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Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. (May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer, who became noted for his swaggering roles within silent movies such as The Mark of Zorro (1920), The Three Musketeers (1921), Robin Hood (1922), The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and The Black Pirate (1926).

He was innate Julius Ullman within Denver, Colorado, the son of Hezekiah Charles Ullman (born September 1833) and Ella Adelaide Marsh (born 1850). His half-stepbrother was John Fairbanks (natural 1873); and his to the full brother was Robert Payne Ullman (March 13, 1882-February 22, 1948).

Doug's father, world health organization was innate around Pennsylvania to a Jewish family, was a large New York attorney. His mother (the Roman Catholic) was born within Just released York, & was antecedently married to the human known as John Fairbanks, world health organization left her the widow woman. She so married the human known as Wilcox, world health organization turned bent become abusive. Her divorcement was handled by Ullman, world health organization she late married.

Within astir 1881, Charles Ullman purchased several mining interests in the Rocky Mountains and relocated the personal to Denver, in which he re-established his law practice. Ullman abandoned a personal while Doug was 5 years old, & he & Robert were raised by their mother.

Doug began acting on the Denver stage at an early age, doing amateur theatre. He was around summer stock at the Elitch Gardens Theatre, becoming the sensation within his teens. He attended East Denver High School, & was another time expelled for dressing higher a campus statues on St. Patrick's Day. He left in the period of his senior month. He said he attended Colorado School of Mines, then Harvard University for a term. There is no record of attendance has been placed, however an article all about whether or even does'nt he attended Mines recounts the prof another time saying Fairbanks was asked to leave because of the prank shortly fallowing he began.

Fairbanks moved to New York in the early 1900s to pursue an acting career. He worked withwithin the ironmongery & as the clerk in a Wall Street office before his Broadway debut in 1902.

In July 11, 1907 in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, he married Anna Beth Sully, the girl of flush industrialist, Daniel J. Sully. It got a single boy, Douglas Elton Fairbanks (actor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., who was born on December 9, 1909 and who died on May 7, 2000). A personal moved to Hollywood in 1915.

Fairbanks signed the contract with Triangle Pictures and began working under the superintendence of D.W. Griffith. His athletic abilities were non appreciated by Griffith, nevertheless, & he was bring round the attention of Anita Loos and John Emerson, who wrote & directed numbers of of his early romanticist comedies.

He met actress & businesswoman Mary Pickford at a person around 1916 and they began getting an affair. Within 1917, they, along using Charlie Chaplin, traveled across a U.S. by train selling war bonds. Pickford & Chaplin were so them greatest paid movie stars in Hollywood. Fairbanks install his have production company, a Douglas Fairbanks Film Corporation. In 18 months of his arrival, Fairbank's popularity & business acumen raised him as much as exist as a third greatest paid. To curtail these stars' astronomic wage, a big studios attempted to monopolize the distributors & exhibitioner.

In December 1, 1918 in New Rochelle, New York, Beth won an interlocutory decree of divorcement from either Fairbanks, also when custody of their boy. A record of testimony referred to a co-co-respondent as "an unknown woman." A order was mass produced final March 5, 1919.

To stay away from existence controlled per studios & to protect a art of pic making, Fairbanks, Pickford, Chaplin, & D.W. Griffith formed United Artists in 1919, which created their own distributorships & gave a children complete artistic control terminated their moving picture & the gains generated.

Fairbanks was determined to own Pickford be his married woman, however she was however married to actor Owen Moore. It were both caring astir bad publicity & a burden it stand on a moviegoing public, world health organization will boycott their efforts at the theater should it marry each more. He eventually gave her an ultimatum. She so found the convenient divorcement in the little Nevada town of Minden on March 2, 1920.

A few was married March 28, 1920, by the pastor of Temple Baptist Church, at his home within West For Street in Los Angeles. Pickford's divorcement from either Moore was contested by Nevada legislators, yet, & a dispute was non settled until 1922. Potentially though a lawgiver objected to a marriage, a public went uncivilized on top the idea of "Everybody's Hero" marrying "America's Sweetheart." A few was greeted by crowds of as much as 300,000 humans within London and Paris during their European honeymoon, becoming Hollywood's first celebrity marriage.

When you took a years it were married, Fairbanks & Pickford were take to be "Hollywood Royalty," & it were famed for entertaining at their Beverly Hills estate, Pickfair.

By 1920, Fairbanks had completed twenty-29 comedies, mostly by owning a equivalent theme. A public wanted something fresh. He so experienced a inspiration of doing a costume picture, which were non popular using the public as much as that point. He went ahead & took a risk, making The Mark of Zorro. It was a smash profits & parlayed a actor into the rank of superstar. He manufactured swaggering costume motion picture throughout a 1920s.

Within 1921, he, Pickford, friend Chaplin, and others, helped organize a Motion Picture Fund to assist those in the industry world health organization may not operate, or even were unable to meet their bills.

within a period of a number one ceremony of its nature & severity, he & Pickford laid their hand and foot prints in not dry cement at the fresh open Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood on April 30, 1927. Fairbanks was elective 1st President of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences that same month, & he hosted a 1st Academy Awards ceremony.

His endure silent movie was The Iron Mask (1929). He & Pickford so processed their number one talkie, playing Petruchio & Kate within Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (1929). A go picture show he acted around was The Private Life of Don Juan (1934).

Fallowing he began an affair using Sylvia Ashley, Fairbanks and Pickford separated inside 1933. Fairbanks, Sr. & Pickford divorced within 1936, with her keeping Pickfair. In March 7, 1936, in Paris, France, he and Ashley were married. He sleep in retirement using her at 705 Ocean Front (nowadays Pacific Coast Highway) in Santa Monica, California.

In December 12, 1939 at astir 12:45 the.thousand, fifty-six month old Douglas Fairbanks died around his sleep of the heart attack, at his zero in Santa Monica. His funeral service was held at a Wee Kirk o' a Heather Church at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, where he was placed within the crypt in the Swell Mausoleum. His widow woman, Sylvia, so licenced an elaborate monument for him in another memorial park, by having yearn rectangular reflecting pool, raised grave, & classic Greek architecture, and he was flushed from either Woods Lawn. He is entombed at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood, California.

Douglas Fairbanks' h& and foot prints come immortalized in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater & he has the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7020 Hollywood Boulevard.

Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. Home Page
Fan site offers an illustrated biography with a photo gallery.


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