The history of Hollywood is full of powerful people who are less known today, but who in their time were no less important than studio heads like the four Warner brothers y Louis B. Mayerwhose names are on the water towers and on the main doors. A pair of lesser-known brothers are the focus of Moguls: The Lives and Times of Hollywood Film Pioneers Nicholas and Joseph Schenck (Moguls: Life and Times of Hollywood Film Pioneers Nicholas and Joseph Schenck), written by prolific crime writer Michael Benson and the director Craig Singer.
The Schenck brothers were born in Rybinsk, Russia, and immigrated to the United States in 1892 with their parents and siblings. Nicholas was 12 and Joseph was 16 when the family arrived in New York’s Lower East Side. The brothers sold newspapers and worked in a Bowery pharmacy. Joseph became a licensed pharmacist in 1899. Living in an area with a lot of gang violence, the brothers quickly learned to prepare prescription medications for various ailments. Business was good, and after saving money they bought the pharmacy and opened another location. The Schencks were successful, but they craved more challenges. His interest in the small but intriguing world of motion pictures would soon prove to be a lucrative venture.
Nick was the youngest, a quiet family man, controller of a kingdom who worked hard to keep his name out of the newspapers. Joe was the romantic playboy who had his heart broken by a movie star not once but twice. (Norma Talmadge y Merle Oberonboth supposedly married him for job security). Nick led over 100 corporations. Joe was deeply involved in real estate, helping to build the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood and owning the Del Mar Race Course and a resort in Lake Arrowhead. Nick lived in a “Gatsby-style” estate on Long Island. Joe resided in a mansion overlooking Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Between them, they owned controlling shares in MGM, Twentieth Century-Fox and United Artists.
The Schencks eventually ran an entertainment venue called Palisades Park. The rides were big and dangerous. There was a large “clean” pool in the park that was simply filled with water from the dirty Hudson River. One day, Nick surprised a young man named Eddie Mannix stealing copper from the park and hired him as a problem solver. Mannix would become one of the most important and notorious fixers in Hollywood history. Around this time, the Schencks met the theater owner Marcus Loew. Joe was hired as a booker for Loew’s vaudeville company, and Nick managed the venues.
Benson and Singer list a number of important events to which the Schencks had some proximity, including the scandal of Fatty Arbucklethe founding of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the murder of Thelma Toddthe (hidden) violation of Patricia Douglasthe growing Nazi influence in Los Angeles, the Red Scare and the death of the first live-action Superman on television, George Reeves. (The authors cite an associate who believes Mannix had Reeves murdered.) Nick helped choose Dore Schary to run production at MGM; Schary would later become president of the company, replacing the former king of the place, Mayer.
The Schencks were always close to Jewish gangsters, often bordering on legality themselves. (Joe was convicted of tax evasion). “They were all children of the Bowery and played by the Bowery rules,” Benson and Singer write. Joe even lived next door to Bugsy Siegel in Beverly Hills. The house was complete with a “casting room” hidden behind a bookshelf. It was in this house, according to the authors, that Joe received many visits from Marilyn Monroewhen it was still called Norma Jeane.
“Moguls” is a lively narrative, although it contains at least one glaring historical inaccuracy, in a section on the isolationist-driven US Senate Inquiry into war propaganda in film in 1941, when Hollywood was criticized for make anti-Nazi films, presumably to encourage America’s entry into the war. Nick Schenck was one of those who testified.
Benson and Singer claim that Charlie Chaplin was “called to testify” and “interrogated about his motives in making the film.” The great dictator.” But Chaplin never testified during this investigation. His films were briefly discussed, but he was never officially cited. It is not clear what sources the authors are consulting. The book has no footnotes, and there are multiple instances of citations not listed in the bibliography.
The time is ripe for new work on old Hollywood personalities, made possible by an influx of mostly underused and recently digitized archives. But “Moguls” often draws on older research, making it a mixed bag. The story is certainly never boring, and the authors understandably hope to turn the brothers’ lives into a film or television series. Readers will be entertained by the power and scandal in these corners of Hollywood history.
Fuente: The Washington Post
