Who is The Life and Movies of Douglas Fairbanks Sr - The King of Hollywood

Douglas Elton Ullman was born on May 23, 1883 in Denver Colorado where his attorney father Hezekiah Charles Ullman had a law practice and minining interests. In 1888 Hezikiah Ullman walked out leaving Douglas' mother Ella to bring up the family who reverted to the name Fairbanks, the surname of her dead first husband.

Douglas Fairbanks began acting in Denver am dram before moving to New York with a Broadway debut in 1902. Like many aspiring actors, Douglas had a second job: he was a store clerk.

In 1907 Doug married Anna Beth Sully with whom he had one son, Douglas Fairbanks Jr - born December 9, 1909. The family moved to California in 1915 but Fairbanks and Scully divorced in 1918, although legal disputes rumbled on for a couple of years. Douglas Fairbanks Jr lived with his mother, but his father Douglas Fairbanks Senior and his [Sr] wife Mary Pickford encouraged Douglas Jr to follow his own acting career.

Douglas Fairbanks signed a film contract with Triangle Pictures in 1915, mostly filimg comedies, with short films like The Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1915) and Headin' South (1918). After the end of the Great War, the output broadened somewhat with Westerns like The Knickerbocker Buckaroo (1919), which was Douglas Fairbanks' list contactual commitment to Paramount. Free of this contract, he founded his own production company Douglas Fairbanks Pictures Coproration and the much better known United Artists.

Initially he was employed just as an actor but in 1916 he was the screenwriter for one movie, The Good Bad Man. In 1917, he was the writer on 2 out of 7 movies and by late 1918 he was screenwriting most of his movies. His involvement as a producer shows a similar pattern.

The Fairbanks moved into a mansion at 1132 Summit Drive Beverly Hills which was named Pickfair from a contraction of thier surnames - Pickford and Fairbanks. The celebrity coupleof their age, the 22 room Pickfair was the home of some of the most exclsive parties in Hollywood. Douglas and Mary separated in 1933. When they eventually divorced in 1936, Mary Pickford retained the house and lived there with her next husband until her death. By then Pickfair was in a shabby state and was demolished, Many of its contents were auctioned in 2008.

There's a page with some nice photos at SlientsAreGolden.

One of the first 1920s movie classics was Mrsk of Zorro, with Douglas Fairbanks in the starring role as Senñor Zorro, a film which has been remade twice since and remains popular. This 1920 orginal was a silent movie directed by Fred Niblo and made by Douglas Fairbanks' own production company but released through United Artists. The rest of the cast are these days largely forgotten, but if you are interested the Wikipedia article lists the full cast. With his trademark black costume, Zorro paved the way for Batman and the swashbuckling style propelled Douglas Fairbanks into further action roles in films like Robin Hood - before the Mark of Zorro he was known mostly for comedies.

The Decent Films Guide says, "You haven't seen Zorro until you've seen Douglas Fairbanks Sr. as Zorro in the 1920 silent swashbuckling classic The Mark of Zorro."

The next action classic was The Three Musketeers with Douglas Fairbanks starring as D'Artagnan in this first Hoolywood screnplay of the Dumas classic book and directed again by Fred Niblo. There's a full plot write up and a photo of the movie poster over at allmovie.com. Reviews on Rotten Tomatos say "Exuberantly embraces the melodramatic absurdities of Dumas's moral universe " (Steven D Greydanus, Decent Films Guide) and "A barrelful o' fun--probably the best cinematic adaptation of Dumas' source material." (Dan Jardine, All Movie Guide).

Although commonly known as Robin Hood, this 1922 movie was officially given the somewhat cumbersome title of Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hoood, with Fairbanks obviously playing the hero Robin Hood, Earl of Huntingdon. The screenplay established the core plot line which is familar in subsequent versions of Robin Hoodw with well-known characters like Lady Marian, Little John, Friar Tuck and Will Scarlet. They were oppposed by the now usual baddies - Prince John, the High Sheriff of Nottingham and Sir of Gisbourne. A cast list is available on Wikipedia.

At one time, all prints of Robin Hood were believed lost but was rediscovered in the 1960s.

Although a silent, black and white film, the Thief of Bagdad was later hand-tinted to give a color version which can be found on DVDs availavle today. However, rather than buy it, it's better to use the free download on the Internet Archive.

It's a swashbuckling fanasy based on the Arabian Nights with, for the day, lavish production values. Fairbanks regarded it as his favourite movie.

Starring as Douglas Fairbanks as the Duke of Arnoldo ("The Black Pirate"), The Black Pirate (sometimes called The Black Buccaneer) was one of the first movies to be filmed entirely in Technicolor, using the Two Strip method. It's a typical Fairbanks perormance complete lots of stunts and swashbuckling action.

This was the only film Fairbanks released during 1926 but he was also both producer and the original writer (under the pseudonym Elton Thomas), although the final screenplay was by Jack Cunningham.

In the Iron Mask, Douglas Fairbanks reprised the rôle of D'Artagnan from The Three Musketeers and had the tagline 'The Further Adventures of "The Three Musketeers'. It has mostly played as a silent movie but sections of dialogue were recorded and some restored versions now include which were located in records cut at the time.

If you buy a version, look carefully for what is one the DVD. The British version is also quite a bit longer than that cut or the American market. Ideally look for a version with a running length of 103 minutes. There is also a version with a voice over commentary by Douglas Fairbanks Jr but this has a reputation for somewhat poor sound quality and many people prefer a version with intertitles.

Fairbanks knew this was to be his final silent film - and probably recognised that it could be his last true classic - so he worked hard for an opimial result. Costumes are lavish and the action is dynamic. At the end of the movie, Fairbanks' character dies in a scene which has poignancy as a harbinger of the end of his acting career as well.