Margarita Fischer: First Lady of the Flying A

NOTICIAS Journal OÏ TÓ‰ SňÊÅ BÅÂıÅÂÅ HÈÍÊØÂÈÇÅÒ Museum

Vol. LIII

No. 1

Margarita Fischer First Lady of the Flying A

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ROM 1912 to 1920, Santa Barbara was home to one of the most important studios in the nascent American film industry. During its relatively short time in the city, the Flying A Studio cranked out almost one thousand films, everything from short one-reelers to features to serials. The studio became an integral part of the city’s life, employing townspeople as extras and technicians, its stars commonly seen strolling downtown, patronizing the local shops. The studio boasted major talents both in front of and behind the camera, some of whom went on to even greater success in Hollywood’s sound era.

In this issue of NOTICIAS, Dana Driskel profiles one of these major talents, actress Margarita Fischer.

Fischer’s career arc from stage to screen forms the centerpiece in this portrayal of the Flying A and the early film industry. Utilizing archival collections from across the country, the author unearths the story of this important movie figure; her husband, actor/director Harry Pollard; and their contributions to the silent film era.

THE AUTHOR: Dana Driskel, Studio Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Film

and Media Studies Department, has made over thirty films and teaches production, animation, and silent film archiving. He began an avid interest in the American Film Company while still in graduate school at the University of Southern California. He has developed a database and web site related to the Flying A that can be found at http://www.filmandmedia.ucsb.edu/flyinga/.

AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Two summers ago I made a trip to Wichita, Kansas,

where both the Margarita Fischer and Harry Pollard manuscript collections reside. The staff of the Special Collections and University Archives at Wichita State was very helpful during my visit. This, combined with numerous visits to the Chicago Historical Museum, The Library of Congress, and our very own UCSB Davidson Library have generated enough facts and figures to assemble this little love story. I’d also like to thank Charles Silver of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City who provided me access to two rare Margarita Fischer films; old friend and fellow Flying A fanatic, Neal Graffy; and my very patient wife, Patricia.

All photographs are from Special Collections and University Archives, Wichita State University Libraries unless noted otherwise. Front cover photograph of Margarita Fischer was used to launch the Beauty brand of films in 1914. The back cover image of the Flying A logo is from the collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.

INFORMATION FOR CONTRIBUTORS: NOTICIAS is a journal devoted to the study of the

history of Santa Barbara County. Contributions of articles are welcome. Those authors whose articles are accepted for publication will receive ten gratis copies of the issue in which their article appears. Further copies are available to the contributor at cost. The authority in matters of style is the University of Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition. The Publications Committee reserves the right to return submitted manuscripts for required changes. Statements and opinions expressed in articles are the sole responsibility of the author.

Michael Redmon, Editor Judy Sutcliffe, Designer © ¤‚‚8 The Santa Barbara Historical Museum ⁄‹fl E. De la Guerra Street, Santa Barbara, California ·‹⁄‚⁄ • Telephone: 8‚fi/·flfl–⁄fl‚⁄ Single copies $5.95 ISSN 0581–5916

Margarita Fischer

MARGARITA FISCHER

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First Lady of the Flying A

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of motion pictures. The theaters presented moving pictures as a portion of an evening’s entertainment, which usually included vaudeville sketches and communal songs. The Essanay Film Company of Chicago had even used Santa Barbara scenery for a western the year before. Yet never had a moving picture company planned to make this seaside community an actual home. American’s managing director, Allan Dwan, gave hints that the new outfit would not only produce upwards of three films per week in the local environs, but would also build a studio and offer a variety of employments to the locals. Excitement ran high that the Flying A, as American was known to the public, would add another profitable dimension to Santa Barbara’s economy.

American had released 125 titles during 1911 and Dwan could be proud that his California unit was well on its way to topping that output in 1912. Chicago was the corporate home and the films produced by both the local Chicago staff and Dwan’s

by 1910 it was possible to consider motion pictures as a legitimate industry. The equipment manufacturers were losing their monopoly and a new breed of entrepreneur was taking charge. Much as the center of today’s computer industry has shifted from hardware to software, the early movie industry shifted from making cameras and projectors to an emphasis on the product those machines made possible. The geography of the trade was also in transition.

Established film companies like Biograph and Edison were venturing out from the eastern seaboard in search of fresh backdrops for their stories and new filmmaking enterprises were being formed in cities and towns across the country.

When the American Film Manufacturing Company entered Santa Barbara on July 5, 1912, a unique period dawned for the town. Santa Barbara was already aware of the new high-tech phenomenon

•Dana Driskel• 1

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Allan Dwan, head of the American Film Company’s western unit. Dwan led the Flying A to Santa Barbara and later directed Hollywood films into the 1960s. Collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.

western unit flowed to the nation’s theaters from the company’s laboratory on Chicago’s Northside. The western films were so popular that company president, Samuel Hutchinson, was considering shutting down the Chicago unit and producing all the Flying A films in California. Yet Flying A’s journey to Santa Barbara had taken many turns by that July and the one actress who would eventually become the star most linked to the company had already quit.

Margarita Fischer was born on February 12, 1886, in Iowa, but the family moved to Oregon when she was a child.

Her father, John Fischer, felt that the Pacific Coast held greater opportunities than the Iowa farmlands and he was willing to try any sort of venture provided it was reasonably suitable for a young family

man with a wife and two daughters. The Fischers tried Medford, then Salem and finally the town of Silverton, Oregon, where John bought a small hotel with adjoining bowling alley that catered to traveling salesmen and other folks of the road.1 Margarita and older sister Dorothy enjoyed all the comings and goings that swirled past them on a daily basis. At one point a small stock company found itself “resting between engagements” and staying at John Fischer’s establishment. Little Margarita found the actors fascinating and made a friend of a young girl with the company.2 The girl taught Margarita a number of dances used in vaudeville and John noticed that his daughter was a quick learner with natural talent.

Whether it was due to Margarita’s aptitude for performing or the hotel’s in-

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ability to perform as a moneymaker John Fischer began a serious effort to prepare his young second daughter for the stage. Elocution lessons, dramatic training, and plenty of dancing quickly proved that Margarita was destined for a wider world than Silverton. John sold the hotel and invested his capital in the new family enterprise, The Margarita Fischer Company.3 As the century turned, the Fischers were on the road playing small towns in Oregon, Idaho, and northern California. Sister Dorothy also performed while mother Mary looked after the receipts and John managed the bookings. Margarita was billed as “Babe Fischer” until the name no longer fit, and by her mid-teens she was playing the leads in all the well-known stock productions of the day.

In 1906, fortune changed with the death of Margarita’s father. Dorothy would marry a young sports promoter, Charles C. Pyle, who would one day handle such luminaries as football star Red Grange.4 But in 1906 Margarita’s widowed mother, Mary, had to choose between living on the road with Margarita or moving to the Midwest with Dorothy. Mother chose Dorothy and Margarita set off to conquer the world alone.

San Francisco was beginning the task of rebuilding after the 1906 earthquake and fire but theater could still be had and Margarita secured a job playing leads for the Walter Sanford Company.5 It was not uncommon for her to play Topsy in Uncle Tom’s Cabin one night and Mary Magdalene at the following matinee. It was during this period that she met another young actor, Harry Pollard. Harry was also from the Midwest but had grown to adulthood

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Harry Pollard, actor turned director and the most important man in Margarita’s life.

in California. After a season with Sanford, Harry and Margarita pooled their talents and resources to begin life on the road together as the Pollard Fischer Company.6 The merger began as purely a business deal and the pair moved to the Northwest to begin playing towns and small cities. Margarita’s energetic personality and petite yet athletic form played well across the footlights. By 1909, the team was playing in towns the size of Victoria, British Columbia. Margarita filled in dates between en-

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gagements with solo efforts in Seattle that brought in $55 a week as Harry kept an eye out for more engagements.7 Yet repertory in the Northwest was a far cry from the large theaters and the new style of plays being performed back east and Harry’s ambitions finally led the pair to Chicago.

Here the Fischer family was reunited.

Dorothy’s husband, Charlie Pyle, was managing a string of theaters that ran vaudeville and motion pictures and Dorothy had a new baby daughter. Neither Margarita nor Harry wanted to slip backward into vaudeville and motion pictures seemed without merit for aspiring actors.

Yet cracking the Chicago theater world of 1910 was a challenge and in March Margarita felt lucky to land a supporting role in Mrs. Partner, a rather unremarkable play at the Grand Opera House.8 The next month brought more work and Margarita and Harry were becoming known.

On visits to see Margarita’s mother, sister, and baby niece Katherine, the couple would listen to brother-in-law Charlie’s plans for various promotions, his enthusiasm for sport celebrities, and the possibilities presented by the moving picture business which appeared ready to make a giant leap in the coming years. Chicago was already home to two of the biggest producers in the trade, the Essanay and the Selig Polyscope film companies that were putting out six films between them every week. Charlie could testify that business in his theaters was shifting away from live acts and was running ever-increasing numbers of moving pictures.

To understand the early motion picture industry it is perhaps more useful to consider today’s television rather than today’s Hollywood. People would attend the picture shows multiple times per week and the question of “What’s at the theater?” has a

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direct link to today’s “What’s on TV?” The films were much shorter than today with stock situations performed by recognizable players, much like the episodic television format. The theaters changed the program almost daily and that created a constant demand for new material.

At first, the equipment manufacturers tried to control the infant industry through the licensing of both the cameras and projection equipment and also the films produced. Only licensed companies could make films and only licensed theaters could show them. Anyone else was considered independent and subject to lawsuits and other harassments. Yet the film world continued to grow in spite of such attempted controls and the dominance of the equipment manufacturers was being challenged in legal principle and also in actual fact. Enforcing the licensing was easier said than done.

More and more people from the legitimate theater were taking the plunge and the motion picture companies were offering good money and stable work. Producer/playwright Frank Beal had recently jumped to Selig9 and encouraged Harry and Margarita to join him. That spring Margarita found herself in front of the camera for the first time pantomiming for such dubious efforts as There, Little Girl, Don’t Cry, and Go West, Young Woman. These onereel films lasted less than fifteen minutes on the screen so the picture houses usually needed three or four films per night to keep the audiences coming back. Quality wasn’t really the issue. The key was to be new and film companies kept popping up nearly every month to satisfy the demand.

In October of 1910, a new, well-financed outfit was ready to become an important player in the Chicago film market.

Samuel S. Hutchinson headed a group of

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Samuel S. Hutchinson, president of the American Film Company, a “hands-on” type of executive. Collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.

Midwestern film exchange men who had all become frustrated with the limited amount of product available. They decided to create their own independent production company and titled it the American Film Manufacturing Company. They chose for their trademark logo the letter A with wings and the brand swiftly became known as the Flying A. American’s first big hurdle was to create a production staff capable of getting films out quickly and, much in the same way that computer firms would pick off talent from the competition some eighty years later, Hutchinson pulled out his checkbook and went to work grabbing experienced professionals from the two established, licensed Chicago producers, Essanay and Selig.

President Hutchinson had determined from the beginning that the Flying A would send a unit out from Chicago to make films “IN the west—OF the west —BY our Western Company.” 10 He had three directors on the payroll of his infant company and chose Selig defector Frank Beal to head up the new unit.

In turn, Frank brought his wife, whose stage name was Louise Lester, to play character roles, plus Margarita and Harry to play leads. By mid-November the western unit of eleven was on the road making one-reel films in Santa Fe, New Mexico.11 The weather in Santa Fe was a balmy twenty-five degrees for the first day of production and the crew from Chicago must have been surprised that the “real west” felt more like Lake Michigan.12 Harry and Margarita soldiered on and in two days had wrapped up the

Flying A’s very first western, a comedy called Two Lucky Jims.

The film negative was shipped back to Chicago and preparations began on a second project. Santa Fe denizens were delighted with their first look at the world of motion picture making. The secrets of the mysterious technology were being laid bare for all to see which only proved to increase attendance at Santa Fe’s only theater, the Elks’. The Elks’ already played movies but the “western” films shown probably caused a bit of amusement due to their New Jersey settings. Theater manager Michael Stanton promised the community that the Elks’ would show the Flying A productions as soon as available.

Hutchinson looked forward to receiving the negative because word from the western company had been scarce. Ro-

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Margarita and Harry (center) pose in a publicity photo for American’s first western,Two Lucky Jims (1910), shot in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

mantic Redskins and The Lure of the City, both produced by the Chicago unit, were already in the theaters, but American had promised the world “real westerns” and until Two Lucky Jims was released the Flying A was just another small production outfit in the Windy City.

In the meantime, Margarita and Harry continued to pantomime through The Squaw and the Man and The Tenderfoot’s Roundup during the days while Harry and Frank Beal enjoyed the hotel bar most evenings. The movie company had been given the keys to the city and all the lo-

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cals looked forward to December 19 when Santa Fe would finally be displayed as the setting of a motion picture.

By early December, the company was on its way to Arizona. In Phoenix, the Flying A would produce An Arizona Romance, but they continued southeast to Tucson before settling in a week before Christmas.

A light snow was falling as a crowd of nearly five hundred showed up at the Elks’ Theater in Santa Fe on December 19 to get a look at Two Lucky Jims; another capacity house followed the next night. The local paper reported that at one point “the scene was nothing else but the ‘destruction of wedding romance’ for the unlucky was made to do the washing and his black curly locks were pulled by his spouse, a very vigorous young woman with athletic arms.

The scene as well as the characters in the domestic drama was readily recognized by the audience which burst into applause.”13 It is hard to know if the audiences of Santa Fe were more intrigued by the acting, the story, or simply seeing their beloved city on the screen, but other “reviews” were being written and the word got back to Colonel Selig of Selig Polyscope that the established film companies had little to fear from the Flying A. In a letter from the Denver Film Exchange, which handled Selig and Essanay films for the region, H. H. Buckwalter reported that “I got the full line up on the situation at Santa Fe yesterday. Mr. Stanton told me that the American bunch had rows among themselves quite frequently and all sorts of trouble in making pictures. The release of Dec. 8th called ‘Two Lucky Jims’ was the one he ran and he said it was absolutely the worst he had ever seen.” The letter went on to say “After scraping around in Santa Fe the bunch got disgusted and went to Tucson but from the information I can

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gather the outfit broke up quite recently on account of internal troubles.”14 Buckwalter’s letter, dated February 1, fails to report the numerous films made in Tucson during the winter of 1911 but for reasons unknown the flow of negatives slowed to a trickle and Hutchinson sent off his new scenario editor, Allan Dwan, to look into the Arizona affairs.15 In the meantime the Flying A relied on product from the Chicago unit.

Dwan arrived in Tucson to find a disillusioned film crew and a director facing writer’s block brought on, supposedly, by too much time spent in the bar. Acting as business manager, Dwan closed down the unit and wired to Chicago for advice. Margarita and Harry felt that they had had enough of filmmaking and headed back north to find work in the world of speaking drama. By May, they had landed work with the Lloyd Ingraham stock company performing the leads in The Return of Eve at the Gayety Theater in Omaha, Nebraska.16 In the meantime, Dwan had moved a reinvented western unit to California, setting up to do more westerns in San Juan Capistrano, films that Dwan would not only write but direct.

By this point, Ms. Fischer and Mr. Pollard had been in association for over three years and the engagement period came to an end on July 9, 1911, in Golden, Colorado, where the two became husband and wife. From there the couple moved east finding work in New York City and once again considering moving pictures, provided a bit of stability came along with the deal. Carl Laemmle of the Independent Motion Picture company, known as IMP, had seen Margarita’s Flying A work and offered her $90 a week in November for an eleven-month contract which would increase to $100 a week by April of 1912.17

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Margarita and Harry in Tucson, Arizona, early 1911. Their professional acting relationship would lead to marriage the following summer.

Margarita and Harry assumed that the work would keep them close to New York, but Laemmle’s consolidation of various motion picture companies that spring brought about a new company called Universal and Harry and Margarita began fulfilling their contracts in Los Angeles.

Universal was created as a response to the newly formed Mutual Film Corporation that handled the distribution of Flying A films along with the efforts of numerous other film companies. In all, the Pollards performed for IMP, Nestor, and Rex, all part of Universal, but the couple was not paired on the screen the way they had been in earlier days, sometimes not even working on the same lot.

As the Pollards re-accustomed themselves to film work, Allan Dwan moved the Flying A from San Juan Capistrano to Lakeside and then on to La Mesa. The American Film Manufacturing Company had worked through the growing pains and was coming to be seen as more than just a cowboy film outfit. La Mesa worked well for western stuff, but Hutchinson planned to expand the program to include adventure films with exotic settings, social dramas, historical pictures, and urban comedies. A town that could provide such backdrops was required. Santa Barbara’s beaches and islands, a prosperous main street, suburban neighborhoods, ranches, oil wells, Montecito mansions, and of course the Mission all

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allowed the scenario writers opportunities.

So on June 29, 1912, the Flying A cowboy staff rode out of La Mesa for good.

Dwan and the actors followed in autos and American was headed for Santa Barbara.18 E. H. Stokes of La Mesa promptly took over the lease of Flying A’s old studio and converted it into a funeral home.19 Now followed a turbulent time for the company. A second Santa Barbara unit was created and property was purchased, announcing American’s commitment to the town. Santa Barbarans began to take jobs at the studio while actors and support staff came and went, culminating with Hutchinson’s firing of Allan Dwan.

Hutchinson would be known today as a hands-on type of executive and Dwan had always valued the autonomy that the 2,000 miles between California and Chicago afforded. By 1913, however, American was one of the biggest employers in Santa Barbara. All of the production was centered there and Hutchinson found himself on the West Coast as often as in Illinois.

Hutchinson was running a worldwide enterprise with offices in London and Paris as well as Chicago. Dwan would go on to become an important director, making films for another five decades, working with stars as diverse as Douglas Fairbanks, John Wayne, and Shirley Temple. Yet he lacked the entrepreneurial instincts of Hutchinson and the two seldom saw eye-to-eye. One day Dwan entered his office to find a letter informing him that he was no longer part of the Flying A.20 Dwan considered heading back to Chicago. He even wired Selig that he was now available,21 but word also traveled down the coast and Laemmle’s Universal was happy to snap up the young talent. Hutchinson felt no regrets and plunged on hiring other directors and making plans to enlarge the

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studio that stood in the block on the north side of Mission Street at Chapala Street on the outskirts of the city.

Margarita’s career continued to blossom at Universal and she was pleased to see old friend Allan Dwan, the man who had staked her and Harry to train fare out of Tucson, appear at the Hollywood studio. Neither she nor Harry was surprised to hear of the goings on at Santa Barbara or the way Sam Hutchinson was running things. They may have been surprised however to know that Hutchinson had been keeping an eye on their ascending stars, noting their progression as actors and Harry’s budding talents as a director.

The two were becoming known within the film community and Margarita was gaining popularity not only on the screen but also by posing for the cover of sheet music entitled “That Moving Picture Girl.” The time had come for Hutchinson to entice them back to American.

Harry was working for Powers Picture Plays while Margarita continued at Rex. Hutchinson realized he had a card to play by offering the Pollards a chance to reunite and create their very own brand while doing so in the charming city of Santa Barbara, leaving the Hollywood chaos ninety miles away. It was worth a look. Harry and Margarita drove up the Coast Highway on November 4, 1913, with scriptwriter and agent Richard Willis to meet with Hutchinson.22 After registering at the Gregson at 1600 Garden Street the trio drove up to the studio and were impressed to see the fine stucco buildings, the impressive gates, and the spacious landscaping which spoke of a permanence and class that Universal had yet to offer.

That evening, Samuel S. Hutchinson, president of American Film Manufacturing Company and board member of the Mutual

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Film Corporation, entertained the Pollards of Los Angeles at the Arlington Hotel and began negotiations for a new weekly addition to the Flying A program. American would produce, Mutual would distribute, and the Pollards would once again be able to work together. Hutchinson laid out the plans for a new brand called Beauty. Harry would direct the one-reel shows and often play a role, but the central part would always be Margarita’s, the Beauty star.

The young couple was also impressed with the ambitious plans Hutchinson had for the studio. Unlike most of the motion picture companies of the era which rented or leased space for their production facilities American owned both its corporate buildings in Chicago and its studio buildings in Santa Barbara. It was this show of stability that had helped convince the Santa Barbarans that a movie company was not so bad an addition to the community.

The workers had only completed construction a mere three months before and had already been called back to begin an addition of more dressing rooms. The scenarios were calling for more bit players and

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extras so the local thespians were crowding the lead players already. Now an entire new company was being added, bringing the number of production units to a total of three. Hutchinson assured the Pollards that the renovations would be completed swiftly and this was only the beginning.

The Flying A was the place to be.

Another factor may have played into Harry and Margarita’s decision to move to Santa Barbara. Sister Dorothy’s marriage had not worked out well and she, daughter Katherine, and mother Fischer all found themselves in Hollywood making ends meet as well as possible. Uncle Harry had managed to land a few acting parts for little Kathie at Powers, but a jump to American allowed Margarita to bargain for occasional roles for both Kathie and Dorothy.

The Pollards moved to Santa Barbara in mid-November and rented rooms at the newly built Edgerly Court at Chapala and Sola streets, home to many of the Flying A folk and an easy walk to the studio. Harry set to work preparing the first production, entitled Withering Roses, with the goal of

American’s Santa Barbara studio as it appeared in 1914 when the Pollards returned to the Flying A to make Beauty brand one-reelers. Collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.

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Harry, Margarita, and niece Kathie in The Sacrifice (1914). A new Beauty brand one-reeler was released every week.

releasing it by year’s end. But it would be January 14 before the nation would get its first look at the new Beauty brand. Unseasonably rainy weather had slowed production to some extent, but so had Harry’s fondness for impressive visual effects that caused a slower shooting pace. In Chicago, the laboratory was also carefully crafting the “look” that would surround the Beauty stories. Elaborate floral borders circled the title cards when exposition or dialog was required and a trademark logo always followed the film. This logo showed the unfurling of a rose bud that was accomplished by time-lapse technique, the careful exposure of one frame every minute which when projected showed the rose bloom before the eyes of the audience.

The story and scenario for Withering Roses flowed from the pen of Marc Ed-

mund Jones, a Los Angeles writer. Scripts for moving pictures were not held in the same regard as they are today. This was made eminently clear to Jones in early 1914 regarding another script he had been working on which had been stolen from his Los Angeles apartment by a supposed friend.

He charged the fellow with petty larceny but the case was thrown out of court, the judge ruling that a motion picture script “has no intrinsic value.”23 Valued by the courts or not moving pictures were well regarded by the public and the first new Beauty was eagerly awaited. By the time Withering Roses played at Santa Barbara’s Palace Theatre on January 17, a normal evening’s entertainment would include three or four films, a sing-along with lyrics projected on the screen, and perhaps some vaudeville or a

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Margarita’s older sister, Dorothy, played support roles in some of the Beauty films.

Margarita was the primary breadwinner for the Fischer family, but both Dottie and Kathie played a part.

cartoonist doing “lightning sketches,” all squeezed into a show running about an hour-and-a-half, twice a night. The Palace had bargained to lock up exclusive Santa Barbara rights for Beauty films. A print would be sent up from Los Angeles every week after having opened there the previous Wednesday.

Although the Palace Theatre, “The House of Wholesome Films,” which stood at 904 State Street, could advertise that it was the only place to see the new Beauty brand, the Mission Theatre scooped them in a way by playing Uncle Tom’s Cabin on January 31, 1914. This was a Universal

(IMP) release from the previous year and featured both Margarita and Harry with a scenario prepared by Allan Dwan, although neither he nor Harry was the director. What the Pollards or Sam Hutchinson thought of all this is lost in time. Besides, by then, Harry and Margarita were deeply involved in the new Beauty brand.

The Flying A films were developed in Santa Barbara but the theater prints were made in Chicago. Harry supervised the editing of his Beauty films, only being able to see the film as a negative. Once approved the camera negative would be shipped to Chicago where the U.S. and Canadian

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prints would be made. The same negative would then continue on to London to be used for worldwide distribution.

The six-block stroll from Edgerly Court up Chapala Street to the studio was pleasant enough when it was not raining but that was seldom the case in January of 1914. During the making of Italian Love, the eighth Beauty release, significant flooding closed roads and cancelled train service. This would turn out to be some of the worst flooding in the town’s history, causing hardships for nearly everyone. For the studio, not only did the weather make for a poor shooting situation but also the lack of train service choked off the flow of film to Chicago.

All of this occurred as American was aiming to establish the new brand.

Tension began to surface between Chi-

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cago and the studio. This was compounded

by Harry’s insistence on creative control over the Beauty films. Business and art had different objectives. American’s general manager, R.R. Nehls, would send letters and telegrams out to California reminding Harry that, at that time, films were rented to the exhibitors by the reel and films that came in anything over one thousand feet were simply a waste of footage.24 Harry would respond with one-reelers like Bess, the Outcast that was shipped to Chicago far above the one thousand-foot limit. As directors ever since, Harry wanted his vision undisturbed, but Chicago had final say in the editing and Bess went to the theaters at one thousand feet.

Both sides could probably claim a bit of the glory when the reviews began to come in. Trade magazine Motography an-

Harry and Margarita in Italian Love (1914). Margarita’s dark hair and ethnic appearance allowed her a great range of characterizations.

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nounced in the February 7th edition that Bess, the Outcast “... is remarkable for its photographic quality. The last scene in particular, showing Bess and the schoolmaster [Harry] setting out upon their new life together, is a gem. Both camera man and factory superintendent have done their work well and audiences the country over will revel in the beauties of that scene when it is flashed upon the picture screens of the country. If this quality can be maintained in ‘Beauty’ productions they will soon be among the most eagerly awaited of any films now on the market.”25 Once the rains receded, the work of putting out a film a week got into gear. Ten of the first dozen Beauties were dramas and two were comedies. Margarita was more than capable of both and had already begun to acquire a fan base before arriving

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in Santa Barbara. The Beauty films would solidify her stardom. Unlike many of the film heroines of the era, Margarita was not the blond and fair maiden perpetually playing the plucky orphan. She could do those roles but could also present mature characters and her more ethnic look and pronounced nose made her easier for many young filmgoers to identify with. A shop girl may love a Mary Pickford but could see herself in Margarita. American’s worldwide distribution also spread Margarita’s image throughout Europe, Asia, and South America. She became extremely popular in Asia, particularly in Japan.

The Pollards were enjoying themselves and would occasionally attend the picture shows themselves. One night they even caused a bit of a ruckus, as reported in the trades:

The Miracle of Life (1915). Harry Pollard’s symbolism and special effects were both praised by the critics.

MARGARITA FISCHER

Harry Pollard and Margarita Fischer were nearly turned out of a theater recently for laughing at one of Harry’s own pictures; he has one or two mannerisms as all actors have and mischievous Margarita called attention and bet Harry he would repeat the action in the picture several times. This set them to giggling and Harry soon started to shake with laughter, when an usher came swooping down upon them and said severely. “Say, if you don’t like this picture, remember there are others who do, and if you want to guy it [sic] you can go and get your money back.” Harry tried to smother his laughter but could not and they beat a hasty retreat whilst the audience glared at them, not guessing who they were.26 Harry’s ambitions continued to smolder. He was delighted at the recognition his wife was justly receiving and hoped that his directing skills would someday receive similar attention. Meanwhile, there was a film a week to grind out. In March, Hutchinson would return to Santa Barbara and bring with him company executive John R. Freuler. Both Hutchinson and Freuler also served on the board of the Mutual Film Corporation, Flying A’s distributor, a growing presence in the film industry. While in Santa Barbara, Hutchinson made an announcement that American was soon to begin producing four-reel features and that no less than one month would be used to produce each new film.27 This was directly in line with Mutual’s aggressive plans for the coming year. Here was the break for which Harry had been waiting.

But the one-reel Beauties were too popular and neither Margarita nor Harry could be spared for the new enterprise.

The new feature unit was awarded to Thomas Ricketts, a capable director who had been involved with the Flying A, in an on-and-off fashion, since the begin-

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ning, some four years past. Harry would have to wait his turn.

Meanwhile, Margarita’s star continued to ascend. In the spring she won Photoplay Magazine’s popularity contest for leading ladies, edging out Kathlyn Williams of Selig and Mabel Normand of Keystone.

Mary Pickford finished fourth.28 The Pollards were on the rise and by now the Fischer clan had arrived to take up residence. Margarita began lining up small roles for sister Dorothy and niece Kathie.

It appeared that moving to American had been a good decision. Letters of good wishes still arrived in the mails from friends back at Universal; many at “the Big U” expected that the Pollards would eventually return.29 By spring, the Beauty company was an established fact at Flying A. The little glass shooting stage, the dressing rooms, the editing rooms, all had to be shared between three separate units plus the newly formed feature company. Luckily most of the films were shot on location and the local community began to see movie making as an everyday occurrence. The Morning Press reported the movements of the different crews and many property owners were pleased to have the filmmakers use their homes or businesses as the backdrops for the stories. The I. Magnin clothing company of San Francisco was delighted to stage an outdoor fashion show at the Potter Hotel and provide spring fashions for the Beauty film, Mlle. La Mode, in which Margarita played the part of a fashion model. The film was a particular hit in Europe.

To the naïve eye this world of moving picture making appeared glamorous, carefree, and capable of producing a fountain of money. Just as would happen with the dot com craze some eighty years later numer-

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Fashion and “product placement” meet the movies in this 1914 Beauty film, Mlle. La Mode, in which Margarita plays a model.

ous organizations would pop up in newspaper mentions. The Diamond Film Company and the Major Film Manufacturing Company both announced their intentions of setting up shop in Santa Barbara.30 The latter even proposed to make sound films but the only organization to actually do more than talk was put together by local polo star, Elmer J. Boeseke. Boeseke had also recently served two terms as mayor and was able to put together a group of local backers to finance his new Santa Barbara Motion Picture Company in the spring of 1914, establishing a studio on the southwest side of Chapala at Micheltorena, only five blocks down the street from American.31 This local money tempted some talent away from Flying A. Director Lorimar Johnston, cameraman Roy Overbaugh,

and a young assistant cameraman named Victor Fleming moved to the new concern that promised the chance to make fourreel features. The Santa Barbara Motion Picture Company made only one feature, The Envoy Extraordinary, and then turned to producing cheaper one-and two-reelers.

The “Ess Bee,” as it was nicknamed, was never able to attract a top-tier distributor like Mutual or Universal. Boeseke’s grand schemes ran up against the realities of the film world and by 1916 the company would cease to exist. According to cameraman Overbaugh, arrogance also played a role in the Ess Bee’s demise as the local backers began to insist on finding acting roles for their wives and daughters.32 The professional actors and crew scrambled back to American or off to the growing center of action in Los Angeles. The assistant cam-

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eraman, Victor Fleming, eventually moved up to directing and would later direct both The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind.

Although the less well-established Santa Barbara company had struggled and lost, the Flying A had done nothing but expand during the same period, moving from one conquest to the next. During the summer of 1914, American produced their first true feature, a seven-reel production based on the stage play, Damaged Goods.

This one-time project was brought about when Richard Bennett’s road company closed their national tour in Los Angeles.

Hutchinson was able to convince Bennett, an actor with deep reservations about the moving picture business, that the film could be produced conveniently in the splendid resort town of Santa Barbara and be a fitting reward for his theatrical company

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who could summer there once the project was completed. Along with the company of actors came Bennett; his wife; and his three young daughters, Constance, Barbara, and Joan. The Bennett girls would get their first glimpse of the movie business, Constance and Joan eventually going on to become important Hollywood stars.

Damaged Goods, directed by Thomas Ricketts, not only humbled Ess Bee’s The Envoy Extraordinary, but also rekindled Harry Pollard’s passion to direct features. He began a campaign to convince Hutchinson that he and Margarita were ready for bigger things. It is likely that Sam Hutchinson agreed to this begrudgingly. The Beauty brand was very popular and tied closely to Margarita’s celebrity. But the Pollards’ one-year contract was coming up for renewal and Universal

The Santa Barbara Motion Picture Company competed briefly with the more prosperous Flying A, but the local enterprise soon discovered that the film industry was a tough place to break into.

Collection of the author.

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waited in the wings. He had little choice and the Pollards prepared for the feature arena. New stars were hired to carry on the Beauty pictures and the Morning Press announced on November 6, 1914, that Margarita was soon to begin work on a feature length “love fantasy.”

One of the final one-reel Beauties to star Margarita was written by her friend and fellow Flying A star, Vivian Rich.33 The scenario was entitled “A Modern Ophelia” but was released under the title Nieda, a drama about a young girl raised only by her father, far from civilization. A young

man arrives and the girl falls in love with him but he dies in a tragic accident, driving her mad, and eventually to her death.

The story was a hit and Margarita’s performance as the wild, primitive girl was singled out for praise. The Pollard’s first feature would incorporate a similar character though the story’s ending would be far less tragic.

This five-reel picture, The Quest, again brought together an outsider and a primitive girl. This time Margarita played Nai, the daughter of a South Seas chief whose tribe is an improbable group descended

Nieda (1914) began a string of films in which Margarita played primitive, energetic women confronting modern society for the first time.

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from shipwrecked English emigrants. Harry played the young millionaire, John, who had grown tired of society and gone hunting for a better life. John’s own shipwreck lands him on Nai’s island. Blending bits of the stories of Pocahontas and the local Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island, John takes Nai back to civilization but things do not go well and she dies. He then awakes from what turns out to be only a nightmare, still safely on the island and resolves never to return to civilization.

In November the new Pollard feature company set sail for Santa Cruz Island to work on The Quest. The principle players and crew stayed on the island for two weeks while extras were brought in as needed. Additional material shot in Montecito completed the picture and once edited the negative was sent on to Chicago.

Harry’s dream was coming true.

Yet Hutchinson was already becoming distracted by other projects, the most impressive being the mounting of a thirty-episode serial entitled, The Diamond From the Sky. Rumors of the new serial had already begun to move American’s stock value up with bids of $105 turning to $109 turning to $117, but there were no shares to buy; no one was willing to sell.34 The Pollards moved on to their next feature, Infatuation. By this time, they had moved from Edgerly Court to a house at 327 West Micheltorena Street, while the Fischers were lodged at 1123 Chapala Street.35 Sister Dottie had secured a role as a gypsy in the Diamond serial and Kathie was attending school while also grabbing a role here and there. Then word came that The Quest was stalled in Chicago. The film was not being released.

Harry could not reach Hutchinson, who had sailed for Europe with John Freuler of Mutual. If the Pollards felt betrayed

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the anger was misplaced. Behind the scenes at the Mutual Film Corporation, responsible for the North American distribution of Flying A films, a power struggle was brewing. Mutual president, Harry Aitkin, was delaying the output of various member-producers including American. He had a project soon to be released by one of his own directors, D.W. Griffith, a film based on the book, The Clansman, and later to be re-titled, The Birth of a Nation.

With Hutchinson and Freuler in Europe, Aitkin sat on the release of The Quest and other films in the Mutual line-up. Many of the member-producers felt that Aitkin had long been favoring the films coming from his own studios at the expense of the other companies. This was not the first time Aitkin had slowed up a Hutchinson project.

He had blocked Damaged Goods from the Mutual schedule the previous fall claiming that it was not suitable due to the subject matter that dealt with venereal disease.

The play had caused much controversy in 1913 when first run on Broadway and American’s film created a similar uproar the following year, but Mutual’s refusal to release it meant that it only played on a limited basis in the fall of 1914.

Things would not be rectified until Freuler’s return. Aitkin would then be voted out of office by Mutual’s board, Freuler would replace him, and Aitkin would move on to form a production combine named Triangle.

The Quest was actually released concurrently with The Birth of a Nation and faired very well in trade reviews. Harry and Margarita looked forward to other successes together. On March 15, 1915, six days before its national release, a private screening of The Quest was given at Santa Barbara’s Palace Theatre for Mr. & Mrs. Hutchinson and the members of the Pol-

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The Quest (1915), Harry and Margarita’s first feature-length film became a contentious issue for American’s distribution company, Mutual.

lard Company.36 The following week the Pollard Company set to work on The Girl From His Town, the script from a novel by Mary Von Voorst.37 This required a large theater interior and the crew traveled to Los Angeles where the Republic Theater was used during the actual play in progress to attain audience reactions. This was done between the first and second acts and then the audience was invited to remain after the performance to watch the shooting done on stage. By 5 am the necessary footage had been attained and the tired company climbed back in their autos to drive home to Santa Barbara. There is no record of how many theater patrons stuck it out until daybreak to say goodbye to the moving picture folk.38 Feature films were not only longer than the one-reel shorts the Pollards had grown

accustomed to, they were also more demanding. Harry began to speculate that if he and Margarita were to work this hard they might be better served to be doing it for themselves.

Margarita’s performances continued to receive good notices and although it is dangerous to accept the praise written by the film industry trade papers without skepticism, certain periodicals were known to be more accurate than others. A New York trade weekly called Wid’s Film and Film Folk was one of the few publications that did not accept advertising from the studios whose work was reviewed. Wid Gunning relied on subscriptions from the exhibitors who needed honest reviews to decide which films to show in their theaters. Wid’s review of Infatuation sheds light on Margarita’s abilities:

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The little star impressed me throughout.

She was living that part and for that reason she was able to “put over” some splendid scenes. There were a score of human touches, just little bits of business, a look , a turn of the head or an impulsive movement, which helped to take this film out of the rut of ordinary features and make it a thing apart, a nicely developed study of character and a big, human story.39 Human stories and topics of the day became more and more a part of Margarita’s work. The feature, The Miracle of Life, confronted the topic of abortion.

In promoting an upcoming screening the Palace Theatre outlined the plot in which a young bride realizes she is pregnant and considers abortion before falling asleep and dreaming of children. Here Harry pulled out all the stops, casting nearly every baby in Santa Barbara and embellishing the dream with numerous special effects including having the faces of the babes bloom from the buds of flowers.

Needless to say the soon-to-be mother is swayed and as the summary continued, “The potion of drug which she had contemplated taking, she pours from her window, and here is a most powerful allegory. It strikes a fair plant and this shrivels and dies. The entire subject is a delicate one, but it is made beautiful in the manner in which it has been produced and added to this must be considered the splendid personality of Miss Fischer.”40 Released in the fall of 1915, The Miracle of Life was still being screened in Australia some two years later.

Fan mail continued to arrive at the studio from places as exotic as Argentina, Tasmania, and the Philippines, a testament to the London office’s aggressive worldwide distribution. Yet at home in the U.S.,

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American’s advertising campaigns were centered on The Diamond From the Sky serial, the rest of the promotional mentions having to be shared among six other production units.

By 1915 the studio was bulging at the seams and Hutchinson purchased yet another quarter block of real estate with the intention of building a second and much larger shooting stage.41 This expansion not only extended the studio from Chapala to State Street, but also made the Flying A one of the county’s largest taxpayers.

In late April, the Morning Press confirmed a rumor that the Pollards had resigned from the Flying A. Harry had been mentioned earlier as being in Los Angeles searching for period costumes to be used in a “Spanish California” picture. It is likely that he was also feeling out options for Margarita and himself. The newspaper stated, “Mrs. Pollard, as Margarieta [sic] Fischer, is one of the best known actresses in pictures. Both are such unusually likeable people that the news they are so soon to leave Santa Barbara will be regretted by hundreds of friends they have made here.”42 Hutchinson could only content himself with the fact that he still had unreleased Margarita pictures in the pipeline, films that continued to garner praise for the studio. Harry and Margarita still owed one more picture on their American contract and set to work on the project in early May. Once it was completed the Pollards and the Fischers bid farewell to Santa Barbara.

In September 1915 the trade papers reported that the Pollards had surfaced on the East Coast and signed with the Equitable Film Corporation of New York City.43 Perhaps the proximity to Broadway was a further inducement for the young couple. Harry began assembling a

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supporting cast for Margarita’s first effort with the new studio. The picture was entitled The Dragon and was released in January of 1916. Much like the Santa Barbara Motion Picture Company and many other small outfits in the early years, the Equitable was announced with great fanfare and hoopla but faded rapidly and the word came in March that Harry and Margarita were headed west again but not back to the Flying A or Santa Barbara.

Showman and financier George Lederer had produced the capital to set Harry up in his own company, Pollard Picture Plays Corporation, with headquarters in San Diego. The first step was to select a project that could trade on Margarita’s popularity and the idea was hatched to write a scenario reminiscent of the young wild girl dramas of Nieda and The Quest. The new film was titled The Pearl of Paradise.

Pollard Picture Plays set up offices on the grounds of the just completed PanamaPacific Exposition in San Diego’s Balboa Park. This was rather a coup as no other film producers had been allowed to use the facilities but the Exposition’s officials felt that the new enterprise might be useful in promoting San Diego. Harry set to work not only to make motion pictures, but also to become part of the community.

The Pollards now had all the concerns of running a company; first and most importantly they needed a good distributor and found themselves back with Mutual.

Mutual prepared the publicity campaign for their newest member and waited for Harry to complete the first film. Plugs began popping up in the newspapers, the Chicago Tribune stating that the first film would be staged at Los Angeles, Honolulu, and the South Sea Islands.44 In fact San Diego’s Balboa Park doubled for Havana and Santa Cruz Island became the South Seas.

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The Pearl of Paradise (1916), first of the newly established Pollard Picture Plays, began Harry and Margarita’s San Diego adventure.

The Pearl of Paradise would launch Harry and Margarita into a much more complicated world. No longer could Margarita concentrate only on acting for she also had to perform as the wife of a motion picture producer with numerous social obligations. Not only were the Pollards involved in the glamorous high-tech business of movie making, but they also operated their enterprise from the grounds of San Diego’s famous exposition park. The social world became as demanding as the shooting stage.

Yet San Diego offered opportunities as well. The Pearl of Paradise featured views of U.S. Navy ships and harbor activities during a time when the American public was swept up in the “preparedness” movement of 1916–17. The next project would continue the trend; a feature entitled Miss

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Jackie of the Navy, again featuring ships and sailors plus settings like the Hotel del Coronado. At the same time the stress of forming a new company, while winning over a new town was having an effect.

Chicago Tribune gossip columnist, Mae Tinee, wrote of Miss Jackie of the Navy, “Margarita Fischer is back—which is one of the season’s greetings to movie fans.

For a long time she was conspicuous by her absence, having felt the need of rest and sensibly decided to take it.”45 These films continued Margarita’s popularity, but business problems began to emerge. Harry was more than capable as a producer-director but he found it difficult to negotiate the sometimes treacherous waters of film distribution. Payments from Mutual arrived slowly, straining the finances of the fledgling company. The fact that John Freuler was president of Mutual while also secretary-treasurer of the American should not be ignored.

Meanwhile the Flying A was beginning to concentrate exclusively on serials and features. The studio released its own preparedness serial entitled The Secret of the Submarine; the old Beauty brand one-reelers were being phased out. In 1917, American would announce that from now on the studio would produce only “big stories with big stars.”

Hutchinson wanted Margarita back and kept a close watch on activities in San Diego. That March he sent an offer to rejoin Flying A.46 The Pollards rejected it.

Their next production was entitled, The Girl Who Couldn’t Grow Up, followed quickly by The Devil’s Assistant. At the completion of shooting Margarita was hospitalized, suffering from exhaustion. While she recuper-

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ated Harry began preparing Little Miss Missionary. With only one star at the Pollard Picture Plays Corporation it was essential for Margarita to keep at it.

In August, a second missive arrived from Hutchinson offering $1,000 a week for Margarita’s services.47 Pollard Picture Plays had only produced five shows in a year and a half and a steady income must have looked very inviting. Yet the contract offer came with a bitter taste since Hutchinson was asking only for Margarita. There was no offer of work for Harry.

Sam Hutchinson had always had reservations about Pollard. He could recall the early days of the first western unit in the Southwest, when Frank Beal and Harry spent time in the saloons. He had let director Beal go. Then there was the constant The Butterfly Girl (1917), directed by Henry Otto, was the only Pollard Picture Play not to be directed by Harry.

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pushing, Sam recalled, when Harry was making the Beauty films and spending too much time on special visual effects, sometimes slowing down the release schedule.

And then to take one of his most important stars away from Santa Barbara!

The Pollards were at a crossroads. Sister Dorothy had been ill and Margarita, ever the dutiful sister, was sole support for her mother, sister, and niece.48 She accepted the contract, even negotiating a contract for Kathie. The Fischers would return to Santa Barbara, but Harry would begin the migrant life of a film director “between engagements” spending time in Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Los Angeles.

The contract negotiations had taken nearly a month, one of the sticking points being who would be Margarita’s director.

It was finally arranged that Lloyd Ingraham would do the job. Margarita had once

played in Lloyd’s stock company back in the road days and this was probably of some consolation to Harry. At least Margarita would be in good hands.

American reintroduced their star with the film, Miss Jackie of the Army, trading both on the popularity of the Pollard Picture Play’s earlier title and the fact that the United States had now entered World War I. On the same day that Margarita began work on the project the studio held a farewell party for four studio employees leaving for service overseas.

The American Film Company was still an important part of Santa Barbara life and motion pictures were listed as the fourth largest product of the county behind petroleum, beans, and sugar beets, but the film industry was changing.49At a surprise party at the Rincon Hotel given on February 12, 1918, for Margarita’s 32nd birth-

The Flying A c.1917, showing the addition of the “Big Glass” studio (in background). This view was photographed from the roof of the studio’s green room that still stands at the corner of Mission and Chapala streets. Collection of the Santa Barbara Historical Museum.

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Miss Jackie of the Army (1917) began Margarita’s third tour with the American Film Company. Santa Barbara’s Glendessary mansion in Mission Canyon served as a location.

day, it’s likely that some discussion took place about the new column running in the Morning Press entitled “Goldwyn Notes” which mentioned various doings down south in Los Angeles. Even in Santa Barbara, a company town for the Flying A, Hollywood was a topic.

Margarita had been welcomed back to the Santa Barbara community with open arms but her third tour with the studio would be her rockiest. New stars were captivating the public, both nationally and locally, and a teenaged Mary Miles Minter was receiving a larger salary than Margarita. Hutchinson felt that a publicity stunt was in order to reclaim some of Margarita’s luster. The studio hit on the idea of having Miss Fischer “do her bit” by denouncing

her perceived Germanic heritage. Although she was of Swiss extraction the studio staged an ad showing Margarita removing the “C” from her name and hurling it back at a map of Germany.

Santa Barbara city directories show that the entire Fischer family removed the offending “C” which Margarita years later would remark was heartbreaking.50 This was happening during the lowest ebb in the Pollard marriage. Although they had been separated for professional reasons the break became official in April when Margarita began divorce proceedings claiming great mental anguish due to Harry’s “habitual intemperance from the use of intoxicating drink,” a situation that had been worsening during the pre-

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vious year.51 A romance that had carried two young people to greater and greater heights since the stock company days at the turn of the century was collapsing in ruins. Harry was now directing one-reel comedies in Los Angeles and all Margarita could do was to soldier on at the Flying A watching younger stars ascend.

Luckily there was plenty to do. Her contract called for a feature every four weeks plus additional promotional work and appearances. Margarita’s contract was renewed for another year in September 1918, but concerns were beginning to be felt regarding the health of the studio and the industry as a whole. By this point there were three separate taxes placed on the film industry due to the war; a ten

percent tax was placed on movie tickets, a five percent tax on the films that were rented by the theaters, and a graduated tax on the theaters themselves based on seating capacity. This would all become moot by mid-October when the devastating influenza epidemic began closing theaters across the country.

This was too much for American’s distributor. Mutual had been in decline since losing Charlie Chaplin earlier in the year. Flying A quit Mutual just in time for the epidemic. Some studios declared a hiatus from production, others pressed on, stockpiling films for later release. On October 24, the Flying A shut down the studio, Margarita’s current project wrapping by noontime.52

Put Up Your Hands (1919). During Margarita and Harry’s estrangement, Miss Fischer, now Fisher, kept up a relentless pace for the Flying A.

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Two weeks later there was a new look in Santa Barbara. The citizens were required to wear masks in public as a perceived protection against the influenza epidemic. Schools, churches, theaters, and other public gathering points were closed. The fall of 1918 had only one silver lining. The war had come to an end in November.

This was perhaps the only solace for Margarita. Her marriage appeared to be over and when production began again in early December she no longer had her trusted director, Lloyd Ingraham, who had left the Flying A for other opportunities. She would now be passed from director to director and saddled with uninspiring scripts.

Margarita, Dorothy, Kathie, and mother Fischer were now all living together at 1811 State Street, all listed in the city directory as “Fisher.” Margarita was spending more and more time on location or making public appearances. In mid-December she found herself in Rosamond near Mojave, California, making Put Up Your Hands with director Ted Sloman. In January, she would be in Phoenix presenting the Margarita Fisher Medal to the parents of a deceased airman who had shot down numerous “Huns.” Then back to Santa Barbara for a new film, Charge It to Me, with a new director, W.W. Neill.

Mutual’s collapse made the distribution of these films difficult, although American could still do well abroad due to the London office. In fact, since the end of the war, the international trade was picking up briskly and Margarita could be seen from China to Brazil. Yet the foreign trade never comprised a large part of the profits for any studio at that time and Hutchinson needed a strong distributor for North America.

A deal was struck with Pathe and a major

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promotional campaign would follow, but the Flying A was now only one of many producers competing for the attention of the public.

At home in Santa Barbara the theaters finally reopened for good on February 12, 1919, Margarita’s 33rd birthday. That same day she began another one-year contract with the studio and yet another director, George Cox, was assigned to the Fischer unit. Cox was a capable director and although none of the Fischer/ Cox films survive to attest to their quality a review from The Harrison’s Reports, a trusted national review agency for theater owners, in ranking the film, Their Mutual Child, called it “an enjoyable high comedy with human appeal, rated suitable for high class audiences.”53 This being said it is still likely that Margarita looked back wistfully to the days when Harry had been her director.

The Pollard divorce became official on May 24. Harry had only contested Margarita’s accusations half-heartedly and failed to show up for the final hearing.54 Margarita could only turn to her work. She could also not help but notice that Hutchinson’s empire was beginning to show signs of stress. American now had only three major stars; rugged and handsome William Russell, Margarita, and teenaged Mary Miles Minter, who was receiving a salary nearly twice that of Margarita and who was looking for more.

She would find it at Paramount and soon departed Santa Barbara. William Russell was entertaining an offer from Fox and the Morning Press no longer ran the “Flying A Notes” column, carrying instead a gossipy column entitled “Who’s Who in Making Films Told in Brief” in which Flying A was seldom mentioned.

In late summer Wid’s Film and Film Folk

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ran a telling article reporting that American would change policy to produce only monthly specials and that “only big stories will be purchased and no star will be featured.” Hutchinson may have felt betrayed by the stars he believed he had made and decided that money spent on properties, preferably those which had already done well as books or magazine stories, was a wiser use of capital. Margarita was put to work on the ironically titled project, Payment Guaranteed.

Hutchinson’s strategy did not go as planned. The same Harrison’s Reports, which had praised earlier efforts, found Payment Guaranteed a poor offering claiming it to be “void of any human interest, humor or suspense.” 55 The film had finished shooting in Santa Barbara on September 27, and perhaps Margarita’s heart had never been in it. Her archives at Wichita State University hold a very interesting postcard sent to her that August. The card was not mailed to Santa Barbara but to the Lyceum Theater in San Francisco. Though moonlighting up north Margarita was still under contract to the studio until the following February. Director George Cox was off in Los Angeles to line up support talent for Margarita’s next project.

A significant problem faced the American during this period. Since the collapse of Boeseke’s Santa Barbara Motion Picture Company the Flying A had been the only place to work for a hundred miles. Under the old policy with numerous shooting units quickly making two-and three-reelers there was always plenty of work for extras, bit players, and other support staff, but the new bigger projects took far longer to prepare so many of the players found themselves playing the waiting game. In Los Angeles someone wanting to “make good” in the movies could jump from

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studio to studio and, as is the case today, Santa Barbara was an expensive town in which to live and work.

Hutchinson arrived from Chicago in November to, hopefully, lead a Flying A revival. The days of paying writers ten to twenty-five dollars for stories to be turned into one-reelers were a distant memory.

The Bobbs-Merrill Company that controlled the rights to the novel, The House of Toys, by Henry Russell Miller, was asking $4,000 for its use.56 Now actors would come to Santa Barbara for one-picture engagements. Mary Miles Minter was gone and William Russell was packing up as soon as his contract finished. Only Margarita remained to work and watch as a parade of second-tier thespians paraded into town to create ever more expensive and ever less celebrated films.

Santa Barbara’s census for 1920 listed 19,441 souls, an increase of over fifty percent since Allan Dwan had arrived with a small movie company in 1912. The Santa Barbara directory still listed the Fischers at their State Street address but sister Dorothy no longer listed herself as a photoplayer. Although it had been mentioned in the Los Angeles Times the previous December, Santa Barbarans were probably shocked to read on January 10 that Margarita was making plans to leave the Flying A. Her contract was due to expire a month later, but American claimed that she still owed the studio one last picture.

Hutchinson’s company brought suit for breach of contract on February 7 and Margarita countered for unpaid wages.57 The film in question was the ill-fated The House of Toys that was eventually produced with actress Seena Owen and would be one of the very last Flying A films to ever play in Santa Barbara, screening at the California Theatre on July 7, 1920. The lawsuits

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Reconciled and looking forward to the future, Harry and Margarita in 1925. Collection of the author.

would last far longer than the film run and not be settled until late 1923.

On March 3, the Los Angeles Examiner announced, “Margarita Fisher is concluding her contract with the American Company, and is to make a round-the-world tour with a United States Government cinema expedition. Miss Fisher will star in the pictures taken on this trip. They will be largely educational.”

Things had come to an end in Santa Barbara. Harry was somewhere in Los Angeles and as far as the motion picture trade papers were concerned he had dropped from sight. Though the tour did not give her the status she had once taken for granted, it allowed Margarita a chance to step away from many cares.

It was during this period when Harry would also begin to rebuild himself, and a small blurb appeared in Moving Picture News in early 1922 reporting that Harry Pollard who had “been away from screenland for two years” had resurfaced with Universal and was set to direct a fight picture entitled The Leather Pushers.

As is the case with most human affairs which take place outside the realm of celebrity it is not known exactly how or when Harry and Margarita returned to each other but the pair would reunite and as Harry’s quest to become a respected director continued to unfold Margarita would again be known as Margarita Fischer Pollard. Harry moved up the ladder at Universal and in 1925 was entrusted with

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the helm of a two-million-dollar production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the same story he and Margarita had played numerous times on the road and even once done as a film with Margarita in blackface playing Topsy. This time Universal would spare no expense and Margarita would take the starring role of Eliza. It would be her last screen appearance, a final victory before retiring to private life.

In an interesting quirk of fate the very last “new” film released by the American Film Company would be a project that had finished shooting in 1919 but been shelved until March of 1921, Margarita’s Payment Guaranteed. Hutchinson’s once proud company was nearing its end. Numerous stars and directors who would later make their name in Hollywood had cut their teeth at Santa Barbara’s Flying A, but the company itself had outlived its usefulness to the industry.

Harry would continue to direct for Universal and then move to MGM. The Pollards would purchase a fifty-acre cit-

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rus ranch near San Diego in the town of Vista for the infrequent times when Harry could take a break from directing assignments. He had made the transition to sound pictures without a hitch and was busier than ever. In 1934, at the age of only fifty-five, Harry would suffer a heart attack and Margarita would find herself alone once more. A romance that had begun before Hollywood had ever produced a movie had finally come to an end.

Margarita Fischer Pollard would continue to live in Vista until her death in 1975, occasionally appearing at functions celebrating the early days of the movies, granting interviews to the papers whose writers only cared to know if she had ever worked with D.W. Griffith or partied with Charlie Chaplin. Yet if they had been wise enough to ask, they could have learned a tremendous amount about an infant industry that would someday become the nation’s face to the world from the first lady of the Flying A.

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•notes• 1 Letter, Margarita Fischer to Mrs. Borah, 28 August 1966, Margarita Fischer Collection, Wichita State University Special Collections.

2 Letter, Margarita Fischer to Mr. Whelton, undated draft, Fischer Collection.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 The Moving Picture World, November 1913.

6 Telegram, 15 October 1909, Fischer Collection.

7 Fischer Collection.

8 New York Dramatic Mirror, 24 March 1910.

9 The Moving Picture World, 28 May 1910.

10 The Moving Picture World, 11 April 1911.

11 The Santa Fe New Mexican, 16 November 1910.

12 The Santa Fe New Mexican, 17 November 1910.

13 The Santa Fe New Mexican,21 December 1910.

14 Letter, H. H. Buckwalter to William Selig, 1 February 1911, Selig Collection, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Herrick Library, Los Angeles, CA. 15 Tucson Citizen, 17 December 1910.

16 Fischer Collection.

17 Ibid.

18 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 4 July 1914.

19 Photograph collection, La Mesa Historical Society.

20 Allan Dwan, interview with author, 7 September 1978.

21 Night Letter, Dwan to Selig, 12 April 1913, Selig Collection.

22 Fischer Collection.

23 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 11 February 1914.

24 Letter, Richard Nehls to Harry Pollard, 3 January 1914, Fischer Collection.

25 Motography, 7 February 1914.

26 Motography, 21 April 1914.

27 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 6 February, 1914.

28 Photoplay Magazine, May, 1914.

29 Letter, Mr. Dayton to Margarita Fischer, 6 January 1914, Fischer Collection.

30 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 12 April; 14 April 1914.

31 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 14 May 1914.

32 Roy Overbaugh, interview with W. Edwin Gledhill, 3 February 1954, Santa Barbara Historical Museum.

33 Freuler Collection, Chicago History Museum.

34 Motography, Film Market Quotations columns, 1915.

35 Santa Barbara City Directory, 1914/15.

36 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 16 March 1915.

37 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 17 March 1915.

38 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 26 March 1915.

39 Wid’s Film and Film Folk , 9 September 1915.

40 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 26 January 1916.

41 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 10 March 1915.

42 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 27 April 1915.

43 Motography, 11 September 1915.

44 Chicago Tribune, 23 March 1916.

45 Chicago Tribune, 12 December 1916.

NOTICIAS

32

46 Letter, S.S. Hutchinson to Harry Pollard, 12 March 1917, Fischer Collection.

47 Letter, Willis & Inglis to Mrs. and Mr. Pollard, 13 August 1917, Fischer Collection.

48 Letter, Margarita Fischer to Mr. Whelton, undated draft, Fischer Collection.

49 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 4 November 1917.

50 Letter, Margarita Fischer to Mr. Whelton, undated draft, Fischer Collection.

51 Case #11274, Santa Barbara County Court, 31 March 1918.

52 Morning Press (Santa Barbara), 24 October 1918.

53 Harrison Reports, 1921, author’s notes, 8 December 2005, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. 54 Case #11274, Santa Barbara County Court, 24 May 1919.

55 Harrison Reports, 1921, author’s notes, 8 December 2005, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY. 56 Freuler Collection, Chicago History Museum.

57 Case #13085, Santa Barbara County Court, 24 April 1922.

Withering Roses (1914), the first Beauty film.

Santa Barbara Historical Museum 2008 La Fiesta del Museo Contributors The Santa Barbara Historical Museum Board of Trustees wishes to acknowledge the generous support of the following for making this event possible: Patrons The Barkley Fund Bella Vista Designs, Inc. Leslie & Philip Bernstein Richard G. Croft, Jr. Astrid & Lawrence Hammett Perri Harcourt Leslie & Harry Hovey Fredericka & Derk Hunter Jedlicka’s Saddlery / Karen & Si Jenkins Lorinda & Richard A.M.C. Johnson Marlene & Warren Miller Jane Mueller Nett & Champion Insurance Services The Rord Foundation / Janet & Edgar Sands Eleanor Van Cott Ventura Party Rentals Patricia & Nicholas Weber John C. Woodward Benefactors Catherine Butts Constance & Gordon Fish Adrienne & Bernard Girod Ingrid & Frederic Ingram Kathleen & John Moseley Ann & Donald Petroni Heloise & Alexander Power F. Michael Rogers Silent Auction Contributors Baroncelli Linens Beckman Vineyards Brander Vineyards Bridlewood Winery Brothers Restaurant at Mattei’s Tavern Buttonwood Farm Winery & Vineyard California Homes Magazine Calla Gold Jewelry Cambria Estate Winery & Vineyard Canary Hotel C’est Cheese Chumash Casino Resort Circle Bar B Dinner Theatre Circle Bar B Guest Ranch Coldwater Creek Condor Express Nancie Taylor-Daley & John Daley Marilyn & Patrick DeYoung

Eladio’s Restaurant Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort Fess Parker’s Wine Country Inn & Spa Foley Estates Vineyards & Winery Four Seasons Biltmore Foxen Winery & Vineyards Franciscan Inn Ellie Freudenstein Ganna Walska Lotusland Glamour House S. R. Hogue & Company Hotel Bel-Air Leslie & Harry Hovey Ray Hunter Larry Iwerks Jedlicka’s Saddlery Lake Arrowhead Resort & Spa Lucas & Lewellen Vineyards Lucky’s Restaurant Keith J. Mautino Mondial Montecito Inn Jane Mueller Ojai Valley Inn & Spa One on One Fitness Rideau Winery & Vineyards Kenneth Riley Sanford Winery & Vineyards Richard Schloss Robin Schutte SEA Landing See’s Candies Simpson House Inn Sorrell Design Sunstone Vineyards & Winery Tecolote Book Shop The Chesterfield Mayfair The Stationery Collection The Upham Hotel & Country House Tiffany & Co. Trader Joe’s Tre Lune Two Bunch Palms Resort & Spa Marlene & James Vitanza / Peregrine Galleries Diane & Ralph Waterhouse / Waterhouse Gallery Katie & Fred Williamson Wine Cask Zaca Mesa Winery & Vineyards

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