Elmer Clifton and Martha Mansfield two great tragedies
Elmer Clifton
Elmer Clifton (March 14, 1890 – October 15, 1949)
was an American writer, director and actor from the early silent days. A collaborator of D.W. Griffith, he appeared in The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916) before giving up acting in 1917 to concentrate on work behind the camera, with Griffith and Joseph Henabery as his mentors. His first feature-length solo effort as a director was The Flame of Youth with Jack Mulhall.
Clifton honed his talents during the late 1910s, directing vehicles for Mulhall and Herbert Rawlinson at Universal and then for Dorothy Gish for Famous Players-Lasky. Two of his projects with Gish, Nobody Home and Nugget Nell, featured performances from pre-stardom Rudolph Valentino. Most of this early output has been lost. He was the first filmmaker to discover the talents of Clara Bow, whom he cast in Down to the Sea in Ships, released on March 4, 1923. The independently produced film was well reviewed for its visual authenticity.
During the 1920s, Clifton directed films for several different studios. During the filming of The Warrens of Virginia (1924) for Fox Film Corporation, lead actress Martha Mansfield suffered a fatal accident from burns when her costume caught fire. Elmer was blameless in Mansfield's accident but Fox needed a scapegoat so Clifton was fired as a result of her accident and death and Clifton's career never fully recovered. Clifton directed The Wreck of the Hesperus for Cecil B. deMille's production company, and filmed on location in the Grand Canyon for The Bride of the Colorado. He also directed some Technicolor short films, including Manchu Love with an all-Asian cast.
In the sound era, Clifton wrote and directed many poverty row Westerns and "exploitation" classics, among them the anti-marijuana polemic Assassin of Youth (1937). He also directed the vice films Gambling with Souls (1936), Slaves in Bondage (1937) and City of Missing Girls (1941), all of which portrayed addiction and white slavery to some degree. His last film was Not Wanted (1949), which was finished by star Ida Lupino when Clifton became ill and was unable to work anymore. He died in 1949 of a cerebral hemorrhage shortly after the film's release.
In my opinion if a movie were to be made of his life Brad Pitt would be a shoe in to play Elmer they resemble each other so much.
Martha Mansfield
Martha Mansfield (July 14, 1899 – November 30, 1923)
An American actress in silent films and vaudeville stage plays
Early life
She was born Martha Ehrlich in New York City to Maurice and Harriett Gibson Ehrlich. She had a younger sister, Edith, born in 1905. Although many biographies state that Martha was born in Mansfield, Ohio, her birth record and death certificate both have New York City as her place of birth. Her mother, Harriet, was from Mansfield, Ohio, having emigrated there from Ireland in 1885. Martha later adopted the name of the town as her stage name.
Career
At the age of 14, she became determined to become an actress. She lobbied for, and won, a role in the Broadway production of Little Women in 1912. She also began working as an artists' model and dancer. She danced in the musicals Hop o'My Thumb in 1913.
Using the name "Martha Early", she was signed to a six-month contract with Essanay Studios in 1917 where she appeared in three films with French actor Max Linder. In 1918, she appeared in the Ziegfeld Follies. Later that same year, she made her feature film debut in Broadway Bill, opposite Harold Lockwood. In early 1919, Mansfield announced that she had decided to pursue a film career full-time. Before she relocated to the west coast, Mansfield played leads in films produced by Famous Players-Lasky. In October 1919, she appeared in Florenz Ziegfeld's The Midnight Frolic.
Her first Hollywood movie was Civilian Clothes (1920) directed by Hugh Ford. She gained prominence as Millicent Carew (originally offered to Tallulah Bankhead) in the film adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which starred John Barrymore. She then signed with Selznick Pictures where she was cast with Eugene O'Brien in The Perfect Lover (1919). In 1921, Mansfield returned to the stage in a vaudeville tour. She appeared in two independent films the following year: Queen of the Moulin Rouge and Till We Meet Again. She spent the remainder of the year touring the vaudeville circuit.
In 1923, Mansfield completed her contract for Selznick and signed with Fox Film Corporation. Her first film for Fox was The Silent Command, starring Edmund Lowe and Béla Lugosi. The final completed features in her short film career were Potash and Perlmutter and The Leavenworth Case, both from 1923.
Death
On November 29, 1923, while working on location in San Antonio, Texas on the film The Warrens of Virginia, Mansfield was severely burned when a tossed match ignited her Civil War costume of hoopskirts and flimsy ruffles. Mansfield was playing the role of Agatha Warren and had just finished her scenes and retired to a car when her clothing burst into flames. Her neck and face were saved when leading man Wilfred Lytell threw his heavy overcoat over her. The chauffeur of Mansfield's car was burned badly on his hands while trying to remove the burning clothing from the actress. The fire was put out, but she sustained substantial burns to her body.
She was rushed to a hospital where she died the following day of "burns of all extremities, general toxemia and suppression of urine". Mansfield was 24 years old. Accompanied by actor Phillip Shorey, Mansfield's body was transported back to her home in New York City. She was interred at the Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.
It was never determined who threw the match that ignited Mansfield's clothing. Some witnesses said they saw a match enter through the window of the car Mansfield was sitting in. Another theory was that a nervous Mansfield decided to smoke a cigarette in the car to calm her nerves and accidentally ignited the dress with a dropped match or a cigarette. Mansfield's mother, Harriett Ehrlich, dismissed this theory as she said smoking made her daughter "uncomfortable".
Aftermath
When the Warrens of Virginia was finally released in late 1924, Mansfield's role had been edited down, and Rosemary Hill was promoted as the female lead. Director Elmer Clifton was fired from the Film as a scapegoat even though he was blameless and had absolutely nothing to do with her accident.
Mansfield left an estate valued at $2,473. She bequeathed $22,000 in Liberty bonds to her mother. She also left her mother two life insurance policies worth $25,000 each.
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