1. art and entertainment
2. movies and tv
3. movies

HiSTORYALIVE
2015
864.244.1499 • The Greenville Chautauqua Society, Greenville, SC • www.greenvillechautauqua.org
• June
Chautauqua Festival
10 days
2 weekends
3 cities
30 free shows
June 12-21
Live s!
Show
Table of Contents
America at the Movies 2
Schedule
3
About the Performers 4
Walt Disney
6
Mary Pickford
8
Gordon Parks
10
Orson Welles
12
What is Chautauqua 14
Presented by:
Greenville Chautauqua Society, Greenville SC
Buncombe County Public Libraries, Asheville, NC
Spartanburg County Public Libraries, Spartanburg SC
Gordon Parks,
Orson Welles ,
Walt Disney,
Mary Pickford
E
Greenville Chautauqua
11 Rock Side Ct
Greenville, SC 29615
(864) 244-1499
greenvilleCHAUTAUQUA.org
Board of Directors
Duff Bruce
Steve Davis
Pat Grills
Chip Lee
Lynda Morrison
Marge Scieszka
Jim Smeaton
Terri Steck
Kimberly Witherspoon
Advisory Board
Dirk Holleman, FAC
Dr. Matteel Jones, GTC
Beverly Stroud, GTAA
Accountant
James H. Stuckey, Jr.
Staff
Sally Potosky, President
George Frein, Artistic Director
Caroline McIntyre, Administrator
Larry Bounds, Asst Artistic Director
Kathy Sowell, Communications
Asheville Chautauqua
Buncombe County Libraries
and Friends of the Library
Info: Abby Moser, Chairman
(828) 250-6484
[email protected]
Celeste Baldwin Gil Elliott
Bob & Jean Etter
Steven Fazio
Laura Gaskin
Marilyn Lonon Ed Sheary
Tammy Silver Judy Thompson
Spartanburg Chautauqua
Spartanburg County Public Libraries
Todd Stephens, Director
Christen Bennett, Coordinator
Amanda Newman, Info
(864) 285-9013
www.infodepot.org
verybody goes to the Movies. It’s
an American industry, an American
art form, an American export and an
American way of life. That’s why this
year at Chautauqua you will experience
America’s story through the voices of
four movie pioneers – Mary Pickford,
the woman who made Hollywood,
Orson Welles the boy wonder who
created Citizen Kane, Gordon Parks, the
first African American Hollywood film
director, and Walt Disney whose films
whispered in our childhood ears that
yes, our dreams can come true.
They each started out as youngsters
self-taught – not held back or afraid of
what they didn’t know. From age 7 on,
Mary Pickford was her family’s sole support. At age 16 Orson Welles, Gordon
Parks and Walt Disney each left school
and went out to seek their fortune –
Welles by choice, Parks by destitution
and Disney to join World War I.
No one taught them their trade –
they created it. Actors were just nameless faces before Mary Pickford’s talent
and business sense made “Pickford”
the name that sold the movies. Gordon
Parks was just a Pullman porter with
a pawnshop camera when he taught
himself how to use it as a weapon
against poverty and racism. Orson
Welles was just 24 when he arrived on
the RKO lot with no movie or camera
experience, yet prepared to make a
film masterpiece. Like Steve Jobs and
Bill Gates, Walt Disney started in a
garage with friends.
They are the stuff dreams and determination are made of. Pickford came
from vaudeville, Welles from radio, Parks
from photojournalism, and Disney from
the illustrator’s drawing board. But
their vision and their stories didn’t stop
there. They developed multiple talents.
They took over their films as Director,
Producer, Actor, and Screenwriter. As
movies in America increasingly became
an industry focused on profit, they each
bucked the Hollywood Studio system to
maintain their own vision of film art.
But most of all they are remembered
as storytellers, and their movies are
2
remembered as a place of imagination
and dreams, a uniquely American story.
Stories have different kinds of endings. When the talkies came out, no one
wanted to see America’s Sweetheart grow
up. 40-year-old Mary Pickford became a
recluse, yet she died with a multi-million
dollar estate. Orson Welles spent his life
using every talent he had to raise funds
to make Film into an art form that made
audiences think, and much of his work
still awaits release. After making millions
for the studios with his Shaft black action
hero films, Gordon Parks walked away from
lucrative Blaxploitation movies to make relevant movies outside Hollywood, compose
music, write poetry, create visual art and
earn 50 honorary doctorates. Walt Disney,
who wielded an unmatched influence over
the childhood of all living generations,
amassed a worldwide Entertainment Empire – but never forgot it all started telling
stories of a little mouse. n
From the Editor
Come to Chautauqua this June.
Come for a day, a weekend, or a
week. You can meet all four characters on either weekend or throughout the week. But don’t miss it!
Note: This original production
can be seen only in Greenville,
Asheville and
Spartanburg –
this June!
Sincerely,
Sally Potosky,
President
Funded in part by a grant from the Metropolitan
Arts Council, which receives funding from the City
of Greenville, BMW Manufacturing Company, LLC,
Michelin North America, Inc., SEW Eurodrive and the
South Carolina Arts Commission with support from
the National Endowment for the Arts and the John
and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of the Coastal
Community Foundation of SC.
Festival Schedule June 12-21
Greenville, SC
Fri 6/12 7:30p Walt Disney
Tent at Greenville Tech
Sat 6/13 9:00a Walt Disney Discussion
Artists Guild Gallery
2:00p
Gordon Parks*
Greenville Tech, Bldg 104
7:30p
Mary Pickford
Tent at Greenville Tech
Sun 6/14 2:00p Making Gone with the Wind
3:30p Fine Arts Center @ WHHS
7:30p Orson Welles
Tent at Greenville Tech
Mon 6/15 11:30a Walt Disney*
Younts Center, Fountain Inn
11:30a
Gordon Parks
Nicholtown Baptist Church
Tue 6/16 11:30a Mary Pickford
Centre Stage
Wed 6/17 11:30a Orson Welles
The Kroc Center
7:30p Walt Disney
Trailblazer Amphitheater TR
Thu 6/18 9:00a Orson Welles Discussion
Artists Guild Gallery
11:30a Gordon Parks
The Kroc Center
So many ways to experience Chautauqua
The festival takes place in Greater Greenville, Spartanburg and
Asheville. All of the shows can be seen multiple times.
Bring a picnic and enjoy the evening – outdoors in Greenville,
Asheville, and Travelers Rest
Experience the magic under the Chautauqua Tent in Greenville
Enjoy shows indoors, daytime in Greenville, evenings in
Spartanburg
Meet a performer for coffee and discussion in Greenville
Some shows in Greenville will be sign-interpreted.
Fri 6/19 9:00a Mary Pickford Dicussion
Artists Guild Gallery
7:30p Walt Disney
Falls Park, bring lawn seating
Sat 6/20 9:00a Gordon Parks Discussion
Artists Guild Gallery
2:00p Mary Pickford*
Greenville Tech, Bldg 104
7:30p Gordon Parks
Tent at Greenville Tech
Sun 6/21 2:00p Making Gone with the Wind
3:30p Fine Arts Center
7:30p Orson Welles*
Tent at Greenville Tech
* Sign interpreted shows
Under the Chautauqua tent
(Greenville evenings)
Spartanburg, SC
Headquarters Library
151 South Church Street, Spartanburg, SC 29306
Mon 6/15 7:00p
Tue 6/16 7:00p Wed 6/17 7:00p
Thu 6/18 7:00p
Mary Pickford
Walt Disney
Gordon Parks
Orson Welles
Asheville, NC
Warren Wilson College – Morris Pavilion, outdoors
701 Warren Wilson Rd, Swannanoa, NC 28778
Mon 6/16 7:00p
Tue 6/17 7:00p
Wed 6/18 7:00p
Thu 6/19 7:00p
Orson Welles Gordon Parks
Mary Pickford
Walt Disney
Cool pavilion for Asheville shows
$4
$4
$4
$4
Maps and info on our
website or scan this code.
3
Making Gone
with the Wind,
The Characters
an illustrated talk
Walt Disney
He had a vision of who America
was, who America is, and who
America can be.
presented by Leslie Goddard
Larry Bounds, Greenville, SC
Mary Pickford
Before Valentino or Chaplin,
she was the world’s first
movie superstar.
Leslie Goddard, Chicago IL
Seventy-five years after its blockbuster
Orson Welles
His cinematic magic was amazing.
Citizen Kane has been called the
greatest film of all time.
George Frein, Fort Worth, TX
Gordon Parks
Through his camera lens, he
exposed both poverty and joy.
Charles Pace, Texarkana, TX
4
premiere in 1939, Gone with the Wind
continues to inspire passionate devotion.
With ticket sales since 1939 translated
into contemporary dollars, it is the world’s
all-time box-office champion. American
Film Institute members voted it the most
popular film of all time.
You’ll learn the story of how Gone With
the Wind was made, including the two-year
search for Scarlett O’Hara, the pioneering
special effects, and the perfectionistic drive
of visionary producer David O. Selznick.
You’ll explore the accuracy of the movie’s
history and its lasting influence in shaping
popular understanding of the American
Civil War. What accounts for this movie’s
remarkably enduring popularity?
This special event can be seen Sunday
afternoons, in Greenville only.
Scholar Performers
“The Cinema is an invention without a future”
Larry Bounds (Walt Disney)
has appeared as a Chautauqua scholar since
2005 in memorable presentations as Harry
Houdini, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein,
and Davy Crockett. A National Certified
Teacher of Advanced Placement high school
English, he holds a B.A. in theater andd M.S.
in Education. When not reading about the lives and works
of America’s most intriguing and productive citizens or
teaching at the award winning Wade Hampton High School
in Greenville, Larry also serves on the Executive Committee
of Piedmont Area Mensa. He appeared as a professional
magician throughout the ‘70s with Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
larrycrystal.com
- Lumiere, inventor of portable motion picture camera (1894)
Little did Lumiere know that “the movies” would grow from
penny arcades to palatial theaters where masses could see a
newsreel, cartoon, and 2 feature films at an affordable price.
Technology enabled the art form, but it took artists to see
the possibilities. Major studios grew to fund the expensive
production. Today, lower cost digital technology has enabled small independent filmmakers again.
1880-90s Motion Picture Camera developed
1900-1920’s Silent Film Era
Longer stories, edited films, cinematic techniques,
large studios, star system
US film center moved to California (Hollywood)
D.W. Griffith‘s epic, Birth of a Nation, (1915)
John Ford, pioneer film techniques, films on location
Oscar Micheaux, African American film director
The Jazz Singer (1927) intro to talkies
George Frein (Orson Welles)
our artistic director, is retired, but working as
a Chautauqua scholar/performer. He reads a
lot, as a book’s author. In recent years George
has read Mr. Citizen as Harry Truman; MobyDick as Herman Melville; Memories, Dreams,
Reflections as Carl Jung; Gettysburg Address as Lincoln; Birds
of America as Audubon; Mont Saint Michel and Chartres as
Henry Adams; Correspondence with Thomas Jefferson as
John Adams; A Modell of Christian Charity as John Winthrop;
You’re Only Old Once as Dr. Seuss; Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn as Mark Twain. This year, George has been going to the
movies to see films – as Orson Welles.
1930s-40’s Golden Age of Hollywood
Hays Production code, Sound, Color, Film Noir
Snow White (1937) first US feature animation
Gone With The Wind, Wizard of Oz, Stagecoach (1939)
Citizen Kane (1941) revolutionizes movie story telling
1950-60’s Rise of TV
Abolition of Hays Production Code
Ben-Hur, Psycho, James Bond, 2001: Space Odyssey
1970-today Blockbusters to Indie films
Leslie Goddard (Mary Pickford and
Making of Gone with the Wind)
is a full-time historical interpreter and public
speaker who has been portraying famous
women of the past for more than ten years.
Her roster of notable women includes more
than a dozen figures, including Bette Davis, Jane Austen,
Clara Barton, Amelia Earhart, and Jackie Kennedy. She holds
a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in U.S. history and
American studies, as well as a master’s degree in theater from
the University of Illinois. A former museum director, she is the
author of two books on Chicago history and presents more
than 240 programs annually for museums, libraries, schools,
clubs, and other organizations. lesliegoddard.info
Charles Pace (Gordon Parks)
began performing Chautauqua programs
in 1991 with The Great Plains Chautauqua
Society. He explores how African-American
leaders have helped advance democracy in
America through Frederick Douglass, Booker
T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, and
Malcolm X. Pace has been on the program staff at The University of Texas at Austin (B.A.) and has taught at University
of Nebraska-Lincoln, Purdue University (M.A.) and Centre
College of Kentucky. Charles Everett Pace lives in Texarkana,
Texas, and performs nationally. His latest work is Taking the
Lead: Creative Leadership Training for Today’s Students.
Clockwise from top: Larry Bounds, Leslie Goddard,
George Frein, Charles Pace
5
Walt Disney
by Larry Bounds
If you can dream it, you can do it.
W
“The difference between
winning and losing is most
often not quitting.”
Walt Disney
(1901-1966)
1911 moves from farm in
Marcelene, Missouri to Kansas City; delivers newspapers
for his father
1918 drives an ambulance
in France in WWI
1920 experiments with
animation
1923 establishes animation
studio in Hollywood with
brother Roy
hen we think of Walt Disney, visions
of Mickey Mouse, Disneyland (or Walt
Disney World), and animated princesses fill our minds. For those who
remember his Sunday night Wonderful
World of Disney, he is the host himself, a kindly uncle visiting our homes
through the television. But Disney’s
effect on America and his personal reflection of America’s values and culture
are far more pervasive in our current
society. His successes were grander,
and, even his failures were destined to
become successes, far beyond the all
too brief span of his life.
Disney lived the American Dream
and helped all of us define what that
dream is today. His fascinating career
in American movies would stretch from
the silent film era to the age of television and manned space travel.
Walt Disney would:
• be nominated for 59 Oscars, winning
26 – more than anyone in history
• create the iconic Mickey Mouse
after having had his earlier successful
cartoon star Oswald the Lucky Rabbit
stripped away from his control, something he would be careful to never
allow to happen again
• perform as Mickey’s voice
1928 creates Mickey Mouse
to replace Oswald the Lucky
Rabbit
• originate the story lines and most of
the bits of business (comic action) for
classic Disney films
1933 The Three Little Pigs
cartoon produces the theme
song of the Great Depression
• form an international merchandising
empire based on his imaginative images
1937 produces Snow White
(First animated feature film
and highest grossing film of
all time – until Gone with the
Wind in 1939)
1954 hosts television program with tie-ins to Disney
films and events
1955 opens Disneyland
1965 announces plans for
Disney World
1966 dies from lung cancer
As a boy whose childhood was
often soul-crushing labor and routine,
Disney read the rags-to-riches stories
of Horatio Alger and Charles Dickens
and found his escape and future success through his imagination, creating
a world he preferred to the world he
found around him. His films would allow others that same escape.
Like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, Disney
started in a garage with friends. When
he found an audience for his ideas, he
expanded to a dozen and then thousands of full time employees who were
selected not only for their talents but
for their willingness to improve those
talents. And like those other entrepreneurs, he invested in his community,
supporting the arts and culture.
• sway the American military to focus
on building air power resources just
prior to our entry into WWII with his
film Air Power
• anticipate the important role television would play in promoting the film
industry when most studio heads saw
TV as a threat to their business
• turn a childhood interest in trains into
a backyard hobby and a theme park
extravaganza
• spend most of his life on the verge
of bankruptcy because every dime his
ideas earned was reinvested in his next
big idea.
6
Apart from his dreams and his
determination to succeed, what was
the secret of Disney’s great success and
what does that reveal about America
itself? He understood his audience, the
American public. He understood the
rough edges of American humor, our
sentimentality, our universal acceptance of the idea that the little guy can
win even when the odds seem insurmountable, and our belief in the basic
goodness or decency of us all and the
optimism that eventually the good will
always win out.
GOOD ReadS
The Animated Man: a life of Walt Disney
by Michael Barrier, 2007, an authoritative history of Disney – one of the best.
The Wonderful World of Disney
Television: a complete history by
Bill Cotter, 1997 – Just what it says.
The Art of Walt Disney: from Mickey
Mouse to the Magic Kingdoms by
Christopher Finch, 1973 – a beautiful,
colorful text of the creative images of
the Disney Studios.
“All our dreams
can come true, if we
have the courage
to pursue them.”
Walt Disney: a biography by Barbara
Ford, 1989 – a young person’s
narrative of Disney’s life, an enjoyable
read.
- Walt Disney
These foundational notions
of his would prove so successful
that, although several of Disney’s
films like Pinocchio, Bambi, and
Fantasia were first released to
very poor box office receipts,
they would stand the test of
time and all become not only
great commercial successes but
examples of iconic American
cinema.
Whether in portraying the
importance of the American
nuclear family (So Dear to My
Heart, Old Yeller), our appreciation of the natural world (Seal
Island, The Living Desert) or a
glorification of national myths
(Johnny Tremain, Davy Crockett,
Pecos Bill), Disney in both animation and live action revealed
and reveled in the American
mindset.
His celebration of Americana
continued with the construction
of amusement parks that were
wholesome, clean, educational,
and fun. He honored the small
town values and lifestyle of
his Marcelene, Missouri, youth
along Disneyland’s Main Street
and envisioned the exciting
potentials of space exploration,
mass transit, and communication at EPCOT (the Experimental Prototype Community Of
Tomorrow). They were a past
remembered by Disney and a
future foreseen by him.
While the American film industry benefitted
from Disney Studios’ developments in animation,
improvements in sound processing, delivery,
and synchronization, advancements in camera
technology, and innovations for film commercialization through merchandising tie-ins, Walt
Disney himself wanted America to remember
him simply as, “a storyteller.” And in that capacity, he told the story of who America was, who
America is, and who America can be. n
“Laughter is timeless;
Imagination has no age;
Dreams are forever.”
- Walt Disney
Walt Disney: the triumph of American
imagination by Neal Gabler, 2006 –
current standard Disney reference,
though some corrections are needed.
The Revised Vault of Walt
by Jim Korkis,
2012 – more fun - fascinating details.
The Book of the Mouse by Jim Korkis,
2013 – anecdotal fun.
The Disney Films by Leonard Maltin,
2000 – an encyclopedic reference to
Disney films, regularly updated since
the 1970s by a well-recognized critic.
Walt Disney: an American Original
by Bob Thomas, 1994 – a blend of
anecdotal biographical history.
The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation
by Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas
1981 – reveals the designs and
methods behind Disney artwork.
The Musical World of Walt Disney
by David Tietyen, 1990 – explores the
important role music played in the
Disney creations.
Security. Stability. Strength.
Since 1907.
CBL has a strong history of being
a safe and secure place for citizens
in the local community to grow their
savings and build their dreams.
waltdisney.org – The website of the
Disney Family Museum in San
Francisco. It details Disney’s life and
presents a variety of changing
programs associated with Disney’s
career and contributions.
disney.com – Official website of the
Disney Studios and all things Disney.
CBLGreer.com
229 Trade Street | Greer, SC | 877-2054
7
Mary Pickford
by Leslie Goddard
First Cinema Superstar
B
“Talking pictures are like
putting lip rouge on the
Venus de Milo.”
Mary Pickford
(1892-1979)
1892 born Gladys Smith in
Toronto, Canada
1900 debuts onstage; soon
touring with her family in
plays
1907 adopts name Mary
Pickford; debuts on Broadway
1909 film debut with Biograph
Company
1914 achieves superstardom
with Tess of the Storm
Country
1916 negotiates unprecedented film salary of
$10,000/week
1919 co-founds United
Artists
1920 marries film star
Douglas Fairbanks; opens
Pickford-Fairbanks Studio
1929 wins best actress
Academy Award for
Coquette (a talkie)
1933 retires from acting
after more than 200 films
efore there was Garbo, before there
was Valentino or even Chaplin, there
was Mary Pickford. She was the world’s
first cinema superstar. There was simply
no cult of the movie star celebrity
before her.
In a career which spanned twentythree years from 1909 to 1933, she
achieved a fame scarcely imaginable
before – or since. More than just the
queen of the cinema, she was the most
famous woman in America and around
the world. (Silent films had a universality that disappeared with the arrival
of spoken dialogue) She was also a
powerful movie mogul who founded
and ran her own production studio.
With help from her mother Charlotte,
Pickford negotiated ground-breaking
contracts including a spectacular deal
in 1916 that gave her $10,000 a week,
fifty percent of her film profits, and her
own production company.
Today, astonishingly, she is often
overlooked by film buffs. Partly, this is
because Pickford’s films were unavailable for decades. Afraid of being
ridiculed, she retained the copyright to
many of her films with the intention of
destroying them. Thank goodness she
didn’t, and many have survived.
Moreover, she never successfully
broke away from little-girl roles. Although she played many adult characters, fans particularly adored her as a
girl. She portrayed girls as young as ten
years old in films such as The Poor Little
Rich Girl (1917), Rebecca of Sunnybrook
Farm (1917), and Pollyanna (1920).
Reluctant to disappoint the public, Pickford continued taking on adolescent
roles until well into her thirties.
Perhaps the main reason Pickford is
overlooked is that she belonged to the
silent era. Although she had modest
hits with her few talkies, even winning an Academy Award for Coquette
(1929), her four talkies were not as
successful as her silent films had been,
and she retired from acting in 1933.
8
After that, she withdrew from the
world. Devastated by her mother’s
death in 1928 and her divorce from her
second husband Douglas Fairbanks in
1936, she retreated into her Hollywood
home, Pickfair, where she lived with
her third husband Buddy Rogers and
their two adopted children. She died a
reclusive alcoholic, largely forgotten.
Forgetting her is more than just
unfortunate. It obscures her celebrity,
which is almost unfathomable today.
From about 1914 to 1928, she was
probably the most-discussed film star
in the world. Motion picture magazines
rarely failed to include an article on her.
When she and Fairbanks honeymooned abroad in 1920, they were
literally mobbed – in England, in Japan,
in Sweden, everywhere. At one event,
Fairbanks had to hoist her onto his
shoulders for safety. Back in California,
their home Pickfair became the center
around which Hollywood social life
“We were pioneers in a brandnew medium. Everything’s
fun when you’re young.“
– Mary Pickford
GOOD ReadS
The Woman Who Made Hollywood
by Eileen Whitfield, 1997.
A great biography for those
who know little about Pickford.
Relies heavily on the autobiography Sunshine and Shadows, but
nonetheless, well-researched and
places Pickford’s life and work
nicely in the context of her times.
Mary Pickford: Queen of the Movies
edited by Christel Schmidt, 2013.
A groundbreaking collection of
essays by top authors, co-published by the Library of Congress.
Sheds new light on many overlooked aspects of Pickford’s life
and career. Includes gorgeous
rare photographs.
Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks
revolved. When she cut her famous long
curls into a stylish bob, it made national
headlines.
Overlooking Pickford also overlooks
her talent. At a time when film actors still
used elaborate, stylized gestures borrowed from the theater, Pickford brought
an easy naturalness to her roles. Her
young girls are spunky and mischievous,
prone to mud fights and sight gags. As
one critic noted, Lillian Gish is remembered as the woman on the ice floe – the
woman in peril – but Mary Pickford is the
woman who would tramp out to the ice
floe to rescue you.
Pickford’s first major film successes
came in the early 1910s, when cinema
was still new. Her work in Tess of the Storm
Country (1914) has been called “the first
great performance of feature film.” Fifteen
years later, in the late 1920s, she was still
a top box-office draw. Pickford was just as
successful as a film producer and distributor. By the late 1910s, she was overseeing
every aspect of her films, from script to
direction. In 1919, she co-founded United
Artists with Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, and
D.W. Griffith, and the following year, she
co-founded Pickford-Fairbanks Studio. Few
other actors, not to mention women, have
ever so fully controlled the production and
distribution of their own films.
In short, Mary Pickford’s achievements
are legendary. She and Fairbanks were
the first to have their hand and footprints
officially set in concrete outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater. She helped found
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences in 1927, and in 1976, the Academy awarded her a Lifetime Achievement
Award. In 1999, the American Film
Institute named her one of the top
twenty-five greatest American female
screen legends. n
Sunshine and Shadows
by Mary Pickford, 1955.
Pickford’s autobiography. Written
in a breezy style that captures the
essence of her likeability. It’s not
unvarnished history (she holds
back at times and tidies up some
stories), but still, a compelling
image of her life.
Mary Pickford, America’s Sweetheart
by Scott Eyman, 1990.
Written by a former film critic, this
readable, well-researched biography celebrates her achievements
and doesn’t shy away from her
failings, including her alcoholism and decades-long feud with
Charlie Chaplin.
American Silent Film.
by William Everson, 1998.
For those who want to learn more
about silent films, this is the definitive work. Covers nickelodeons
of the early 1900s through the
first talkies in the late 1920s. Wellresearched but also readable.
Watch Mary Pickford
If you’ve never seen a Mary
Pickford movie, start with
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
(1917) or Daddy Long-Legs
(1919). Both are definitive
Pickford films and showcase
her talent for both comedic
gags and evocative pathos.
If you’re converted by then,
check out the classic Stella
Maris (1918), which many
consider the high point of
her career. Then, watch Tess of
the Storm Country (1914), the
movie that made Pickford an
international superstar.
DAVID A. MERLINE, JR.
TAXATION LAW
ESTATE PLANNING AND PROBATE LAW
MERLINE & MEACHAM, P.A.
ATTORNEYS AT LAW
812 E NORTH ST
864/242-4080
P.O. BOX 10796
GREENVILLE SC 29603
[email protected]
9
Gordon Parks
by Charles Pace
The Power and the Poetry Behind the Pictures
The opening scene of Gordon Parks’
“I suffered evils, but without
allowing them to rob me of
the freedom to expand.”
Gordon Parks
(1912-2006)
1937 Buys his first camera in
a pawn shop
1941-44 wins a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship with the
Farm Security Administration
1944-48 Freelance
photographer for Vogue
and Standard Oil
1948-68 Life Magazine’s first
black photojournalist.
1963 The Learning Tree,
semi-autobiographical novel
1969 The Learning Tree,
movie - producer, director,
screenwriter
1971 Shaft, director
1972 Shaft’s Big Score!
director and composer
1974 The Super Cops, director
1976 Leadbelly, director
1984 Solomon Northup’s
Odyssey, TV production,
director and screenwriter
1987 Moments Without
Proper Names, director,
screenwriter and composer
1989 Martin, ballet dedicated
to Martin Luther King Jr,
director and composer
movie The Learning Tree (1969) couldn’t
be more pure Americana – a young boy
in a wheat field passing a summer day
watching ants. A threatening mid-west
tornado portends a coming-of-age
story. Which it is – and isn’t.
Gordon Parks returned to his birthplace, Fort Scott Kansas, to make The
Learning Tree, the first Hollywood studio
film to be directed by an African American. Based on his semi-autobiographic
novel, the film tells of a boy’s growingup year. Behind the bucolic images lies
another reality – 1920’s Kansas, a brutal,
hostile place where racial discrimination
was the norm. Gordon Parks, internationally famous photojournalist, had
chosen a movie camera as his weapon
against poverty and racism.
When his mother died, Parks
roamed the country taking any job
available to a black teenager without a
high school diploma – busboy, Civilian
Conservation Corps, jazz piano player.
He had worked up to Pullman porter
when he first saw Dorothea Lange’s
photos of the Depression in a left behind magazine. Their power fascinated
him, and at age 25 he bought his first
camera for $12.50 at a pawnshop –a
35mm Voigtländer Brilliant.
Entirely self-taught, he became a
free-lance fashion photographer. Four
years after he bought his first camera,
his Chicago ghetto photos won him
a Julius Rosenwald fellowship at the
Farm Security Administration where
Parks learned from his boss, mentor
and friend, Roy Stryker: “First, create the
story in your mind, and then capture the
images that logically express the idea
. . . If you don’t have anything to say,
your photographs are not going to say
much.” Parks found he had a lot to say.
He became what The New York Times
writer John Wranovics called - a “oneman wrecking crew” of American racial
boundaries. After leaving Washington
he moved to Harlem and free-lanced as
photographer for Vogue and Standard
10
Oil leading to a job as Life magazine’s
first black photojournalist. He would
work for Life for over twenty years and
created some of its most powerful
photo essays: “Harlem Gang Leader,”
“Show Girls at work and play,” “A Fierce
and Tender Eye, Gordon Parks on
poverty’s dire toll.”
As photographer and friend to the
rich and famous, Gloria Vanderbilt,
Ingrid Bergman, Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis
and Marlon Brando all came into his
camera’s eye. He told Black Panther
militant Eldridge Cleaver, “You have a
45mm automatic pistol on your lap, and
I have a 35mm camera on my lap, and
my weapon is just as powerful as yours.”
Thus, when Parks turned Fort Scott
Kansas into a “Hollywood back lot” to
make the first studio film by an African
American – his skill with the camera was
that of a master. But beyond the camera,
he knew how to “think in terms of images and words.” He had already proven
that “they can be mighty powerful when
they are put together properly.”
From the beginning of American
cinema, there were black independent
films. Between 1919-1933 Oscar Michaeux alone produced and distributed
GOOD ReadS
A Hungry Heart: A Memoir by Gordon
Parks, 2005 – My first choice for one
to read. It is his latest award-winning
memoir published two years before
his death.
“Weapon of Choice” by John Wranovics,
2006 – is a New York TImes book review
of A Hungry Heart by Gordon Parks.
Voices in the Mirror: An Autobiography
by Gordon Parks, 1990 – Insight into
his ideas about photography,
as well as, insights into his thoughts
on Hollywood. This is his second most
recent autobiography
outside of the Hollywood system more
than thirty films by and about black
America. Then in 1929 when King Vidor
cast an all black film Hallelujah! blacks
began to find work in Hollywood.
However, the realistic representations
of black life depicted in independent
black films were unfortunately replaced
by Hollywood with stereotypes. By the
late 1960’s white flight to the suburbs
left the inner cities of the north largely
black, including much of their movie
audience. The black ticket buying public
had box office clout. Seeing its potential,
Kenny Hyman, Warner-Brother executive,
became “the Branch Rickey of Hollywood”
making Gordon Parks’ The Learning Tree,
the Jackie Robinson story of film.
In 1971, a cash-strapped MGM Studio asked Gordon Parks to direct Shaft,
an action film with a black super-hero
detective. Made for $1.24 million, Shaft
grossed $11 million. It hauled MGM out
of bankruptcy and gave birth to the
”Black Action Hero.”
The next year Gordon Parks, Jr. (with
support from papa Gordon Parks)
directed Super Fly. Within two weeks of
its release, it had grossed $12 million.
That got Hollywood’s attention. Studios
began a flurry of black male and female
action films. Most were poorly written,
acted, and produced. Julius Griffin,
NAACP Hollywood-Branch president
called these new black action heroes,
“super males with vast physical prowess
but no cognitive skills.”
Tony Brown, dean of Howard University’s school of journalism criticized:
“The blaxploitation films are a phenomenon of self-hate . . . Going to see
yourself as a drug dealer when you’re
oppressed is sick. Not only are blacks
identifying with him, they’re paying for
the identification . . . [this is] treason.”
In contrast, James Earl Jones, actor,
asserted: “If they’re going to put the
damper on John Shaft, let them put
it on John Wayne too, and they’ll find
out that there are a lot of people who
need those fantasies.” Gordon Parks,
Sr. agreed, “It’s ridiculous to imply that
blacks don’t know the difference between truth and fantasy and therefore
will be influenced by these films in an
unhealthy way.”
After directing and writing the music
for the sequel Shaft’s Big Score, even
with two other sequels in the pipeline,
Parks announced that they would make
no more black action hero films. But by
then, the number of black actors, writers,
directors, and crew had increased significantly. Both The Learning Tree and Shaft
were included in the Library of Congress
National Film Registry. Parks, Sr. would
go on to make five more movies
including Solomon Northrup’s Odyssey
(remade in 2014 as 12 Years a Slave.)
Gordon Parks did not graduate from
high school. He did produce, direct,
write and compose music for ten films,
and authored twenty books. Ten compilations of his poetry and photography
have been published. And at his death,
hanging on his wall, were fifty-three
honorary doctorate degrees. n
Half Past Autumn: a retrospective by
Gordon Parks, 1997 – a retrospective
view of the color and black and
white photography of Parks and an
insightful essay by Phillip Brookman:
“Unlocked Doors: Gordon Parks at the
Crossroads.”
Black Films and Film Makers, Lindsay
Patterson, Ed. 1975
“Something mighty there is inside
a man that takes him from being
the youngest of 15 children raised
in Kansas poverty, something that
lets him clear the cruel hurdles
implanted by a racist society,
something that permits not merely
survival but mastery of all that he
embraced. A poet, and a pianist, a
classical music composer, and one
very at home with the blues . . .
a journalist, a novelist and a man
with enough life that even three
autobiographies cannot contain
the whole, a painter of oils and
water colors, and a photographer
of street gangs and Paris boulevards . . . It is not simply that he
was the first black man to do all
these things, but that any man
was able to do all these things
and do them well.”
- from The Great LIFE Photographers.
11
Orson Welles
by George Frein
Movie Magic – Art and Fakery
Movies are expensive to make. A
“A film is never really good
unless the camera is an eye
in the head of a poet.”
Orson Welles
(1915-1985)
1931 makes his stage debut at
the Gate Theatre in Dublin
1936-41 popular radio drama
star
1936 selected by John Houseman (WPA Federal Theatre
Project) to direct Macbeth for
the Negro Theatre Project in
Harlem.
1937 Julius Caesar, Cradle Will
Rock
1937 co-founds Mercury
Theatre
1938 “War of the Worlds”
stuns America – CBS radio,
Mercury Theater on the Air
1940 Citizen Kane
1941 Oscar for best Screenplay.
1942 The Magnificent Ambersons
1942 It’s All true/ Four Men on a
Raft unfinished documentary
about Brazilian culture
1943 Journey into Fear
1946 The Stranger
1947 Lady from Shanghai.
1948 Macbeth
1949 Black Magic
1952 Othello
1955 Mr. Arkadin
1958 A Touch of Evil.
1962 The Trial
1965 Chimes at Midnight
1973 F for Fake
1970-76 Other Side of the Wind,
unfinished, to be completed 2015
painter can purchase canvas and
brushes for a few dollars, whereas a
film director requires millions to make
a movie. But, if successful at the boxoffice, movies can be profitable beyond
anything a painter could ever hope for.
And just here, at the intersection
of cost and profit, the film artist in
America is caught in a struggle between making art and making money.
And this is true of no one more than
Orson Welles.
George Orson Welles was a genius
– at least the family physician pronounced him a genius while he was
still an infant. “The word genius was
whispered into my ear while I was still
mewling in my crib,” Welles said, laughing. “So it never occurred to me that I
wasn’t until middle age.”
Long before reaching middle age,
he had a successful debut on the
Dublin stage at 16; was a playwright
at 17; acted in a Broadway production
of Romeo and Juliet at 18; directed
a critically acclaimed Macbeth at 20;
produced Dr. Faustus for standing
room only audiences at 21; formed the
Mercury Theatre at 22; and was on the
cover of Time magazine at 23.
Welles was still only 23 when he
produced, directed and starred in the
Mercury Theatre on the Air, a series of
weekly programs that featured radio
versions of literary classics. One of the
classics was H. G. Wells’ The War of the
Worlds. Orson Welles produced it as
a breaking news story in which men
from Mars were reported to be invading New Jersey. Millions of unsuspecting dial-turners missed the beginning
announcement that what followed
was a radio play. They took it for a real
news broadcast andpanicked, flooding
police stationsaround the country with
phone calls. The show made Welles a
national celebrity.
To capitalize on Welles’ sudden
fame, RKO Pictures signed him, then
just 24, to a contract which gave him
complete artistic control to make a
movie which he would write, direct,
12
produce, act in, and edit. At age 25,
Orson Welles made Citizen Kane, often
said to be the best American movie
ever made and certainly a work of art.
Welles tells the story of Charles Foster
Kane through a series of flashbacks,
as a reporter interviews people who
knew Kane. We never see the reporter’s
face. The camera always shoots over
his shoulder so that we too can look
for the true Kane.
Critics loved it. It was nominated
for nine Academy Awards. It failed at
the box office, however, because the
press tycoon, William Randolph Hearst,
correctly took the picture’s fictional
Charles Foster Kane as an unflattering
portrait of himself. He refused to allow
mention of the film in Hearst newspapers and ruthlessly campaigned
against its distribution.
What caught the attention of RKO
stockholders was not the artistry of
Citizen Kane but the money it lost.
Never again would Welles be given the
kind of artistic freedom he enjoyed
while making his first movie.
Welles first film after Citizen Kane,
The Magnificent Ambersons (1943), was
based on a Booth Tarkington novel
about the decline of a wealthy American family. When a preview audience
objected to the absence of a happy
“ This is the biggest
electric train set any
boy ever had!’”
- Welles, on seeing the RKO
Studio lot for the first time.
GOOD ReadS
This Is Orson Welles: Orson Welles
and Peter Bogdanovich, edited
by Jonathan Rosenbaum, 1992
- Interviews with Welles, his
own words on film-making and
himself.
My Lunches with Orson Welles: Conversations Between Henry Jaglom
and Orson Welles, edited by Peter
Biskind, 2013 - Welles corrects the
record about his failure to make
another Citizen Kane.
ending, RKO rewrote and re-edited
the film; “ruined it,” Welles said. Worse,
producers in Hollywood passed around
the rumor that Welles could not finish a
film on time and within budget.
His answer to the charge was to
repress his own artistry and make a film
with a straightforward, linear story that
he produced on time and under budget.
The movie was The Stranger (1946),
about a former Nazi officer hiding out
at an American boys’ school, waiting for
a resurgence of the party in Germany.
It made money at the box office, but
Welles had compromised his art.
After The Stranger, Welles made The
Lady from Shanghai (1947) for Columbia
Pictures, starring himself and his wife,
Rita Hayworth. Although the studio
wanted only a B movie thriller, and reedited it to make it one, Welles wanted
to challenge American moviegoers to
react to true film art. In spite of Columbia’s editing, it has become a Film Noir
classic, famous for its final scene of a
shoot-out in a funhouse hall of mirrors.
The audience is never sure whether
they are seeing the shooter or his “fake”
mirror reflection.
After Lady from Shanghai, Welles
turned away from the Hollywood studio system. He had to seek individual
investors and put in money of his own.
But the result was a substantial body of
work marked by high artistic merit.
A Shakespearian actor himself,
Welles created innovative film versions of Shakespeare’s plays: Macbeth
(1948), Othello (1952), and a collage
of five plays in The Chimes at Midnight
(1965). Though American audiences
were largely unenthusiastic, Welles got
the grand prize for Othello at the 1952
Cannes Film Festival and two awards in
1966 for The Chimes at Midnight – the
film Welles thought was his best work.
In his middle age Welles continued to make films which challenged
film audiences to think. Mr. Arkadin
(1955) and Touch of Evil (1958) effectively embodied his belief: “The biggest
mistake we have made,” he said, “is to
consider that films are primarily a form
of entertainment; they are only incidentally a form of entertainment. The
film is the greatest medium since the
invention of movable type for exchanging ideas and information.” This idea is
especially evident In The Trial (1962), a
film inspired by Franz Kafka’s great and
difficult novel. What pleased Welles
about this film was that it was rather
well received, proving, he thought, that
one could make and market a film on a
serious topic - and a film which asked
questions but gave no answers.
Finally, Welles’ last film, and his
only color film, F for Fake (1973), is the
crowning expression of his belief that
film art should make audiences think
about what they are seeing on the
screen, indeed, think about what life
itself shows them. This is a must-see
movie for those who enjoy Chautauqua, which has its own kind of artistic
fakery – an audience talking to famous
people from the past. Orson Welles
appears in the film as himself, telling
the story of two famous fakes; and then
adds a surprise third fake of his own. He
boldly tests his audience with a serious
question about fakery: “But is it art?”
He asks the question as a playful, even
youthful genius of 58. n
13
Among the many biographies, the
best, I think, is Orson Welles, a Biography by Barbara Leaming,1985
and 1995 - well researched and
based on many interviews with
Welles, it presents a factual account of his film work that was neglected by many previous writers.
Simon Callow is writing a larger,
three-volume biography. Two are
published to date: Orson Welles:
The Road to Xanadu,1996; Orson
Welles: Hello Americans, 2006.
The Films of Orson Welles by
Charles Higham, 1970 - created
the widely held view that, after
making Citizen Kane, Welles could
not finish a film for temperamental reasons.
In My Father’s Shadow, A Daughter
Remembers Orson Welles by Chris
Welles Feder, 2009 - an intimate
look at Welles
BBC TV production, The Orson
Welles Story, 1982 - the best of the
many television interviews 2.75 hr.
Orson Welles’s Last Movie: The
Other Side of the Wind by Josh
Karp, book release on April 21,
2015 - behind-the-scenes account
about making the movie.
The Other Side of the Wind, the
movie - scheduled to be completed and released on May 6, 2015,
the 100th anniversary of Welles’
birthday.
C h a u ta u q u a
then...
and now...
by John M. Harrison, Oakland Iowa
by Tom Tiller, Greenville, SC
F
P
rom August to August, we waited
for Chautauqua to come back to
Oakland. In the little western Iowa
town where I grew up, Chautauqua
was far and away the most exciting
event of any year, a time when families
from miles around brought their tents,
their beds, their cooking equipment
to the wooded park on the bank of the
Nishnabotna River to be a part of that
wonderful mixture of entertainment
and stimulation in a time when radio
was mostly static, and the people in movies didn’t talk.
The big tent where all action took place had to be put
up and all the boys in town had to be there to watch it happen. As we grew older, we were sometimes even paid money
to perform some of the menial tasks involved, though we’d
have paid for the privilege had it been necessary.
Next came the family tents which went up in the wooded area south of the big tent. People flocked in from farms
and small towns within a thirty mile radius of Oakland to
spend the whole time the Chautauqua lasted – sleeping
there, eating there, socializing there.
And then came all the star attractions – the preachers,
the politicians, the lady elecutionists, the Swiss bell ringers,
the gospel singers and the actors who transported us to
other places. Billy Sunday would be there to sanctify us, and
William Jennings Bryan would come to exhort us. Bohumil
Kryl’s brass band would stir us, and string orchestras would
soothe us. The acting companies made us laugh uproariously or sob in sorrow. We lived in a different world from the
one in which we spent the other fifty weeks of the year.
I’ve sometimes regretted that I didn’t take advantage of
the chance to see Chautauqua from the other side of the
footlights. One of the groups that presented those wonderful plays made me an offer to spend the summer of 1930
doing the circuit with them. My parents thought that, at
16, I was a little young for that sort of thing. Probably they
were right, but ....
repare to be astonished by the virtual
presence of important
historical figures. You
can expect Will Rogers,
for example, to speak
to you about his own
times. This vivid encounter between you
and the performer leads
Tom and Lucy Tiller enjoy a picnic
to countless audience
before a Chautauqua show.
questions, followed by
another barrage of questions after the performer sheds
his period costume and answers as the scholar he is. The
scholar may have a different answer for the same question.
After the tent lights have dimmed at the close of a
wonderful Chautauqua evening and folks walk back
through the deepening dusk to their cars and home, it
is likely that they will long remember, discuss and read
about the important Americans they have seen, heard
and talked with. That the performers were scholars in
costume does not diminish their sense of actually
brushing shoulders with great Americans.
Young folks and old folks alike will have vivid memories of Thomas Jefferson, Rachel Carson, and Malcolm X.
And some simplistic conceptions will have been shattered. In this time of sound bites, tweets, and talk radio,
Chautauqua replaces misconceptions and distortions
about our country with the words of those who were
there. Chautauqua is a refreshing important dimension
of the grand adventure of learning.
When we say Chautauqua is an “Astonishing Journey
into the Past”, we realize the “past” for Chautauqua is
actually an important dimension of a larger present.
Hearing Will Rogers, for example, talk about duplicity
and corruption in politics, audiences quickly pick up on
the relevance of his commentary.
14
What they say about Chautauqua
“We love being Chautauqua volunteers.
You meet such interesting people.”
-Nan Brinsko and Ellen Weinberg
Hear their
stories in their
own words.
Photos by Christa Hanson and Mike Brinsko
“We like to laugh,
to be challenged,
to be entertained,
and delighted.”
-Dr. Seuss
Greenville Chautauqua
11 Rock Side Ct.
Greenville, SC 29615
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Thanks to our sponsors and the Friends of Chautauqua
We are grateful to all who have made Greenville Chautauqua
possible: to the many generous sponsors and donors who
enable us to keep our events free, and to the hard-working
volunteers. And thanks to you, the audience, for your enthusiastic participation. It wouldn’t be Chautauqua without you!
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Past Festivals
1999 American Humorists
Will Rogers, James Thurber, Langston
Hughes, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker
2000 Southern Writers
Zora Neale Hurston, Katherine Anne
Porter, Mark Twain, William Faulkner,
Thomas Wolfe
2001 American Renaissance
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman
Melville, Louisa May Alcott, Walt
Whitman, Henry David Thoreau,
Frederick Douglass
2002 Conceived in Liberty
Thomas Jefferson, Elizabeth
Freeman, Alexander Hamilton,
Henry Laurens, John and
Abigail Adams
2003 American Autobiography
Benjamin Franklin, Henry Adams,
Eleanor Roosevelt, Mark Twain,
Pauli Murray, Andrew Carnegie
2004 American Visions
Martin Luther King, Jr,
Eugene Debs, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, Thomas Paine,
John Winthrop
2005 The Civil War
Ambrose Bierce, Mary Chesnut, Sam
Watkins, John C. Calhoun, Frederick
Douglass, Abraham Lincoln
2006 Great American Journeys
Mary Ingles, William Clark, Sequoyah,
Herman Melville, Harriet Tubman
2007 The American Stage
Houdini, Paul Robeson,
Lillian Hellman, Will Rogers,
Mark Twain
2008 America: The Land
John J. Audubon, Teddy Roosevelt,
James Beckwourth, Rachel Carson,
Black Elk
2009 America in Crisis
George Washington, Rosa Parks,
Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt,
Abraham Lincoln
2010 American Imagination
Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison,
Emily Dickinson, Dr. Seuss,
Langston Hughes
2011 Ideas that Changed America
John Muir, Frances Perkins,
Albert Einstein, W.E.B. Du Bois,
Mark Twain
2012 They Came to America
Winston Churchill, Golda Meir,
Denmark Vesey, Carl Jung, Lafayette
2013 American Legends
Davy Crockett, Susan B. Anthony,
Herman Melville, Malcolm X
2014 Rising to the Occasion
Clara Barton, Patrick Henry,
Robert Smalls, Harry Truman
www.greenvilleCHAUTAUQUA.org Greenville Chautauqua