True Life Tuesday: Frances Marion

Born Marion Benson Owens on November 18, 1888 in San Francisco, California. Her parents were Minnie Benson and Len Douglas Owens. Her father was an advertising and billboard executive who would later develop the Aetna Springs resort in Pope Valley, California. She was the middle child with an older sister - Maude - and a younger brother - Len. At the age of 12 she was expelled from her elementary school for drawing a cartoon of her teacher. She was then sent to a school in San Mateo and then to Mark Hopkins Art Institute at 16. She attended the school until it was destroyed by the fire that started during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. 

From 1907-11 she was employed as an assistant to photographer Arnold Genthe in San Francisco. She moved to Los Angeles in 1912 where she was a poster artist for the Morosco Theater. In 1914 she was hired as a writer, assistant and actress by Lois Weber Productions. Lois Weber was pioneer film director. When Weber moved to Universal Pictures so wanted to bring Frances with her but she declined. She was then offered a took a job offered to her by Mary Pickford at Famous Players-Lasky. While there she sold the script for The Foundling to Adolph Zucker for $125. While in New York City for the film's premier she applied to work as a writer at World Films. She soon became the head of the writing department where she was credited with writing over 50 films. In 1917 she left New York to go back to California and Famous Players-Lasky as Mary Pickford's official scenarioist for $50,000 per year. Frances also worked as a journalist during World War I. She was the first woman to cross the Rhine after the armistice. When she returned from Europe she worked at Cosmopolitan Productions, owned by William Randolph Hearst, for $2,000 per week. It was here that she began directing when her best friend Mary Pickford asked for her. 

Frances won an Oscar in 1931 for writing for The Big House and in 1932 for best story for The Champ. She was credited with over 30 scripts and 130 produced films, She was married four time to Wesley de Lappe, Robert Pike, Fred Thomson and George Hill. She had two sons with Fred Thomson, Richard and Frederick. In 1945 her novel, Molly, Bless Her, was adopted into a film, Molly and Me, by Roger Burford and directed by Lewis Seller. In 1946 she left Hollywood to focus on writing stage plays and novels. She published her memoir, Off With Their Heads: A Serio-Comic Tale of Hollywood in 1972. She died of a ruptured aneurysm on May 12, 1973.