OPALESCENT

 

CLARA KIMBALL YOUNG : WOMEN FILM PIONEERS PROJECT AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY : THE SECOND WOMAN AFTER MARY PICKFORD TO FOUND HER OWN MOVIE PRODUCTION COMPANY

Karen Ward Mahar is the author of this page that honors Clara Kimball Young. Her research includes reading Moving Picture World articles that include her business dealings through her own Film Corporation.  The excerpt I've chosen focuses on Lewis J. Selznick's role in her life but Clara was married to James Young, and then Harry Garson, during the years in which she was also in one way or another involved with Lewis Selznick. Mahar questions just how involved Clara was when it came to producing films. Her company released four films but, sadly, it was reported that she wanted out because he dominated.

Excerpt: Young was World Film Corporation’s biggest star. When financial trouble in the spring of 1916 caused the firm to reorganize, Selznick left to create his own production company, taking Clara Kimball Young with him (Lewis 45). It was at this juncture that Selznick created the Clara Kimball Young Film Corporation, naming Young, allegedly at her request, as its vice president and treasurer (1761). Four features produced by the Clara Kimball Young Film Corporation were released between October 1916 and April 1917: The Common Law (1916), The Foolish Virgin (1916), The Price She Paid (1917), and The Easiest Way (1917).

Did Clara Kimball Young actively coproduce these films? Apparently she did not. In June 1917, Young sued Selznick, claiming that although she was named vice president and treasurer, “Selznick dominated and controlled the film corporation… and she had no voice whatsoever in its affairs and was permitted to perform none of the positions held by her” . A week later Selznick countersued, claiming that Young received a $1,000 a week salary and advances of $25,000, “for which she is alleged to have rendered no services whatsoever.” And it appeared that Clara Kimball Young’s new love interest was even more troublesome from Selznick’s point of view. Selznick claimed that Young pressured the corporation to elect her companion Harry A. Garson to the board of directors, and that since then she “has followed his advice in all matters relating to business relations with the corporation and that she is now carrying on negotiations to appear in films under his direction.” Since Young’s agreement with Selznick was not due to expire until 1921, leaving to make films with Garson would constitute breach of contract.

One month after news of the Young-Selznick suit hit the presses, a “New C. K. Young Company” was announced. Did Young leave one Svengali (Selznick) for another (Garson)? On July 7, 1917, the Moving Picture World announced that “Clara Kimball Young has finally realized her ambition to become head of her own producing company.”

Read more at the link!

I find it interesting that there has not been any biography written about Clara Kimball Young and I wonder if there were writers out there who thought of it but were afraid to be associated with her due to the power of the likes of Selznick.  At the end of the article she is quoted as no longer wanting to live in the past - the Silent Screen era.

C 2026 Mistress Manifesto - BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

Research includes using Google, AI, Wikis, YouTube, etc.

ROOTED

 

CLARA KIMBALL YOUNG : AMERICA'S FIRST FIRST LADY OF THE SCREEN BY GRETA DE GROAT - STANFORD UNIVERSITY

My research suggested that Greta De Groat was a primary modern researcher and writer about Clara Kimball Young. I found her page on a Stanford University website. I'll focus on the chapter called Enter Louis Selznick:

STANFORD : DE GROAT : CLARA KIMBALL YOUNG

Excerpt: Louis Selznick, an ambitious producer with an ultimately fatal habit of antagonizing powerful business rivals, saw a potential goldmine in Young. He signed her 1914 and immediately starred her as Lola, a woman who is transformed from a respectable young woman into a vamp who heartlessly destroys men after her dead body is resurrected without a soul. This was another hit which cemented Clara Kimball Young's position as a top star and James Young as a sought-after director. She was now one of the chief attractions of World Film Corporation, for which Selznick had become the vice president.

Meanwhile, Selznick and Young's personal lives were becoming intertwined. Mabel Normand later recalled James Young on the set in 1915, head in hands, saying "where I made my mistake was in ever inviting that fellow to the house." Selznick's wife had to endure the humiliation of escorting Clara to public events to squelch rumors, which apparently fooled no one. James Young ceased directing her films after The Heart of Blue Ridge (1915), and in 1916 sued Selznick for alienation of affection. Clara counter sued charging cruelty, and Selznick replied that the marriage was already in trouble before his appearance. James Young finally obtained a final decree on April 8, 1919, on grounds of desertion.

Excerpt: In February 1916, Selznick was ousted from World, but he had a surprise up his sleeve. As it happened, Clara Kimball Young was under contract, not to World, but personally to Selznick. His rivals had rid themselves not only of Selznick, but also of their most popular star. Within months World was reissuing most of her films.

Selznick lost no time in forming the Clara Kimball Young Film Corporation, with himself as president, and formed Selznick Productions to distribute her films and those of some other independent producers.

C 2026

Note that De Groat lists a good number of references and is open to new information about Clara. I checked Google Books for mentions of Clara and her name brings up mentions in movie business and fan type publications. 

C 2026 Mistress Manifesto - BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

Research includes using Google, AI, Wikis, YouTube, etc.

CLARA KIMBALL YOUNG : SHE KEPT A DIARY FOR SEVERAL MONTHS IN THE YEAR 1921

Wow! There's a web site called DIARY FILE... And it's dedicated to preserving though digitalization, historical diaries and letters. 

Excerpt: At the time of the diary, she was thirty years old and actively shooting several films per year.  

DIARY FILE : CLARA KIMBALL YOUNG

Excerpt (Quoting from the diary itself, thus this was written by Clara herself.) about loosing weight.

With jockeys, show girls and movie stars, and light weight boxers, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness becomes a mere question of yielding to Shylock his pound of flesh. They are habitual defendants in the Court of Public Favor, charged with the heinous offense of overweight and, if judged guilty, they must pay the forfeit in flesh or retire from the limelight. No Party arises to plead on their behalf. “The Law allows it, and the court awards it.”

Read on!  In these excerpts Clara mentions filming with Harry Garson who she's involved with and who is directing her in a movie, as well as a good party at the Ambassador Hotel.

C 2026 Mistress Manifesto - BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

Research includes using Google, AI, Wikis, YouTube, etc.

WHIPLASH CURVE

 

CLARA KIMBALL YOUNG IN THE MOVIE "KEPT HUSBANDS"

I was thrilled to find the full silent film entitled Kept Husbands which Clara Kimball Young starred in, which was posted by a YouTube station called The Film Detective. It's a story about the rich and the poor, and in the end the woman who started out poor returns to her steelworker husband.

 

Why is it that "Kept" is a term used about mistresses, women who are supported by men they are not married to, while "Kept" is not used for a wife who is entirely dependent on her husband for financial support?  A stay-at-home wife and mother - a 'homemaker' - a woman who is entirely dependent on her husband, is honored. It's tradition. It's conservative.  And today, it's rare to be either!

C 2026 Mistress Manifesto - BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

Research includes using Google, AI, Wikis, YouTube, etc.

MORE

 

CLARA KIMBALL YOUNG : REDUCED TO SELLING HER JEWELRY : LEWIS SZELNICK WASN'T HAPPY WHEN FELL FOR HARRY GARSON and MARRIED HIM

Excerpt from the book : In this book author Axel Madsen writes that actress Gloria Swanson, married to Herbert Somborn of Equity Pictures, and actor Rudolph Valentino were friends. Two years earlier, in 1919, he had made the movie Eyes of Youth with Clara Kimball Young.  

Here's a clip from the movie from a YouTube poster Imperio Retro  

Excerpt page 83: Getting to know Valentino was a pleasure for Gloria.  He too, was caught in a miserable marriage. His wife was the dancer Jean Acker. He was an excellent horseman, and on Sunday mornings he and Gloria rode together in the Hollywood Hills. .... They talked about Eyes of Youth, the picture he had made with Clara Kimball Young two years earlier. Rudy felt sorry for Clara. She had been Lewis Selznick's mistress for years.  The reason Selznick had pulled the financial rug from under Equity Pictures * was that Clara had fallen in love with Harry Garson.  It was Garson who had persuaded Clara to produce her own picture. Now she was reduced to selling her jewelry. The Studios wouldn't touch her.

Missy here : It may've been that the increasingly powerful Selznick decided that Clara would "never work in this town again." However, I think we need to look at the changes in the movie making business that effected everyone, from various business deals that eventually lead to larger, more powerful studios that put actors on contract, the Great Depression, and the technology that ended the silent film era in which Clara Kimball Young had found her fame and rapidly moved to movies with sound.

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