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.

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