27 Facts About Frances Marion

Frances Marion was the first writer to win two Academy Awards.

Frances Marion wrote numerous silent film scenarios for actress Mary Pickford, before transitioning to writing sound films.

Frances Marion was born Frances Marion Benson Owens in San Francisco, California, to Minnie Benson and Len Douglas Owens, an advertising and billboard executive, later, developer of Aetna Springs Resort, Aetna Springs, Pope Valley, California.

Frances Marion had an older sister, Maude, and a younger brother, Len.

Frances Marion dropped out of school at age 12, after having been caught drawing a cartoon strip of her teacher.

Frances Marion then transferred to a school in San Mateo and then to the Mark Hopkins Art Institute in San Francisco when she was 16 years old.

Frances Marion attended this school from 1904 until the school was destroyed by the fire that followed in the wake of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Frances Marion could have been an actor, but preferred work behind the camera.

Frances Marion accepted, and began working on scenarios for films like Fanchon the Cricket, Little Pal, and Rags.

Frances Marion was then cast alongside Pickford in A Girl of Yesterday.

Frances Marion, having traveled from Los Angeles to New York for The Foundling's premiere, applied for work as a writer at World Films and was hired for an unpaid two-week trial.

Frances Marion wrote a new prologue and epilogue for a film starring Alice Brady, daughter of World Films boss William Brady.

Soon Frances Marion became head of the writing department at World Films, where she was credited with writing 50 films.

Frances Marion shared a house with fellow screenwriter Anita Loos on Long Island.

Frances Marion told her best friend Mary Pickford the story she heard during her recent honeymoon in Italy for which Pickford said it was the next movie she wanted to do.

Frances Marion directed only one more movie The Song of Love, co-directing it with Chester Franklin.

Frances Marion won the Academy Award for Writing in 1931 for the film The Big House, she received the Academy Award for Best Story for The Champ in 1932, both featuring Wallace Beery, and co-wrote Min and Bill starring her friend Marie Dressler and Beery in 1930.

Frances Marion was credited with writing 300 scripts and over 130 produced films.

In 1914, Frances Marion befriended Adela Rogers St Johns, Marie Dressler, and Mary Pickford.

On October 23,1915, Frances Marion participated in a parade of more than thirty thousand supporters of women's suffrage in New York City.

The resort, in fact, was directly connected to her own family's history, for Frances Marion's father had built the resort in the 1870s.

Frances Marion was married four times, first to Wesley de Lappe and then to Robert Pike, both prior to changing her name.

Frances Marion was such close friends with Mary Pickford that they honeymooned together when Mary married Douglas Fairbanks and Frances married Fred.

Frances Marion had two sons: US Navy Captain Richard G Thomson, and Frederick Clifton Thomson who earned a PhD in English at Yale, taught there and later joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina, later becoming an editor of the writings of George Eliot, publishing editions of Felix Holt, the Radical in 1980 and later.

In 1945, Molly, Bless Her, the 1937 novel written by Frances Marion, was adapted by Roger Burford, as the screenplay for the comedy film, Molly and Me, directed by Lewis Seiler and starring Monty Woolley, Gracie Fields, Reginald Gardiner and Roddy McDowall, released by 20th Century Fox.

Frances Marion published a memoir Off With Their Heads: A Serio-Comic Tale of Hollywood in 1972.

Frances Marion died the following year of a ruptured aneurysm in Los Angeles.