Rob Wagner's Script
Encyclopedia
Robert Leicester Wagner was the editor and publisher of Script, a weekly literary film magazine published in Beverly Hills, California
, between 1929 and 1949.
Rob Wagner was a magazine writer, screenwriter, director and artist before founding the liberal magazine that focused its coverage on the film industry and California and national politics. Its leftist leanings attracted many of the best artists and writers during the Depression.
, on August 2, 1872, Wagner graduated from the University of Michigan
with an engineering degree in 1894. He worked as an illustrator for the Detroit Free Press before moving to New York in 1897 to illustrate magazine covers. He served as art director
for The Criterion, a literary magazine
considered the forerunner to the New Yorker
. His illustrations of coverage of the Spanish-American War
and the rising star of Theodore Roosevelt
increased circulation and gave considerable weight to the magazine's political commentary
and coverage.
In 1900, he moved to London to work as an art director for the Encyclopædia Britannica
. He returned to Detroit in 1903 to marry Jessie Brodhead, and then moved to Paris to study art. In 1903-04 he studied at Academies Julian and Delacluse, initially working in charcoal before focusing on oil portraits. When he returned to Detroit he took commissions to paint portraits of the city's high society
families.
In 1906, he moved to Santa Barbara, California
, when Jessie, who was suffering from tuberculosis, could no longer endure the harsh Michigan winters. In Santa Barbara Wagner continued taking commissions for portraits. The couple had two sons, but Jessie's health deteriorated rapidly, and she died the year they arrived at the age of 28. With two young motherless boys, Wagner left them with his own mother, Mary Leicester Wagner, in Santa Barbara and opened a studio on South Figueroa Street
in Los Angeles to pursue his art.
explored the bohemian lifestyle of a Los Angeles artist and his two young sons. Wagner's own sons, Leicester ("Les") and Thornton, played themselves in the film, which also featured dozens of Wagner's original oil portraits. In this period, Wagner taught for a number of years at the Manual Arts High School
, where his students included Frank Capra
, Jimmy Doolittle
and Leland Curtis
. Wagner went on to write scenarios for Charles Ray
, Hal Roach
and Mack Sennett
, and wrote and directed films for Will Rogers
, including "Two Wagons, Both Covered" (1924).
In 1914, Wagner married Kansas City newspaperwoman Florence Welch, who told her new husband that he could make a better living writing about the motion picture industry than working as an artist. He covered the film industry writing for the Saturday Evening Post
, Collier's, Liberty, Photoplay and other magazines. His series of articles on the film industry in The Saturday Evening Post resulted in the book, "Film Folk" (1918), one of the first serious examinations of the movie business.
, Mary Pickford
, Charlie Chaplin
and D.W. Griffith co-founded the Motion Picture Relief Fund, which later became the Motion Picture & Television Fund
, to provide financial aid to film industry workers who fell on hard times. The creation of the program eventually led to the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
retirement facility in Woodland Hills. Acquisition of the 48 acres (194,249.3 m²) of land and building started in 1940.
Wagner was an original member of the Board of Trustees. Other members included Harold Lloyd
, William S. Hart
, Jesse L. Lasky
, Rupert Hughes
, Irving Thalberg
and Mae Murray
among others.
, Walt Disney
, William Saroyan
, Ogden Nash
, Dalton Trumbo
, Chaplin, Hughes, William DeMille
, Ray Bradbury
, Leo Politi
and Stanton MacDonald-Wright among others wrote for the magazine. Bradbury was a regular contributor with a series of short stories from about 1940 through 1947. MacDonald-Wright provided art reviews. Gladys Robinson, wife of actor Edward G. Robinson
, wrote a Hollywood gossip column. Script was liberal, witty and fond of tweaking the noses of the country's movers and shakers.
, the postwar resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and questioning the wisdom of interning Japanese-Americans. Wagner had written extensively for Socialist publications in the first decades of the 20th century and his liberal views were reflected in his columns and interviews with leftists Upton Sinclair, Max Eastman and William DeMille. The magazine also conducted extensive interviews with Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky in 1938. Script also published articles written by blacklisted screenwriters, including Trumbo and Gordon Kahn.
Politi, the magazine's art director, often used the illustrations of his Mexican child characters, Pancho and Rosa, to advocate pacifist and anti-fascist arguments.
against him by claiming his radical economic policies would bankrupt the movie studios. Wagner was an ardent Socialist but didn't overtly advocate Socialism in the magazine. He was responsible for shaping into words Charlie Chaplin's leftist leanings by introducing him to Sinclair and Max Eastman
. During Sinclair's campaign for governor, his balanced coverage nearly sank the magazine as advertisers and subscribers began to pull out.
Still, the magazine's free-thinking attitudes appealed to most of its readers. The magazine, with a circulation that never rose above 50,000, was illustrated with cartoons from various contributors. The art often were unrelated to the articles and only occasional photographs beyond the covers were used.
and later a war correspondent
for the Office of War Information in India, took over the editing duties until his India assignment in 1944. Under Les Wagner, the magazine took on a more news-oriented approach. It took up populist causes and critiqued local media, often criticizing as fascist Hearst newspaper coverage and editorials on Constitutional issues and the civil rights of Mexican- and Japanese-Americans. In 1943, Script published editorials defending Charlie Chaplin, who was named as a defendant in a paternity lawsuit by Joan Barry, while Los Angeles newspapers were critical of the filmmaker. Blood tests ultimately determined that Chaplin did not father Barry's child. In 1944-45, Wagner filed dispatches for Script from Calcutta, India, on U.S. and British forces in the China-Burma-India Theater.
Florence Wagner kept the magazine going, but it lost much of its punch because the personality of the publication was driven by Rob Wagner. In March 1947, she sold the magazine to Robert Smith, the general manager of the original Los Angeles Daily News. Smith brought in new writers that added new voices and a much needed lift in film comment. Smith also arranged to have Salvador Dali
contribute cover illustrations. While the publication's circulation rose to its pre-war levels of 50,000, it failed to attract the necessary advertising. It folded in 1949. Les Wagner died in 1965 in South Laguna Beach, Calif. Florence Wagner died in 1971 in La Jolla, Calif.
Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...
, between 1929 and 1949.
Rob Wagner was a magazine writer, screenwriter, director and artist before founding the liberal magazine that focused its coverage on the film industry and California and national politics. Its leftist leanings attracted many of the best artists and writers during the Depression.
Early years
Born in Detroit, MichiganDetroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
, on August 2, 1872, Wagner graduated from the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
with an engineering degree in 1894. He worked as an illustrator for the Detroit Free Press before moving to New York in 1897 to illustrate magazine covers. He served as art director
Art director
The art director is a person who supervise the creative process of a design.The term 'art director' is a blanket title for a variety of similar job functions in advertising, publishing, film and television, the Internet, and video games....
for The Criterion, a literary magazine
Literary magazine
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
considered the forerunner to the New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
. His illustrations of coverage of the Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
and the rising star of Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
increased circulation and gave considerable weight to the magazine's political commentary
Political criticism
Political criticism is criticism that is specific of or relevant to politics, including policies, politicians, political parties, and types of government.-Controversy:...
and coverage.
In 1900, he moved to London to work as an art director for the Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
. He returned to Detroit in 1903 to marry Jessie Brodhead, and then moved to Paris to study art. In 1903-04 he studied at Academies Julian and Delacluse, initially working in charcoal before focusing on oil portraits. When he returned to Detroit he took commissions to paint portraits of the city's high society
Upper class
In social science, the "upper class" is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.- Historical meaning :...
families.
In 1906, he moved to Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
, when Jessie, who was suffering from tuberculosis, could no longer endure the harsh Michigan winters. In Santa Barbara Wagner continued taking commissions for portraits. The couple had two sons, but Jessie's health deteriorated rapidly, and she died the year they arrived at the age of 28. With two young motherless boys, Wagner left them with his own mother, Mary Leicester Wagner, in Santa Barbara and opened a studio on South Figueroa Street
Figueroa Street
Figueroa Street is a street in Los Angeles County, California named for General José Figueroa , governor of Alta California from 1833 to 1835, who oversaw the secularization of the missions of California...
in Los Angeles to pursue his art.
Motion picture background
Instead, he became intrigued with motion pictures as an art form. He wrote his first scenario for “The Artist's Sons” in 1911. The semi-autobiographical two-reel film produced by Selig StudiosSelig Polyscope Company
The Selig Polyscope Company was an American motion picture company founded in 1896 by William Selig in Chicago, Illinois. Selig Polyscope is noted for establishing Southern California's first permanent movie studio, in the historic Edendale district of Los Angeles...
explored the bohemian lifestyle of a Los Angeles artist and his two young sons. Wagner's own sons, Leicester ("Les") and Thornton, played themselves in the film, which also featured dozens of Wagner's original oil portraits. In this period, Wagner taught for a number of years at the Manual Arts High School
Manual Arts High School
Manual Arts High School is a secondary school in Los Angeles, California. When founded, Manual Arts was a vocational high school, but later converted to a traditional curriculum.-History:...
, where his students included Frank Capra
Frank Capra
Frank Russell Capra was a Sicilian-born American film director. He emigrated to the U.S. when he was six, and eventually became a creative force behind major award-winning films during the 1930s and 1940s...
, Jimmy Doolittle
Jimmy Doolittle
General James Harold "Jimmy" Doolittle, USAF was an American aviation pioneer. Doolittle served as a brigadier general, major general and lieutenant general in the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War...
and Leland Curtis
Leland Curtis
Leland S. Curtis was an American artist, mountaineer, skier, environmentalist and Antarctic explorer.He was born in Denver, Colorado, and lived in Seattle, Washington as a child. He moved to Los Angeles in 1914 and attended the Manual Arts High School, where he studied under artist and...
. Wagner went on to write scenarios for Charles Ray
Charles Ray
Charles Ray was a silent film star. Extremely popular in a series of films casting him in juvenile roles, primarily rural young men, Ray's career faded as he lost his youthful looks- he also had a reputation of being demanding and having an outsized ego...
, Hal Roach
Hal Roach
Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. was an American film and television producer and director, and from the 1910s to the 1990s.- Early life and career :Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York...
and Mack Sennett
Mack Sennett
Mack Sennett was a Canadian-born American director and was known as the innovator of slapstick comedy in film. During his lifetime he was known at times as the "King of Comedy"...
, and wrote and directed films for Will Rogers
Will Rogers
William "Will" Penn Adair Rogers was an American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, film actor, and one of the world's best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s....
, including "Two Wagons, Both Covered" (1924).
In 1914, Wagner married Kansas City newspaperwoman Florence Welch, who told her new husband that he could make a better living writing about the motion picture industry than working as an artist. He covered the film industry writing for the Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
, Collier's, Liberty, Photoplay and other magazines. His series of articles on the film industry in The Saturday Evening Post resulted in the book, "Film Folk" (1918), one of the first serious examinations of the movie business.
Motion Picture & Television Fund
In 1921, Wagner, Douglas FairbanksDouglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
, Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
, Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
and D.W. Griffith co-founded the Motion Picture Relief Fund, which later became the Motion Picture & Television Fund
Motion Picture & Television Fund
The Motion Picture & Television Fund is a charitable organization that offers assistance and care to those in the motion picture and television industries with limited or no resources...
, to provide financial aid to film industry workers who fell on hard times. The creation of the program eventually led to the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
The Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital is a retirement community, with individual cottages, and a fully licensed, acute-care hospital, located at 23388 Mulholland Drive in Woodland Hills, California...
retirement facility in Woodland Hills. Acquisition of the 48 acres (194,249.3 m²) of land and building started in 1940.
Wagner was an original member of the Board of Trustees. Other members included Harold Lloyd
Harold Lloyd
Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. was an American film actor and producer, most famous for his silent comedies....
, William S. Hart
William S. Hart
William Surrey Hart was an American silent film actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He is remembered for having "imbued all of his characters with honor and integrity."-Biography:...
, Jesse L. Lasky
Jesse L. Lasky
Jesse Louis Lasky, Sr. was a pioneer Hollywood film producer. He was a key founder of Paramount Pictures with Adolph Zukor, and father of screenwriter Jesse L...
, Rupert Hughes
Rupert Hughes
Rupert Hughes was an American historian, novelist, film director and composer based in Hollywood. Hughes was born in Lancaster, Missouri. His parents were Felix Turner Hughes and Jean Amelia Summerlin, who were married in 1865. His brother Howard R. Hughes, Sr., co-founded the Hughes Tool Company....
, Irving Thalberg
Irving Thalberg
Irving Grant Thalberg was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and his extraordinary ability to select the right scripts, choose the right actors, gather the best production staff and make very profitable films.-Life and...
and Mae Murray
Mae Murray
Mae Murray was an American actress, dancer, film producer, and screenwriter. Murray rose to fame during the silent film era and was known as "The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips" and "The Gardenia of the Screen"....
among others.
Script
The Wagners founded Script in February 1929 and enlisted noted writers and film people to contribute articles without pay. Edgar Rice BurroughsEdgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Rice Burroughs was an American author, best known for his creation of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres.-Biography:...
, Walt Disney
Walt Disney
Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...
, William Saroyan
William Saroyan
William Saroyan was an Armenian American dramatist and author. The setting of many of his stories and plays is the center of Armenian-American life in California in his native Fresno.-Early years:...
, Ogden Nash
Ogden Nash
Frederic Ogden Nash was an American poet well known for his light verse. At the time of his death in 1971, the New York Times said his "droll verse with its unconventional rhymes made him the country's best-known producer of humorous poetry".-Early life:Nash was born in Rye, New York...
, Dalton Trumbo
Dalton Trumbo
James Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter and novelist, and one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of film professionals who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry...
, Chaplin, Hughes, William DeMille
William C. DeMille
Willam C. deMille was an American screenwriter and film director from the silent movie era through the early 1930s. He was also a noted playwright prior to moving into film. Once he was established in film he specialized in adapting Broadway plays into silent films...
, Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...
, Leo Politi
Leo Politi
Leo Politi was an Italian-American artist and author who wrote and illustrated some 20 children's books, as well as Bunker Hill, Los Angeles , intended for adults...
and Stanton MacDonald-Wright among others wrote for the magazine. Bradbury was a regular contributor with a series of short stories from about 1940 through 1947. MacDonald-Wright provided art reviews. Gladys Robinson, wife of actor Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson was a Romanian-born American actor. A popular star during Hollywood's Golden Age, he is best remembered for his roles as gangsters, such as Rico in his star-making film Little Caesar and as Rocco in Key Largo...
, wrote a Hollywood gossip column. Script was liberal, witty and fond of tweaking the noses of the country's movers and shakers.
Leftist leanings
The magazine was a supporter of Franklin Roosevelt's policies. As the world teetered on the brink of war, it often took a pacifist tone. And its wartime domestic coverage took on unpopular causes such as defending the rights of Mexican-Americans during the Los Angeles Zoot Suit riotsZoot Suit Riots
The Zoot Suit Riots were a series of riots in 1943 during World War II that erupted in Los Angeles, California between white sailors and Marines stationed throughout thehi c mlc city and Latino youths, who were recognizable by the zoot suits they favored...
, the postwar resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and questioning the wisdom of interning Japanese-Americans. Wagner had written extensively for Socialist publications in the first decades of the 20th century and his liberal views were reflected in his columns and interviews with leftists Upton Sinclair, Max Eastman and William DeMille. The magazine also conducted extensive interviews with Communist revolutionary Leon Trotsky in 1938. Script also published articles written by blacklisted screenwriters, including Trumbo and Gordon Kahn.
Politi, the magazine's art director, often used the illustrations of his Mexican child characters, Pancho and Rosa, to advocate pacifist and anti-fascist arguments.
Upton Sinclair association
During the 1934 California gubernatorial campaign, Script gave considerable editorial space to Upton Sinclair's candidacy while the rest of the film community waged a smear campaignSmear campaign
A smear campaign, smear tactic or simply smear is a metaphor for activity that can harm an individual or group's reputation by conflation with a stigmatized group...
against him by claiming his radical economic policies would bankrupt the movie studios. Wagner was an ardent Socialist but didn't overtly advocate Socialism in the magazine. He was responsible for shaping into words Charlie Chaplin's leftist leanings by introducing him to Sinclair and Max Eastman
Max Eastman
Max Forrester Eastman was an American writer on literature, philosophy and society, a poet, and a prominent political activist. For many years, Eastman was a supporter of socialism, a leading patron of the Harlem Renaissance and an activist for a number of liberal and radical causes...
. During Sinclair's campaign for governor, his balanced coverage nearly sank the magazine as advertisers and subscribers began to pull out.
Still, the magazine's free-thinking attitudes appealed to most of its readers. The magazine, with a circulation that never rose above 50,000, was illustrated with cartoons from various contributors. The art often were unrelated to the articles and only occasional photographs beyond the covers were used.
Scripts demise
Wagner died of a heart attack on July 20, 1942, less than two weeks before his 70th birthday, in Santa Barbara. His son, Les, a reporter for the original Los Angeles Daily NewsLos Angeles Daily News
The Los Angeles Daily News is the second-largest circulating daily newspaper of Los Angeles, California. It is the flagship of the Los Angeles Newspaper Group, a branch of Colorado-based MediaNews Group....
and later a war correspondent
War correspondent
A war correspondent is a journalist who covers stories firsthand from a war zone. In the 19th century they were also called Special Correspondents.-Methods:...
for the Office of War Information in India, took over the editing duties until his India assignment in 1944. Under Les Wagner, the magazine took on a more news-oriented approach. It took up populist causes and critiqued local media, often criticizing as fascist Hearst newspaper coverage and editorials on Constitutional issues and the civil rights of Mexican- and Japanese-Americans. In 1943, Script published editorials defending Charlie Chaplin, who was named as a defendant in a paternity lawsuit by Joan Barry, while Los Angeles newspapers were critical of the filmmaker. Blood tests ultimately determined that Chaplin did not father Barry's child. In 1944-45, Wagner filed dispatches for Script from Calcutta, India, on U.S. and British forces in the China-Burma-India Theater.
Florence Wagner kept the magazine going, but it lost much of its punch because the personality of the publication was driven by Rob Wagner. In March 1947, she sold the magazine to Robert Smith, the general manager of the original Los Angeles Daily News. Smith brought in new writers that added new voices and a much needed lift in film comment. Smith also arranged to have Salvador Dali
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
contribute cover illustrations. While the publication's circulation rose to its pre-war levels of 50,000, it failed to attract the necessary advertising. It folded in 1949. Les Wagner died in 1965 in South Laguna Beach, Calif. Florence Wagner died in 1971 in La Jolla, Calif.
Filmography
The Artist's Sons (writer) (1911), Our Wonderful Schools (director/writer) (1915), Mabel, Fatty and the Law (writer) (1915), A Yoke of Gold (writer) (1916), A Dog's Life (actor) (1918), Dangerous Business (writer) (1920), R.S.V.P. (writer) (1921), Smudge (writer) (1922), Gee Whiz, Genevieve (additional gags) (1924), Two Wagons, Both Covered (director/writer) (1924), Going to Congress (director) (1924), High Brow Stuff (director) (1924), Our Congressman (director) (1924), It's a Bear (assistant director) (1924), Fair Week (director) (1924), Smilin' at Trouble (writer) (1925), Heads Up (writer) (1925), So This Is Paris (titles) (1926), Ladies at Ease (writer) (1927) and Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly? (writer) (1928)Sources
- The Best of Rob Wagner's Script by Anthony Slide (1985)
- Tramp: The Life of Charlie Chaplin by Joyce Milton (1998)
- Rob Wagner's Beverly Hills Script (Vol. I)
- Rob Wagner's Script (Vols. II-IV)