these high-fliers, and while a few have been men of uncommon intelligence and decency, others have been uncommonly stu- pid, and in the matter of decency not worth butter to their bread. It is not a question of these great fortunes being ill-gained or, what is rarer, ill-pos- sessed. They have mostly been made in what PRELUDE 5 passes for fair competition, and if their making has left a trail of petty disasters, they are not al- together indefensible in terms of social economy. Once made, it must be allowed that they are spent often liberally enough. Indeed, it is difficult to see how it could be otherwise. To have millions on your hands is to be driven to some sort of enlight- enment. No; the true criterion has nothing to do with the foundation of institutes, the provision of model workshops, the endowment of churches, or the support of orchestras. Success means that you have succeeded against opposition, and by the use of agents. What, when you have come through, do the opposition and the agents think of you? That is the test.