User:BoomBerm/Nell Shipman: Difference between revisions

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Early Career

Shipman very early on in her life learnt the ways of Vaudeville theatre which was very popular at the time, this was how she began acting. In 1907 she performed in The Pianophiends, a Jesse Lasky play. In 1909 she was a lead in the Charles Taylor play, The Girl From Alaska.^[1] At age 18, Foster-Barham was cast in a production of Rex Beach‘s The Barrier, which was being managed by Ernest Shipman. On 25 August 1910, she married Shipman, with whom she had Barry Shipman; she was his fourth wife. The couple moved to California in 1910, where she then worked as a screenwriter. She wrote and star in The Ball of Yarn in 1912, but was critical of its quality stating that it was so bad “that even Ernie couldn’t book it”. The first film she directed was Outwitted by Billy.

Back to God’s Country to The Grub Stake

Curwood’s short story Wapi the Walrus was adapted into Back to God’s Country, Directed by David M.Hartford. Shipman stated that the original story “was trash as a movie; a mere outline” and her adaptation increased the role of the female protagonist, which was played by Shipman. Back To God’s Country was a major Canadian and international silent film hit.

Shipman played a benevolent, animal loving Delores LeBeau as the star in Back to God’s Country. Shipman worked with a bear cub multiple dogs, and a porcupine on the set of the film, some of which she helped train, as Shipman was an avid animal lover. This film in many ways was Shipman’s production, she helped co-produced and co-wrote the film.^[1] Shipman also wrote in and filmed a nude scene, the end product of which was cut from the Final Cut of the film.^[1] The filming schedule of the film is a topic seemingly unconfirmed, some say it began as early as the winter of 1918 whereas others say it began in March of 1919.^[1][2] Regardless, the filming took place all over North America, many scenes outdoors were filmed in Alberta, near Lesser Slave Lake, other filming locations consist of the San Francisco Bay area, the Kern River domain, and what was not filmed in those locations was filmed using the Robert Brunton Studios in Hollywood.^[1] The Filming was finished in May of 1919 and the film was then debuted later in the year in September. The Film was an unprecedented success at the time, becoming Canada’s most popular feature film, while being screened on an international scale. The film while only costing around 67,000 dollars, grossed over 1.5 million dollars.^[3] Nell Shipman played an integral role in the production and on screen action of this film.

Despite the film’s success, Curwood did not like the fact that Shipman changed the plot of his short story and the protagonist from Wapi the Great Dane to Delores, Back to God’s Country was the only film ever made under the Shipman-Curwood contract.^[1]

Shipman had an extramarital affair with Bert Van Tuyle during the production of Back to God’s Country. On 10 May 1920, she divorced Ernest and moved to Highland Park, Los Angeles, with her son and Van Tuyle, who constructed a building next door. Shipman did two films for automobile companies, Trail of the Arrow and Something New, while awaiting her earnings from Back to God’s Country. The animals used for Back to God’s Country were purchased by Shipman as part of the severance agreement for her partnership with Ernest and Curwood.Nell Shipman Productions was formed in October 1920. Shipman and Van Tuyle raised $250,000 for The Girl from God’s Country in Spokane, Washington, through the company Nell Shipman Productions. The film was unsuccessful and Shipman moved her company to Priest Lake, Idaho, where she produced The Grub-Stake. She transported her zoo of animals on barges up to Priest Lake for her films at Lion Head Lodge. The Grub-Stake cost around $180,000 to produce. Compared to Back to God’s Country, The Grub-Stake was not a success. The film, a melodrama in which she starred as a character named Faith Diggs, tells the story of a woman who is lured into a life of prostitution with lies of a better life, which her character eventually escapes from. Subsequently, her character ends up in the den of a bear, where her character finds there the “love and sympathy denied her by human hearts.”^[3] As a result of many things including the rise of a studio dominated motion picture industry, the film struggled. The distributor went bankrupt before it received money earned from films released after February 1923, including The Grub-Stake.

Some say this marked the derailment of Shipman’s career, the image she built herself up until this point of being a strong woman who outwit others did not pair well with the rising patriarchal and traditional heteronormative family values being uplifted by the big five motion picture studios of the time. Therefore many women creatives in the early film industry were stunted in their growth as filmmakers, including Nell Shipman.^[3]

The relationship between Shipman and Van Tuyle ended in 1924. Van Tuyle threatened to kill Shipman around Christmas 1924, and Shipman tried to kill herself by drowning, but was stopped by her son Barry. In 1925, Shipman’s company went bankrupt after it produced ten films.

Later Life (Single Paragraph)

In 1935, Shipman started a relationship with Arthur Varney, previously known as Amerigo Serrao, a former film director, that lasted until the 1950s. Varney and Shipman moved six times in 1939 alone, as a result of many different financial difficulties. They struggled to find secure housing^[4] and ended up living in New York, Florida, and California, attempting to finance productions in the 1940s, but eventually became homeless. They received financial backing for The Story of Mr. Hobbs and completed it in 1947, but it was never released although an incomplete version was shown by the British Film Institute in 1996. Inspired by Joseph McCarthy, the couple attempted to make an anti-communist film, but never received financial backing.

Maki Salmon: Fantastic work on your article draft and effectively using formatting to indicate your contributions!