Screenwriter / Artist
1888 – 1973
Frannie is Frances Marion, an American motion picture screenwriter whose 25-year career spanned the silent and sound eras. She is credited with writing 325 scripts of every genre and won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1930 for the film “The Big House” (first woman to win). In 1932 she received the Academy Award for Best Story for “The Champ.”
A former journalist (she was one of the first female war correspondents and the first Allied woman to cross the Rhine in WWI ), Marion entered films as an actress and made the transition to writer in 1915.
She scripted vehicles for Mary Pickford and Marion Davies, among others, and was especially adept at literary (book-to-film ) adaptations. “Stella Dallas” and “The Scarlet Letter” from 1926 are two examples of her work. In the early 1920s Marion directed three films from her own scripts. (Source: TCM)
Extremely well-rounded Marion also painted, sculpted, spoke several languages fluently, and played concert caliber piano.
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Her memoir, ” Off With Their Heads: A Serio-Comic Tale of Hollywood,” was published in 1972. She wanted to call it “Life Is Too Short a Journey,” but her editor liked “Off with Their Heads,” a quote from Alice in Wonderland, connoting the crazy, roller coaster world of Hollywood.
According to the book, “Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood”
Cari Beauchamp, the title also fit Marion’s personality:
When Franny was done with something, it was over: it was always on to the next thing. She rarely talked about the past, it was always ‘What’s new?’
[…] Frannie, a former journalist, was one of the first female war correspondents and the first Allied woman to cross the Rhine in WWI. […]