Thomas H. Ince
Encyclopedia
Thomas Harper Ince was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

, director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...

, screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

 and producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

 of more than 100 films and pioneering studio mogul. Known as the "Father of the Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...

", he invented many mechanisms of professional movie production, introducing early Hollywood to the "assembly line" system of film making. He wrote the screenplay for The Italian (1915), and directed Civilization
Civilization (film)
Civilization is a 1916 American pacifist allegorical film about a submarine commander who refuses to fire at a civilian ocean liner supposedly carrying ammunition for his country's enemies. The film was a big-budget spectacle that was compared to both Birth of a Nation and the paintings of...

 (1916), both films selected for preservation by the United States National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...

. He was a partner with D.W. Griffith 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"...

 in the Triangle Motion Picture Company
Triangle Film Corporation
Triangle Film Corporation was a major American motion-picture studio, founded in the summer of 1915 in Culver City, California, and envisioned as a prestige studio based on the producing abilities of filmmakers D. W. Griffith, Thomas Ince and Mack Sennett...

, and built his own studios in Culver City, which later became the legendary home of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...

.

Ince is also known for his death aboard the yacht of William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...

; officially he died of heart trouble, but Hollywood rumor of the time suggested he had been shot by Hearst in a dispute over actress Marion Davies
Marion Davies
Marion Davies was an American film actress. Davies is best remembered for her relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, as her high-profile social life often obscured her professional career....

.

Life and career

Born in Newport, Rhode Island
Newport, Rhode Island
Newport is a city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, United States, about south of Providence. Known as a New England summer resort and for the famous Newport Mansions, it is the home of Salve Regina University and Naval Station Newport which houses the United States Naval War...

, Ince was born into a family of stage actors. He was the son of John E. Ince, a comedian who later became a theatrical agent, and his wife, Emma B., an actress. Ince was the middle of three sons; his brothers, John
John Ince (actor)
thumb|John Ince in 1915John Ince, also known as John E. Ince, was an American stage and motion pictures actor, a film director, and the eldest brother of Thomas and Ralph Ince. A leading man from the early 1910s, he also directed and scripted several of his own vehicles...

 and Ralph Ince
Ralph Ince
Ralph Ince , was an American film director, actor and screenwriter of the silent era. He directed 171 films between 1910 and 1937. He also appeared in 110 films between 1907 and 1937....

, were also actors and subsequently became film directors. Ince first appeared on the stage at age six and then worked with a number of stock companies. He made his Broadway debut in 1898 when he was 15 after debuting in Shore Acres. Vaudeville offered work for him, but the work was inconsistent, so he was a lifeguard, a promoter and part-time actor. In 1905 he was hired to work for the Edison Manufacturing Company and formed his own Vaudville company, though with little success. He met his wife, Biograph
Biograph Studios
Biograph Studios was a studio facility and film laboratory complex built in 1912 by the Biograph Company, formerly American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, at 807 E. 175th Street, in the Bronx, New York....

 contract actress Elinor "Nell" Kershaw, when they appeared together in a Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 show, For Love's Sweet Sake in 1906. They were married a year later. With his stage career a failure, however, Ince felt he was headed nowhere as an actor. Before long, through his wife's connections, Ince got a job with Biograph in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. Although he was working exclusively in films, making $5 per day, he was regularly under employed.
In 1910, a chance encounter in New York with an old employee from his acting troupe led Ince to some work at the Independent Motion Pictures Co.
Independent Moving Pictures
The Independent Moving Pictures Company was a movie studio/production company founded in 1909 by Carl Laemmle, and was located at Eleventh Avenue and 53rd Street New York City, and in Fort Lee, New Jersey....

 (IMP). That same year he was given an opportunity to direct when a director at IMP was unable to complete work on a small film. In a precocious moment of bravado, he advanced the idea of working full-time in that capacity to IMP's owner Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle , born in Laupheim, Württemberg, Germany, was a pioneer in American film making and a founder of one of the original major Hollywood movie studios - Universal...

. Impressed with the younger man's pugnacity, Laemmle hired him on the spot, sending him to Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

 to make films out of the reach of the Motion Pictures Patent Company — the trust that was attempting to crush all independent production companies and corner the market on film production. Ince's output, however, was small. And, although he tackled many different of subjects, he was strongly drawn to Westerns and American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 dramas. He wanted to achieve the sort of spectacular effects accomplished with minimal facilities that D.W. Griffith had done. This, he believed, could be accomplished only in Hollywood.

In September 1911, in an attempt to convey the appearance of a successful director by wearing a borrowed suit and a diamond ring he had also borrowed from a local jeweler, Ince walked into the offices of Charles O. Baumann at the New York Motion Picture Co. (NYMP), which had recently decided to establish a West Coast studio to make westerns. The ruse worked, and Ince was offered $100 a week to go to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

.

"This offer came as a distinct shock, but I kept cool and concealed my excitement. I tried to convey the impression that he would have to raise the ante a trifle if he wanted me. That also worked, and I signed a contract for three months at $150 a week. Very soon after that, with Mrs. Ince, my camera man, property man and Ethel Grandin, my leading woman, I turned my face westward."


In November 1911, they arrived at NYMP's small studios at Edendale (later known as Echo Park). It was during this period that Ince began his first steps to revolutionize the filmmaking process as we know it today. Almost instinctively, he hit upon the formula of carefully pre-planning his films on paper (something even Griffith never did) inventing the use of a detailed "shooting script
Shooting script
A shooting script is the version of a screenplay used during the production of a motion picture. Shooting scripts are distinct from spec scripts in that they make use of scene numbers , and they follow a well defined set of procedures specifying how script revisions should be implemented and...

," which also contained information on who was in the scene, and the "scene plot," which listed all interiors and exteriors, cost control plan
Budget
A budget is a financial plan and a list of all planned expenses and revenues. It is a plan for saving, borrowing and spending. A budget is an important concept in microeconomics, which uses a budget line to illustrate the trade-offs between two or more goods...

s and so on, and then meticulously breaking down the shooting schedule
Shooting schedule
A shooting schedule is a project plan of each day's shooting for a film production. It is normally created and managed by the assistant director, who reports to the production manager managing the production schedule...

 so that several scenes could be shot simultaneously by assistant directors.

Inceville - The First Modern Studio

Ince's aspirations, however, soon led him to leave the narrow confines of Edendale and find a location that would give him greater scope and variety. He settled upon a 460 acres (1.9 km²) tract of land known as Bison Ranch located at Sunset Blvd. and Pacific Coast Highway in the Santa Monica hills, which he rented by the day. By 1912 he had earned enough money to purchase the ranch and was granted permission by NYMP to lease another 18000 acres (72.8 km²) in the Palisades Highlands
Palisades Highlands, Los Angeles, California
The Pacific Palisades Highlands is a housing development in Los Angeles, California's Pacific Palisades northern region, located in the upper Santa Ynez Canyon. It consists primarily of large, gated estates along with high-end condominiums along the main road Palisades Drive...

 stretching 7.5 miles (12.1 km) up Santa Ynez Canyon between Santa Monica
Santa Mônica
Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...

 and Malibu.

It is here that Ince built his own studio (which he characteristically named "Inceville"). The studio was the first of its kind in that it featured stages, offices, labs, commissaries (which had to be large enough to serve hundreds of workers their noonday meal), dressing rooms, props houses, elaborate sets, and other necessities all in one location. While the site was still under construction, Ince also hired the Miller Brothers 101 Ranch
Miller Brothers 101 Ranch
The Miller Brothers 101 Ranch was an cattle ranch in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma before statehood. Located near modern-day Ponca City, it was founded by Colonel George Washington Miller, a veteran of the Confederate Army, in 1893. The 101 Ranch was the birthplace of the 101 Ranch Wild West...

 Wildwest Show, including many cowboys, horses, cattle, and a whole Sioux
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...

 Indian tribe, who set up their teepees on the property. When construction was finally completed, the streets were lined with many types of structures, from humble cottages to mansions, designed in the style and architecture of different countries. Extensive outdoor western sets were also built and used on the site for a number of years. According to Katherine La Hue in her book, Pacific Palisades: Where the Mountains Meet the Sea:

"Ince invested $35,000 in building, stages and sets ... a bit of Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

, a Puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...

 settlement, a Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese village ... beyond the breakers, an ancient brigantine
Brigantine
In sailing, a brigantine or hermaphrodite brig is a vessel with two masts, only the forward of which is square rigged.-Origins of the term:...

 weighed anchor, cutlassed men swarming over the sides of the ship, while on the shore performing cowboys galloped about, twirling their lassos in pursuit of errant cattle ... The main herds were kept in the hills, where Ince also raised feed and garden produce. Supplies of every sort were needed to house and feed a veritable army of actors, directors and subordinates."


Most of the Cowboys, American Indians
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 and assorted workmen lived at "Inceville", while the actors came from Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

 and other communities as needed, taking the red trolley cars
Pacific Electric Railway
The Pacific Electric Railway , also known as the Red Car system, was a mass transit system in Southern California using streetcars, light rail, and buses...

 to the Long Wharf at Potrero Canyon, where buckboards conveyed them to the set.

Ince himself lived in a house that overlooked the vast studio, the location of Marquez Knolls today. Here he functioned as the central authority over multiple production units changing the way films were made, organizing production methods into a disciplined system of filmmaking. "Inceville" became a prototype for Hollywood film studios of the future, with a studio head (Ince), producers, directors, managers, production staff, and writers all working together under one organization (the unit system) and under the supervision of General Manager Fred J. Balshofer
Fred J. Balshofer
Fred J. Balshofer was an American pioneer silent film director, producer, screenwriter, and cinematographer.-Biography:...

.

Before his time, the director and cameraman
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...

 controlled the production of the picture, but Ince put the producer
Film producer
A film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...

 in charge of the film from inception to final product. He defined the producer's role in both a creative and industrial sense. He was also one of the first to hire a separate screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

, director, and editor
Film editing
Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling...

 (instead of doing everything himself). In 1913, the concept of the production manager
Production management
Theatrical production management is a sub-division of stagecraft. The production management team is responsible for realizing the visions of the producer and the director or choreographer within constraints of technical possibility...

 was created. With the aid of George Stout, an accountant
Accountant
An accountant is a practitioner of accountancy or accounting , which is the measurement, disclosure or provision of assurance about financial information that helps managers, investors, tax authorities and others make decisions about allocating resources.The Big Four auditors are the largest...

 for NYMP, Ince reorganized how films were outputted in order to bring discipline to the process. The studio's weekly output increased from one to two, and later three two-reel pictures a week, released under such names as "Kay-Bee," "Domino," and "Broncho" productions. These were written, produced, cut, and assembled, with the finished product delivered within a week. By enabling more than one film to be made at a time Ince decentralized the process of movie production to meet the increased demand from theaters. This was the dawning of the assembly-line system that all studios would eventually adopt.

With this model, developed between 1913 and 1918, Ince gradually exercised even more control over the film production process as a director-general. In 1913 alone, he made over 150 two-reeler movies, mostly Westerns, thereby anchoring the popularity of the genre for decades. While many of Ince's films were praised in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, many American critics did not share this high opinion. One such picture was Battle of Gettysburg (1913), which was five reels long. The film did, however, help bring into vogue the idea of the feature-length film. Another important early film for Ince was The Italian (1915), which depicted immigrant life in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 City. Two of his most successful films were among his first, War on the Plains (1912) and Custer's Last Fight
Custer's Last Fight
The silent film Custer's Last Fight is the first movie about George Armstrong Custer and his final stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It was shot in Inceville, Santa Ynez Canyon and Los Angeles, California.- Cast :...

 (1912), which featured many Indians who had actually been in battle.

Even though he was the first producer-director and directed most of his early productions, by 1913 Ince eventually ceased full-time directing to concentrate on producing, giving up this responsibility to such proteges as Francis Ford
Francis Ford (actor)
Francis Ford was a prolific film actor, writer, and director. He was the older brother of film director John Ford. He also appeared in many of John Ford's movies, including Young Mr. Lincoln and The Quiet Man.He starred in the 1912 two-reeler The Deserter by Thomas H. Ince and acted in over 400...

, his brother John
John Ford
John Ford was an American film director. He was famous for both his westerns such as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and adaptations of such classic 20th-century American novels as The Grapes of Wrath...

, Jack Conway, William Desmond Taylor
William Desmond Taylor
William Desmond Taylor was an Irish-born American actor, successful film director of silent movies and a popular figure in the growing Hollywood film colony of the 1910s and early 1920s...

, Fred Niblo
Fred Niblo
Fred Niblo was an American pioneer film actor, director and producer.-Biography:He was born Frederick Liedtke in York, Nebraska, to a French mother and a father who had served as a captain in the American Civil War and was wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg...

, Henry King
Henry King (director)
Henry King was an American film director.Before coming to film, King worked as an actor in various repertoire theatres, and first started to take small film roles in 1912. He directed for the first time in 1915, and grew to become one of the most commercially successful Hollywood directors of the...

 and Frank Borzage
Frank Borzage
Frank Borzage was an American film director and actor.-Biography:Frank Borzage's father, Luigi Borzaga, was born in Ronzone, in 1859. As a stonemason, he sometimes worked in Switzerland; he met his future wife, Maria Ruegg , where she worked in a silk factory...

 . David Shepard in The American Film Heritage said of Ince:

"(He) did everything. He was so proficient at every aspect of film making that even films he didn't direct have the Ince-print, because he exercised such tight control over his scripts and edited so mercilessly that he could delegate direction to others and still get what he wanted. Much of what Ince contributed to the American film took place off the screen; he established production conventions that persisted forbears, and, though his career in films lasted only fourteen years, his influence far outlived him."


He also discovered many talents, including 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:...

, who appeared in and made some of the best early westerns, beginning in 1914. (The pair later had a falling out over the sharing of profits.) Ironically, on January 16, 1916, a few days after the opening of his first Culver City studio, a fire broke out at "Inceville", the first of many that would eventually destroy all of the dry frame buildings.

Ince later gave up on "Inceville" and sold it to Hart, who renamed it "Hartville". Three years later, Hart sold the lot to Robertson-Cole, which continued filming until 1922. La Hue writes that "the place was virtually a ghost town when the last remnants of Inceville were burned on the Fourth of July in 1922, leaving only a weatherworn old church, which stood sentinel over the charred ruins."

Triangle Studios

By 1915, Ince was very powerful and one of the best-known producer-directors. It is around this time that Harry Culver
Harry Culver
Harry Hazel Culver was a real estate developer and promoter. He was born in Milford, Nebraska, the middle child of five of Jacob H. and Ada L. Culver, who lived on a farm. At age 18, he enlisted in the Spanish-American War and served as a corporal and sergeant, respectively...

 noticed him making one of his westerns on Ballona Creek
Ballona Creek
Ballona Creek is an waterway in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, whose watershed drains the Los Angeles basin, from the Santa Monica Mountains on the north, the Harbor Freeway on the east, and the Baldwin Hills on the south...

. Impressed with his talents, Culver convinced Ince to move his "Inceville" Studios from the beach to Culver City. That same year, Ince left NYMP and on July 19 partnered with Griffith 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"...

 to join the Triangle Motion Picture Company
Triangle Film Corporation
Triangle Film Corporation was a major American motion-picture studio, founded in the summer of 1915 in Culver City, California, and envisioned as a prestige studio based on the producing abilities of filmmakers D. W. Griffith, Thomas Ince and Mack Sennett...

 based on their prestige as producers. Triangle (from an aerial point of view the property took a triangular shape) built their large studios at 10202 W. Washington Blvd. (present-day site of Sony Pictures Studios
Sony Pictures Studios
The Sony Pictures Studios are a television and film studio complex located in Culver City, California at 10202 West Washington Boulevard and bounded by Culver Boulevard , Washington Boulevard , Overland Avenue and Madison Avenue...

). The very first Culver City movie studio began to take shape in the form of a Greek colonnade – the impressive entrance that still stands today fronting Washington Boulevard and is an historical landmark.

With Ince as its vice-president, Triangle announced that it would focus on feature-length epic and quality dramas (with Ince and his partners charging more money for their prestige pictures based on their reputations as producers). It was founded by Harry and Roy Aitken, two brothers from the Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...

 farmlands who pioneered the studio system of Hollywood's Golden Age. Harry had also been Griffith's partner at Reliance-Majestic Studios, who had also been fired by the Mutual Film Corporation
Mutual Film
Mutual Film Corporation was an early American motion picture conglomerate best remembered today as the producers of some of Charlie Chaplin's greatest comedies....

 as a result the aftermath of the unexpected success of Griffith's The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...

 http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/dwgriffith.htm that year, as the film also led to riots
Race riot
A race riot or racial riot is an outbreak of violent civil disorder in which race is a key factor. A phenomenon frequently confused with the concept of 'race riot' is sectarian violence, which involves public mass violence or conflict over non-racial factors.-United States:The term had entered the...

 in major northern cities due to its racial content.

Triangle was one of the first vertically integrated film companies. By combining production, distribution, and theater operations under one roof, the partners created the most dynamic studio in Hollywood. They attracted the greatest directors and stars of the day, including 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...

, Lillian Gish
Lillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....

, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle
Fatty Arbuckle
Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. Starting at the Selig Polyscope Company he eventually moved to Keystone Studios where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd...

, and Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.
Douglas 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....

, and produced some of the most enduring films of the silent era, including the Keystone Kops
Keystone Kops
The Keystone Kops were incompetent fictional policemen, featured in silent film comedies in the early 20th century. The movies were produced by Mack Sennett for his Keystone Film Company between 1912 and 1917. The idea came from Hank Mann who also played police chief Tehiezel in the first film...

 comedy franchise. Originally a distributor of NYMP, Reliance Motion Picture Corp., Majestic Motion Picture Co., and Keystone Film Co. films, by November 1916 the company's distribution was handled by Triangle Distributing Corporation.

Though Ince had many credits as a director in this time period, he really only supervised the production of most of these pictures, working primarily as an executive and producer. One of his most important and famous pictures as a director was Civilization
Civilization (film)
Civilization is a 1916 American pacifist allegorical film about a submarine commander who refuses to fire at a civilian ocean liner supposedly carrying ammunition for his country's enemies. The film was a big-budget spectacle that was compared to both Birth of a Nation and the paintings of...

 (1916) an epic plea for peace and American neutrality set in a mythical country and dedicated to the mothers of those who died in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. The film competed with Griffith's famous epic Intolerance
Intolerance (film)
Intolerance is a 1916 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and is considered one of the great masterpieces of the Silent Era. The three-and-a-half hour epic intercuts four parallel storylines each separated by several centuries: A contemporary melodrama of crime and redemption; a...

 and beat it at the box office at the time. The picture was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry
National Film Registry
The National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...

 by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

 as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Ince added a few stages and an Administration Building to Triangle Studios before selling out his shares to Griffith and Sennett in 1918. Three years later the studios were acquired by Goldwyn Pictures
Goldwyn Pictures
Goldwyn Pictures Corporation was an American motion picture production company founded in 1916 by Samuel Goldfish in partnership with Broadway producers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn using an amalgamation of both last names to create the name...

, and in 1924 the facility was turned into the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...

 studios.

Thomas H. Ince Studios

For a while, Ince joined competitor Adolph Zukor
Adolph Zukor
Adolph Zukor , born Adolph Cukor, was a film mogul and founder of Paramount Pictures.-Early life:...

 to form Paramount-Artcraft Pictures. However, he yearned to go back to running his own studio. On July 19, 1918, following Goldwyn’s acquisition of the Triangle lot, he purchased a 14-acre (57,000 m2) property at 9336 West Washington Blvd. on an option basis from Culver along with a $132,000 loan. Thus was formed "Thomas H. Ince Studios", which operated there from 1919 to 1924.
When Ince conceived the idea of building his own studio, he was determined to have it different from the others. Among plans submitted to him by architects Meyer & Holler
Meyer & Holler
Meyer & Holler was an architecture firm based in Los Angeles, California noted for its opulent commercial buildings and movie theatres, including Grauman’s Chinese and Egyptian theatres, built during the 1920s...

, was one that suggested the whole front administrative building made a replica of George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...

's home at Mount Vernon
Mount Vernon
The name Mount Vernon is a dedication to the English Vice-Admiral Edward Vernon. It was first applied to Mount Vernon, the Virginia estate of George Washington, the first President of the United States...

. The resulting administration building, known as "The Mansion", was the first building to go up on the lot. In back of the impressive office building were approximately 40 buildings, most of which were designed in the Colonial Revival
Colonial Revival architecture
The Colonial Revival was a nationalistic architectural style, garden design, and interior design movement in the United States which sought to revive elements of Georgian architecture, part of a broader Colonial Revival Movement in the arts. In the early 1890s Americans began to value their own...

 style. A small group of bungalows, built for various movie stars and designed in styles popular in the 1920s and '30s, were constructed on the west side of the lot. By 1920, two glass stages, a hospital, fire department, reservoir/swimming pool, and the back lot were completed. That same year President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...

 took a tour of the studios as did the King
Albert I of Belgium
Albert I reigned as King of the Belgians from 1909 until 1934.-Early life:Born Albert Léopold Clément Marie Meinrad in Brussels, he was the fifth child and second son of Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders, and his wife, Princess Marie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen...

 and Queen of Belgium, along with Prince Leopold
Leopold III of Belgium
Leopold III reigned as King of the Belgians from 1934 until 1951, when he abdicated in favour of the Heir Apparent,...

, among much pomp and ceremony.

Ince had only two or three companies working continuously on the lot at any given time. According to The Blue Book of the Screen (1923), his equipment at the facility was "new and complete to the extent of having his own laboratory, generating plant and carpenter shops. There is also a large wardrobe department." Film historian, Marc Wanamaker, wrote that the studio was, until Ince's untimely death in 1924, "a center of creativity and innovation in film production".

Although he found distribution through Paramount and Metro, Ince was no longer as powerful as he once had been. He tried to regain his status in Hollywood in several ways. In 1919, he co-founded with several other independent entrepreneurs (notably his old partner at Triangle, Mack Sennett, Marshall Neilan
Marshall Neilan
Marshall Ambrose Neilan was an American motion picture actor, screenwriter, film director, and producer.-Early life:...

, Allan Dwan
Allan Dwan
Allan Dwan was a pioneering Canadian-born American motion picture director, producer and screenwriter.-Early life:...

 and Maurice Tourneur
Maurice Tourneur
Maurice Tourneur was an important international film director and screenwriter.-Life:Born Maurice Thomas in the Belleville district of Paris, France, his father was a jeweler. As a young man, Maurice Thomas first trained as a graphic designer and a magazine illustrator but was soon drawn to the...

) the independent releasing company, Associated Producers, Inc., and served as its president. Associated Producers distributed major producer-directors like Sennett, but could not function on its own successfully. In 1922, Ince's company merged with First National
First National
First National was an association of independent theater owners in the United States that expanded from exhibiting movies to distributing them, and eventually to producing them as a movie studio, called First National Pictures, Inc. It later merged with Warner Bros.-Early history:The First National...

. Ince's production company still made movies that were released through First National until 1924.

Though Ince still made some significant films, the studio system was taking over Hollywood. There was little room for an independent producer and Ince could not regain his powerful standing. He and other independent producers tried by forming the Cinematic Finance Corporation in 1921, which made loans to producers who already had been successful, but only accomplished its goal in a limited sense.

In his last years Ince drifted away from westerns in favor of social dramas. He made a few more important films. One was a prestige version of Anna Christie
Anna Christie
Anna Christie is a play in four acts by Eugene O'Neill. It made its Broadway debut at the Vanderbilt Theatre on November 2, 1921. O'Neill received the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his work.-Plot summary:...

 (1923), based on the novel by Eugene O'Neill
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into American drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish...

. He also produced Human Wreckage
Human Wreckage
Human Wreckage was an independent silent film production by Dorothy Davenport, widow of actor Wallace Reid, who died on 18 January 1923 from complications of morphine addiction.-Production background:...

 (1923), which was an early anti-drug movie.

In 1925, Cecil B. Demille
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...

 acquired Ince Studios, renaming it the DeMille Studios. Besides DeMille, among those who filmed on the lot include Pathé
Pathé
Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...

, RKO, producer Howard Hughes
Howard Hughes
Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. was an American business magnate, investor, aviator, engineer, film producer, director, and philanthropist. He was one of the wealthiest people in the world...

, and Desilu Productions
Desilu Productions
Desilu Productions was a Los Angeles, California-based company jointly owned by actors Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, who were married to each other from 1940 to 1960....

. In 1991, Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. is the television and film production/distribution unit of Japanese multinational technology and media conglomerate Sony...

 purchased the property as the home for its television endeavours, renaming it Culver Studios
Culver Studios
The Culver Studios is a historic Colonial-styled movie studio located at 9336 W. Washington Blvd., in Culver City, California. It was the site of filming for Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane and other classics from Hollywood’s Golden Age...

, and eventually selling it in 2004 to a group of investors. In his honor, the street intersecting the studios was named Ince Blvd. and there is an Ince Theater planned to be constructed in a parking lot adjacent to Ince Blvd. in the near future.

Murder or natural death debate

On Saturday, November 15, 1924, William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...

's lavish 280 feet (85.3 m) yacht, the Oneida, set sail from San Pedro, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 heading for San Diego. Among his guests that weekend were his mistress Marion Davies
Marion Davies
Marion Davies was an American film actress. Davies is best remembered for her relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, as her high-profile social life often obscured her professional career....

, silent film star 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...

, newspaper columnist Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons
Louella Parsons was the first American news-writer movie columnist in the United States. She was a gossip columnist who, for many years, was an influential arbiter of Hollywood mores, often feared and hated by the individuals, mostly actors, whose careers she could negatively impact via her...

, author Elinor Glyn
Elinor Glyn
Elinor Glyn , born Elinor Sutherland, was a British novelist and scriptwriter who pioneered mass-market women's erotic fiction. She popularized the concept It...

, film actresses Aileen Pringle
Aileen Pringle
Aileen Pringle was an American stage and film actress during the silent film era.-Early life:Born Aileen Bisbee into a prominent and wealthy San Francisco, California family and educated in Europe, Pringle began her acting career shortly after her 1916 marriage to Charles McKenzie Pringle, the son...

, Jacqueline Logan
Jacqueline Logan
Jacqueline Logan was a star of the silent motion picture screen who was on board William Randolph Hearst's yacht The Oneida in 1924 when film director Thomas Ince died. The young actress was under contract to Ince at the time. Logan was a WAMPAS Baby Star of 1922. She was born in Corsicana, Texas...

, Seena Owen
Seena Owen
Seena Owen was a Danish-American silent film actress.-Early Life:She was born Signe M. Auen at Spokane, Washington, the youngest of three children raised by Jens Christensen and Karen Auen. Her father and mother came from Denmark in the late 1880s and settled in Minnesota where they married in 1888...

, Margaret Livingston
Margaret Livingston
Margaret Livingston was an American film actress, most notable for her work during the silent film era....

, Julanne Johnston
Julanne Johnston
Julanne Johnston was an American silent film actress born in Indianapolis, Indiana.Johnston is known for being on William Randolph Hearst's yacht The Oneida during the weekend in November 1924 when film director and producer Thomas Ince later died of heart failure...

, actor, choreographer and ballet dancer Theodore Kosloff
Theodore Kosloff
Theodore Kosloff was a Russian-born ballet dancer, choreographer and film and stage actor. He was occasionally credited as Theodor Kosloff.-Career:...

 and Dr. Daniel Carson Goodman
Daniel Carson Goodman
Daniel Carson Goodman was an American screenwriter, who wrote the storyline for 28 silent films – the first of them was Sapho . He worked as miscellaneous crew in three films, produced two films and directed one film, Thoughtless Women .He was engaged to marry the actress Florence La Badie...

, Hearst's film production manager. It is ironic that Ince, the guest of honor as it was his 42nd birthday, was late due to a production deal he was negotiating with Hearst's International Film Corporation and the yacht left without him.
Ince finished up his business in Los Angeles and took a train to San Diego where he joined the guests the next morning. At dinner that Sunday night, the group enthusiastically celebrated his birthday. Sometime later, Ince suffered an acute bout of indigestion on the yacht. Determining that Ince was quite ill, he was taken from the yacht by water taxi
Water taxi
A water taxi or water bus, also known as a commuter boat, is a watercraft used to provide public transport, usually but not always in an urban environment. Service may be scheduled with multiple stops, operating in a similar manner to a bus, or on demand to many locations, operating in a similar...

 and brought back ashore in San Diego, accompanied by Dr. Goodman, still a licensed, though non-practicing physician, then quickly put on a train bound for Los Angeles. However, while en route Ince's condition worsened. At Del Mar, he was removed from the train, then taken to a hotel where he was promptly given medical treatment by Dr. T. A. Parker and a nurse Jessie Howard. Ince informed them he had drunk liquor on the Hearst yacht. Afterward, he was taken to his home in Hollywood where the next day, November 19, he succumbed to a heart ailment.

Less than forty-eight hours after leaving the Oneida, Ince had died in his "Dias Dorados" estate in Benedict Canyon, officially of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...

. Dr. Ida Cowan Glasgow, his personal physician, signed the death certificate citing heart failure as the cause of death. The front page of the Wednesday morning Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....

, however, told another story: '"Movie Producer Shot on Hearst Yacht!", headlines that mysteriously vanished in the evening edition. Without further ado, Ince's body was cremated, after which his widow Nell soon left for Europe.

The first stories in Hearst's newspapers about Ince's death claimed the producer had fallen ill while visiting the Hearst ranch
Hearst Castle
Hearst Castle is a National Historic Landmark mansion located on the Central Coast of California, United States. It was designed by architect Julia Morgan between 1919 and 1947 for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, who died in 1951. In 1957, the Hearst Corporation donated the property to...

 in San Simeon and had been rushed home by ambulance, dying in the bosom of his family. The rumor mill in Hollywood immediately went to work. Several conflicting stories began circulating about the incident, often revolving around a claim that Hearst shot Ince in the head by mistake.

The story goes that Hearst suspected that Davies and Chaplin were secretly lovers. In order to keep tabs on the two, he invited them both on board the yacht. It was reported that he found the couple in a compromising clinch and went for his gun. Davies' screams awakened Ince who rushed to the scene. A scuffle ensued, followed by a gunshot, and Ince took the bullet for Chaplin. A second version of the story had Davies and Ince alone in the galley late Sunday night. Ince, who suffered from ulcers, was looking for something to ease his upset stomach when Hearst walked in. Mistaking Ince for Chaplin, Hearst shot him. A third version tells of a struggle over a gun below decks between unidentified passengers. The gun fired accidentally and the bullet ripped through a plywood partition straight into Ince's room where it struck him.

Chaplin's secretary, Toraichi Kono, added fuel to the fire when he claimed to have seen Ince when he came ashore. Kono told his wife that Ince's head was "bleeding from a bullet wound". The story quickly spread among the Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese domestic workers throughout Beverly Hills. Whether Ince was killed in a fit of jealousy or by accident, the story stuck, and with many believing Hearst used his power and influence to cover up the incident. One month after Ince's death, the rumors ran so rampant that the San Diego District Attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...

's Office was forced to take action.

The D.A. only interviewed Dr. Goodman, who explained that once ashore, he and Ince caught a train heading back to Los Angeles. According to Goodman, Ince got sick on the train so they disembarked in Del Mar and checked into a hotel. Goodman then called a doctor, as well as Nell Ince. Concerned for her husband, Nell agreed to come to Del Mar immediately. Goodman, unclear whether Ince was suffering from a heart attack or indigestion, claimed he left Del Mar before Nell arrived. The D.A. quickly closed the investigation.

Nonetheless, the rumors and suspicions continued to be fueled by the very people who celebrated with Ince that ill-fated weekend. Chaplin denied even being there, insisting that he, Hearst and Davies visited the ailing Ince later that week. He also stated that Ince died two weeks after their visit. In reality, Ince was dead within forty-eight hours after leaving the Oneida with Chaplin attending the memorial services that Friday.

Davies also added to the mystery in her attempts to deny the incident. She never acknowledged that Chaplin, Parsons, or Goodman was aboard the yacht that weekend. She insisted that Nell Ince called her late Monday afternoon at United Studios to inform her of Ince's death.

When the Oneida sailed, Parsons was a New York movie columnist for one of Hearst's papers. After the Ince affair, Hearst gave her a lifetime contract and expanded her syndication. Hearst also provided Nell Ince with a trust fund just before she left for Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. She refused an autopsy and ordered her husband's immediate cremation. Rumor also has it that Hearst paid off Ince's mortgage on his Château Élysée
Chateau Elysee
The Château Élysée is a former hotel located at 5930 Franklin Ave. in the Franklin Village section of Los Angeles, California. It was originally built as a luxury long-term residential apartment for movie stars by Eleanor Ince, widow of Thomas H. Ince, the highly successful pioneer silent filmmaker...

 apartment building in Hollywood. D. W. Griffith said of the incident:

"All you have to do to make Hearst turn white as a ghost is mention Ince's name. There's plenty wrong there, but Hearst is too big."


The circumstances of Ince's death tainted his reputation as a pioneering filmmaker and diminished the way in which his role in the growth of the film industry was remembered. Even his studio could not survive his death. It shut down soon after he passed. The final film he produced, Enticement, a romance set in the French Alps
French Alps
The French Alps are those portions of the Alps mountain range which stand within France, located in the Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur regions....

, was released posthumously, in 1925. In summarizing Ince's career and the potential for his future in the movie business had he lived, David Thompson wrote in "A Biographical Dictionary of Film":

"His shameless self-aggrandizement seems the original of a brand of ambition central to American film. In that sense, he was the first tycoon, more businesslike than Griffith and much more prosperous. Remember that he died in early middle age, and it is possible to surmise that he might have become one of the moguls of the 1930s."

Popular culture

1961 Citizen Hearst: A Biography of William Randolph Hearst by W.A. Swanberg
W.A. Swanberg
William Andrew Swanberg, , pen-name W.A. Swanberg, was a Pulitzer-Prize-winning American biographer. He is perhaps best known for Citizen Hearst, his biography of William Randolph Hearst. He was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1907 and earned his B.A. at the University of Minnesota in 1930. He...



1996 saw the publication of Murder at San Simeon (Scribner
Charles Scribner's Sons
Charles Scribner's Sons, or simply Scribner, is an American publisher based in New York City, known for publishing a number of American authors including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, Robert A. Heinlein, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana, John Clellon...

) a novel by Patricia Hearst
Patty Hearst
Patricia Campbell Hearst , now known as Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw, is an American newspaper heiress, socialite, actress, kidnap victim, and convicted bank robber....

 (William Randolph's granddaughter) and Cordelia Frances Biddle. It's a fictionalized version of this murder, presenting Chaplin and Davies as lovers and Hearst as the jealous old man unwilling to share his mistress with anyone else.

A 2001 film directed by Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich is an American film historian, director, writer, actor, producer, and critic. He was part of the wave of "New Hollywood" directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola...

, The Cat's Meow
The Cat's Meow
The Cat's Meow is a 2001 drama film directed by Peter Bogdanovich, and starring Kirsten Dunst, Eddie Izzard, Edward Herrmann, Cary Elwes, Joanna Lumley, and Jennifer Tilly. The screenplay by Steven Peros is based on his play of the same title, which was inspired by the mysterious death of film...

, tells a tale based on these rumors. Bogdanovich claims that he heard the story of Ince's death from director Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

, who in turn said he heard it from writer Herman J. Mankiewicz
Herman J. Mankiewicz
Herman Jacob Mankiewicz was an American screenwriter, who, with Orson Welles, wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane . Earlier, he was the Berlin correspondent for the Chicago Tribune and the drama critic for The New York Times and The New Yorker. Alexander Woollcott, said that Herman Mankiewicz was...

 while they were writing Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...

. In Bogdanovich's film, Ince is portrayed by Cary Elwes
Cary Elwes
Ivan Simon Cary Elwes , known professionally as Cary Elwes, is an English actor. The son of Dominick Elwes and Tessa Georgina Kennedy, Elwes acted in off-Broadway plays during college and moved to the United States in the early 1980s. He is known for his role as Westley in the cult classic The...

.

Hearst woke up to an empty room. He walked around his yacht to Davies' room, where he saw her talking to a man (whom he suspected was Chaplin). Furious, he came in with a gun and shot Thomas Ince. They then sailed to San Diego Harbor, where the body was taken by authorities.

The 1999 film RKO 281
RKO 281
RKO 281 is a 1999 historical drama film directed by Benjamin Ross. It stars Liev Schreiber, James Cromwell, Melanie Griffith, John Malkovich, and Roy Scheider and depicts the troubled production behind the 1941 film Citizen Kane...

, about the making of Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...

, includes a scene depicting Mankiewicz telling Welles of his account of the incident.

Actor

  • The Seven Ages
    The Seven Ages
    The Seven Ages is an orchestral suite by John Alden Carpenter; it was premiered in New York City under the direction of Artur Rodziński on December 2, 1945. The piece is in seven uninterrupted movements, and is inspired by the famous soliloquy, "All the world's a stage", from William Shakespeare's...

     (1905)
  • Richard III (1908)
  • The Cardinal's Conspiracy (1909)
  • King Lear (1909)
  • His New Lid (1910)
  • The Englishman and the Girl (1910)
  • Bar Z's New Cook (1911)
  • For Her Brother's Sake (1911)
  • Their First Misunderstanding (1911)
  • The Gangsters and the Girl (1914)

Director

  • Artful Kate (1911)
  • Behind the Stockade (1911)
  • The Brand (1911)
  • A Dog's Tale (1911)
  • The Fisher-Maid (1911)
  • For Her Brother's Sake (1911)
  • Her Darkest Hour (1911)
  • The Hidden Trail (1911)
  • His Nemesis (1911)
  • The House That Jack Built (1911)
  • In Old Madrid (1911)
  • In the Sultan's Garden (1911)
  • Little Nell's Tobacco (1911)
  • Maid or Man (1911)
  • A Manly Man (1911)
  • Message in the Bottle (1911)
  • New Cook (1911)
  • Over the Hills (1911)
  • The Penniless Prince (1911)
  • Sweet Memories
    Sweet Memories
    Sweet Memories is a 1911 silent short romantic drama film, written and directed by Thomas H. Ince, released on March 27, 1911.-Plot:...

     (1911)
  • The Aggressor (1911)
  • Across the Plains (1911)
  • The Dream (1911)
  • Their First Misunderstanding (1911)
  • The Battle of the Red Men (1912)
  • Blazing the Trail (1912)
  • The Clod (1912)
  • The Colonel's Son (1912)
  • The Colonel's Ward (1912)
  • A Double Reward (1912)
  • The Empty Water Keg (1912)
  • For Freedom of Cuba (1912)
  • For the Cause (1912)
  • The Law of the West (1912)
  • A Mexican Tragedy (1912)
  • War on the Plains (1912)
  • The Invaders (1912)
  • The Altar of Death (1912)
  • The Sergeant's Boy (1912)
  • Custer's Last Raid (1912)
  • The Desert (1912)
  • The Colonel's Peril (1912)
  • His Message (1912)
  • Soldier's Honor (1912)
  • The Outcast (1912)
  • The Lieutenant's Last Fight (1912)
  • The Post Telegraphers (1912)
  • The Deserter
    The Deserter (1912 film)
    The Deserter is a 1912 silent black-and-white two-reel film written and directed by Thomas H. Ince. It was released March 15, 1912 and starred Francis Ford and Ethel Grandin.-Plot:...

     (1912)
  • The Crisis (1912)
  • The Indian Massacre / Heart of an Indian (1912)
  • The Tables Turned (1912)
  • Through the Flames (1912)
  • The Kid and the Sleuth (1912)
  • The Ambassador's Envoy (1913)
  • The Boomerang (1913)
  • Bread Cast Upon the Waters (1913)
  • Days of '49 (1913)
  • Granddad (1913)ř
  • The Hateful God (1913)
  • A Shadow of the Past (1913)
  • In Love and War / Call to Arms (1913)
  • The Battle of Gettysburg
    The Battle of Gettysburg (1913 film)
    The Battle of Gettysburg is a 1913 silent drama film directed by Charles Giblyn and Thomas H. Ince. The film is now considered to be lost, although some battlefield footage was used by Mack Sennett in his comedy Cohen Saves the Flag, which was shot on location alongside this production. However...

     (1913)
  • The Drummer of the 8th (1913)
  • The Hour of Reckoning (1914)
  • The Last of the Line (1914)
  • The Village 'Neath the Sea (1914)
  • Out of the Night (1914)
  • The Death Mask (1914)
  • The Coward (1915)
  • The Toast of Death
    The Toast of Death
    The Toast of Death is a 1915 silent era drama/romance motion picture released by Mutual Film Corporation starring Louise Glaum, Harry Keenan, and Herschel Mayall....

     (1915)
  • The Cup of Life (1915)
  • The Alien / The Sign of the Rose (1915)
  • The Devil / Satan's Pawn (1915)
  • Dividend (1916)
  • Civilization (1916)
  • The Stepping Stone
    The Stepping Stone
    The Stepping Stone is a 1916 silent drama film, directed by Reginald Barker and Thomas H. Ince. It is a lost film.-Plot:Mary Beresford is the wife of unambitious law clerk Al Beresford. Thanks to Mary 's tenacity and carefully calculated social-climbing, Al is promoted to the position of personal...

     (1916)
  • Peggy (1916)
  • Anna Christie
    Anna Christie (1923 film)
    Anna Christie is a 1923 silent era drama motion picture based on the play by Eugene O'Neill and starring Blanche Sweet and William Russell. It was considered by Eugene O'Neill himself to be the best version of his play....

     (1923)
  • Flicker Flashbacks No. 1 (1947) (archive footage from Behind the Stockade, 1909)

Writer

  • Little Nell's Tobacco (1910)
  • For the Queen's Honor (1911)
  • The Fortunes of War (1911)
  • The Forged Dispatch (1911)
  • The Stampede (1911)
  • Across the Plains (1911)
  • Sweet Memories (1911)
  • The Mirror (1911)
  • Bar Z's New Cook (1911)
  • The Army Surgeon (1912)
  • The Altar of Death (1912)
  • The Outcast (1912)
  • The Deserter
    The Deserter (1912 film)
    The Deserter is a 1912 silent black-and-white two-reel film written and directed by Thomas H. Ince. It was released March 15, 1912 and starred Francis Ford and Ethel Grandin.-Plot:...

     (1912)
  • The Battle of the Red Men (1912)
  • The Indian Massacre (1912)
  • War on the Plains (1912)
  • The Battle of Gettysburg (1913)
  • In the Sage Brush Country (1914)
  • The Last of the Line (1914)
  • A Political Feud (1914)
  • The Fortunes of War (1914)
  • The Bargain
    The Bargain
    The Bargain is a 1914 Western film starring William S. Hart. It was the first Western starring Hart, who would go on to become the most popular Western actor of the silent film era. In 2010, it was added to the United States National Film Registry, where it joined another Hart Western, 1916's...

     (1914)
  • The Vigil (1914)
  • The Mills of the Gods (1914)
  • The Worth of a Life (1914)
  • The Word of His People (1914)
  • Stacked Cards (1914)
  • The Winning of Denise (1914)
  • An Eleventh Hour Reformation (1914)
  • The City (1914)
  • The Curse of Humanity (1914)
  • The Voice at the Telephone (1914)
  • The Wrath of the Gods (1914)
  • The Latent Spark (1914)
  • In the Cow Country (1914)
  • Out of the Night (1914)
  • Shorty Escapes Marriage (1914)
  • The Rightful Heir (1914)
  • Wolves of the Underworld (1914)
  • The Gringo (1914)
  • Desert Gold (1914)
  • O Mimi San (1914)
  • The Hammer (1915)
  • Tools of Providence (1915)
  • The Reward (1915)
  • The Conversion of Frosty Blake (1915)
  • Bad Buck of Santa Ynez (1915)
  • The Cup of Life (1915)
  • The Taking of Luke McVane (1915)
  • On the Night Stage (1915)
  • The Spirit of the Bell (1915)
  • The Roughneck (1915)
  • The Devil (1915)
  • Tricked (1915)
  • In the Switch Tower (1915)
  • The Girl Who Might Have Been (1915)
  • Satan McAllister's Heir (1915)
  • Winning Back (1915)
  • The Sheriff's Streak of Yellow (1915)
  • The Grudge (1915)
  • Mr. 'Silent' Haskins (1915)
  • The Scourge of the Desert (1915)
  • A Confidence Game (1915)
  • The Italian (1915)
  • The Despoiler (1915)
  • Aloha Oe (1915)
  • The Disciple (1915)
  • The Coward (1915)
  • Keno Bates, Liar (1915)
  • The Living Wage (1915)
  • A Knight of the Trails (1915)
  • The $100,000 Bill (1915)
  • Cash Parrish's Pal (1915)
  • The Ruse (1915)
  • The Deserter (1916)
  • The Last Act (1916)
  • Bullets and Brown Eyes (1916)
  • Ashes of Hope (1917)
  • The Family Skeleton (1918)

External links

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