She Could Be Chaplin!: The Comedic Brilliance of Alice Howell

SHE COULD BE CHAPLIN!

HOLLYWOOD LEGENDS SERIES

CARL ROLLYSON, GENERAL EDITOR

SHE COULD BE CHAPLIN!

THE COMEDIC BRILLIANCE OF

Alice

Howell

ANTHONY SLIDE

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF MISSISSIPPI • JACKSON

www.upress.state.ms.us

Designed by Peter D. Halverson

The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association

of American University Presses.

Copyright © 2016 by University Press of Mississippi

All rights reserved

Manufactured in the United States of America

First printing 2016

∞

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Slide, Anthony, author.

Title: She could be Chaplin! : the comedic brilliance of Alice Howell / Anthony Slide.

Description: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2016. | Series: Hollywood legends series | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Includes filmography.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016003062 | ISBN 9781496806321 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Howell, Alice, –1961. | Actors—United States—Biography.

Classification: LCC PN2287.H7315 S57 2016 | DDC 791.4302/8092—dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016003062

British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FOREWORD BY GEORGE STEVENS JR

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE: The Early Years

CHAPTER TWO: The Starring Years

CHAPTER THREE: The Final Years

CHAPTER FOUR: Yvonne and the Stevens Dynasty

APPENDIX I: Yvonne Stevens, Interviewed October 17, 2000

APPENDIX II: Yvonne Stevens, Interviewed February 12, 2001

NOTES

FILMOGRAPHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FIRST AND FOREMOST, I MUST THANK GEORGE STEVENS JR. NOT ONLY for writing a foreword to this monograph, but also for commissioning an earlier version many years ago. He has been unfailing and unstinting in his encouragement and support for this first major, and hopefully definitive, study of the life and career of his grandmother, Alice Howell. Thanks must also go to George’s son, Michael Stevens, who was present at the second of my interviews with his grandmother, Yvonne Stevens, and also provided me with access to family papers and photographs. I could not have written a study such as this without the help of Alice Howell’s daughter, the late Yvonne Stevens, whom I had the pleasure first to meet so many decades ago, back in the early 1970s. And, of course, no reference to George Stevens Jr. would be complete without recognition of his secretary, Dottie McCarthy.

Primary research was undertaken at the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, with additional help and support provided by Tjitte de Vries, Sam Gill, Robert Gitt, and Patricia King Hanson. Diana Serra Cary (Baby Peggy) was, as always, willing to answer any questions I might have, although, regretfully, she had no remembrance of Alice Howell. Also supportive were Mike Mashon at the Library of Congress, Marion Meade, and Carl Rollyson.

At the University Press of Mississippi, I am grateful again to Leila Salisbury, who has never failed to encourage me and provide an outlet for my sometimes egocentric writings and research, even if I do occasionally decide to publish a book elsewhere. Also at Mississippi, I must thank Valerie Jones and designer Pete Halverson, as well as copy editor Peter Tonguette.

Finally, a special thank you to Managing Editor Anne Stascavage, who is retiring after seeing this book through to production. She will be missed.

Photographs were provided by George Stevens Jr. and the Stevens Family Archive, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, or originate from the author’s collection.

FOREWORD

THE ERA OF SILENT FILM IN AMERICA WAS A BREATHTAKINGLY RICH period of creativity, where pioneer artists were exploiting a new medium for which there were no models or precedents. This epoch presents a daunting challenge to historians because it is so difficult to locate and view the films of the 1910s and 1920s. Finding these early works is America’s version of the search in the Holy Land for the Dead Sea Scrolls.

When we started the American Film Institute in 1967 we learned that more than half of the films made up to that time were lost or missing or in danger of being destroyed. This was the result of neglect by the producing entities that turned out thousands of silent films with little concern for preservation and record-keeping, and because the nitrate motion picture stock used in their time was volatile, often turning to jelly in its containers, and was vulnerable to destructive fires.

I have great admiration for the dedicated historians of the silent era because of their persistence in seeking out difficult to find motion pictures, and for the priceless perspective they provide on this art that was developed to such a large extent in the United States.

Tony Slide is a pioneer film historian who has dedicated himself to the study of the silent era, dating back to the early 1960s when he became enchanted with film as a young man in his native England. I met him when he came to the United States in 1971 to work on the film rescue and cataloging efforts of the American Film Institute, and in ensuing years he has published more than seventy valuable works on motion picture history. He is considered a leading authority on the silent era.

Alice Howell had an extraordinary career as a film comedienne, and were it not for Anthony Slide and other industrious historians, her work would have been altogether forgotten. Slide first saw Alice on the screen in England in a 1920 short called A Mere Man’s Love. He found her enchanting, and over the years he pursued every opportunity to see and write about the Howell films that survive from among the more than a hundred she starred in.

Alice started out at the Mack Sennett studios in 1913 and appeared in the first six films that Chaplin directed. She went on to have a career as a leading comedienne, modeling aspects of her characters on what she learned from Chaplin.

Tony Slide sought me out when he was working at the American Film Institute to tell me of his admiration and interest in Alice Howell, whom he knew to be my maternal grandmother. He was eager to know more about her and I arranged for him to interview her daughter, my mother, Yvonne Stevens, who grew up in Hollywood and had the greatest body of first hand knowledge about Alice’s life and career. Tony includes those interviews in this book.

Now Tony Slide is telling the story of Alice Howell, adding a rich new chapter to the history of American motion pictures. Whereas in the past it was next to impossible to see Alice’s screen performances, we hope that as a result of contemporary preservation efforts, and accessibility through new media, her surviving films will be increasingly available to interested fans and film scholars.

To me Alice Howell was simply the nice lady who happened to be my grandmother, who lived across the courtyard from us when I was young. Now, in these pages we can come to know her as a talented movie pioneer who lived a fascinating creative life in early Hollywood.

George Stevens Jr.

SHE COULD BE CHAPLIN!

Mabel Normand.

Introduction

THE WORLD OF SILENT COMEDY IS DOMINATED BY THE NAMES OF famous men—Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, and others—with women generally relegated to the ranks of leading ladies, in reality little more than supporting players. If any female comedy performer from the silent era has instant name recognition it is Mabel Normand (1892–1930), not because she was one of Mack Sennett’s stars prior to Chaplin or because she directed some of his earliest short subjects, but because she was the comedian’s leading lady and went on to enjoy a starring career in her own right. (The fight against drug addiction certainly did not hurt her modern fame, even if it did have a devastating effect on her career, leading to an early death.) Yet there is another female comedy star, with a unique and original style, who also began her career with Mack Sennett and was also there as a female support in the first film Chaplin both wrote and directed, Laughing Gas (1914), one of at least seven Chaplin films in which she appeared. Her name is Alice Howell.

This volume—the first book-length study—represents a tribute to a relatively forgotten pioneer of screen comedy, an actress with a unique comedic style who appeared, by my count, in at least 150 films, the majority of which are lost. As a result, modern audiences have been unable to appreciate Alice Howell’s talent. Yet when a film is unearthed and seen today, viewers never fail to be impressed and, perhaps more important, amused. Hopefully, this rediscovery process will continue.

Alice Howell is a member of a small group of genuine silent film comediennes who was a star in her own right, as opposed to being a leading lady present merely to provide support for a male comedian. Unlike the majority of her contemporaries in the field, she was a comedienne, and they were not. Edna Purviance played in support of Charlie Chaplin. Bebe Daniels (who then and later displayed a humorous side to her personality) was Harold Lloyd’s first leading lady, later to be replaced by his wife-to-be, Mildred Davis, and then by Jobyna Ralston. Buster Keaton had a number of leading ladies—Anne Cornwall, Marceline Day, Marion Mack, Kathryn McGuire, Sally O’Neil, Natalie Talmadge (his wife in real life)¹, et al.—as did Harry Langdon, with Madeline Hurlock and Natalie Kingston. They were not primarily comediennes. Two of Langdon’s leading ladies, Joan Crawford in Tramp, Tramp, Tramp (1926) and Priscilla Bonner in The Strong Man (1926) and Long Pants (1927), could never be considered comedy players. Priscilla Bonner was a waif of a figure, there to lend credence to Langdon’s childlike innocence. Joan Crawford certainly could and did display a comedic side in some of her starring roles, but with the passing of the years, it was obvious that her métier was drama or melodrama. Some comedians, such as Carter DeHaven, Sidney Drew, and Larry Semon, featured their wives—Mrs. Carter DeHaven (Flora Parker), Mrs. Sidney Drew (Lucille McVey), and Dorothy Dwan, respectively. Billie Rhodes was a lightweight comedian of the 1910s, more charming than funny. Her husband, the overweight Smiling Billy Parsons, did not play opposite her but he did serve as her producer. Opposites worked