Agnes Vernon
Agnes Vernon was an American film actress of the silent era. While still in her teens, she experienced a meteoric ascent from obscurity to box-office sensation. After turning twenty-three and a movie career fading away, she abandoned the silver screen forever. Vernon performed in over 90 films between 1913 and 1922. She completed most of her roles under contract with Universal Pictures.
Vernon was born into a pious Catholic household in La Grande, Oregon, on Friday, December 27, 1895. She attended convent schools in various cities, landing in Chicago while still a young schoolgirl. In 1913, while visiting a cousin in California, they took a tour of Universal Studios. While watching the filming of a motion picture, the film's director asked her to become an extra. At first, reluctant because she had no previous stage training, she finally agreed and took her early steps to film fame and fortune.
Murdock MacQuarrie took the young actress under his wing. Vernon rose from film extra to leading lady in 6 months. She would develop fan-favorite screen pairings with actors Franklyn Farnum and Herbert Rawlinson. 1916 became her watershed year, defined by her extensive film output and the number of leading roles.
In 1919, she traveled to Australia to make three films. She made her final return to America in 1922, having already married Director John K. Wells. Her rapid rise and fall all happened within a decade. She is hardly remembered today like so many actors of the silent period.
Early life
This golden-haired girl with those big brown eyes was born Agnes Vernon to an Irish Catholic family in La Grande, Oregon, on December 27, 1895. Vernon lamented "she has never received any birthday presents because her friends give them all to her on Christmas Day."Vernon also stated "there was nothing particularly interesting about her childhood. I was perfectly normal. I went to school, played with dolls, and had an occasional spanking to break that monotony of my life."
Vernon claimed her family moved around the country. They eventually landed in Chicago, where Vernon enrolled in a convent school. After some time, they moved to Kansas City, where she attended another convent school that instilled a strong sense of discipline. After she was "finished," she moved to California with her mother.
In an article published in the Sacramento Star dated January 6, 1917, Agnes Vernon, in her own words, wrote, "It happened that I was spending a summer in California with a girl whom I had known in Chicago. Universal City was one of the trips arranged for me. We were watching the making of a scene on the big stage. A Director discovered he needed one more girl for a small bit. He looked around at the visitors and asked if I would try the small part for him. At first, I declined and finally consented. As the cameraman began to grind and the Director called his instructions, I was fascinated. The lure of the game had caught me." As Edmunds points out in his book - "Casting at Universal, before things became more businesslike, was somewhat casual. A passing face, a friend visiting the set, or an odd happening that caught a director's eye — all these, as well as direct applications — often led to successful movie careers. This was not unusual. The Gish sisters got their start because they dropped in to see Mary Pickford one day at Biograph."
Vernon had previously claimed, "I had always had a sneaking desire for the other side of the footlights." After her movie experience, Vernon acquired an intense desire to be in films, but her prim mother would not hear of it.
Now Vernon would have to convince her mother to change her mind about an acting career. In Vernon's own words, "Then I decoyed her out there again, and she began to see its advantages. She realized the reasonable hours of the actors and their out-of-door existence. The chance of living, as she expressed it, 'like a Christian instead of traipsing all over the country,' gradually converted her to the idea of letting me try my luck." Even though she had no stage experience or Universal contacts, she had this all-consuming desire to succeed. Vernon got her name on an "extra list" at Universal City.
Career
Most fan magazine articles agree; Vernon started her movie career as an player in March 1913. She was and barely a year out of convent school. Those uncredited roles are unknown and, consequently, not listed in her filmography.Universal distributed most of her films. They were well-received because she collaborated with specific actors like Murdock MacQuarrie, Herbert Rawlinson, and Franklyn Farnum. Her pairing with Herbert Rawlinson would make them the most popular stars on the Universal list.
Another facet of her film performances was her willingness to perform all sorts of athletic feats that her role required. An article in the Moving Picture Weekly pointed out, "She does everything that even a screen actress can be asked to do — rides, drives, runs a car, swims, dives, dances, plays any and every game, and will perform stunts with the best of the daredevils if the director says so. She jumped out of a third-story window to put a punch in the picture, one time, and in another, she dived off the deck of a steamer into the ocean."
Her early works at Universal were all, as was the trend. She acted in her first feature film in 1916. Then, between 1917 and 1919, Vernon made eleven more feature films. Vernon departed Hollywood in September 1919 and traveled to Australia. She would act in three feature films in Australia, then retire from acting, never to return.
1914
The first credited movie role for Agnes Vernon was the 3-reel short film Bison production of The Triumph of Mind, starring and directed by Lois Weber. The film was released on May 23, 1914. Vernon plays the part of Daisya. This film was Vernon's introduction to Ella Hall and Rupert Julian. Another Lois Weber production, Avenged, also released in May.An article in The Universal Weekly dated December 26, 1914, stated, "Out in Universal City is a wonderful man who has taken a wonderful, bright, golden-haired little girl under his wing. The wonderful man is Murdock MacQuarrie, and his eighteen-year-old charge is Agnes Vernon."
MacQuarrie's decision to mentor Vernon would develop into a pivotal event in her motion picture career. Even though she had limited theatrical experience, he gave her a part in one of his upcoming films. He allowed her to learn the fundamentals of acting "on the job." Her first role in a MacQuarrie-directed project was the 2-reel film The Old Cobbler, distributed on June 27, 1914. The -year-old MacQuarrie plays Nathan — the old cobbler. Nathan moves out West and befriends Wild Bill, played by Lon Chaney. Wild Bill has a sweetheart and local dancer named Jess, played by -year-old Agnes Vernon.
Vernon would make another 11 movies with MacQuarrie in 1914 and 20 more films in 1915, ending with The Tinker of Stubbenville, released on June 24, 1915. Vernon released 16 short films in 1914, all distributed by Universal. The majority had Murdock MacQuarrie as the lead. In 1914, she performed under the management of 5 directors: Lois Weber, Murdock MacQuarrie, Charles Giblyn, Otis Turner, and Joseph De Grasse.
Vernon's last film in 1914 was the MacQuarrie-directed film, When It's One Of Your Own, released on December 29, 1914. MacQuarrie plays Heinrich Gerhardt, a German Musician, and Agnes Vernon plays his daughter. Vernon received top billing as a female lead. She would make 32 films with MacQuarrie, or nearly one-third of her total film output.
In 1914, Vernon also performed in several films with Lon Chaney, including The Old Cobbler, A Ranch Romance, By the Sun's Rays, and The Oubliette. ' has survived and is available on the Internet Archive The Oubliette, released on August 15, 1914, was the first movie in a 4-part serial — The Adventures of François Villon directed by Charles Giblyn. Vernon likewise performed in the fourth film of the 4-part serialNinety Black Boxes, released on November 21, 1914. ' is also available on the Internet Archive.
1915
As I.G. Edmunds points out in his book BIG U - Universal in the Silent Days, "The year 1915, although a great year for Universal as a leader of the motion picture industry, was not a good year financially for the industry as a whole. The European war cut down on foreign sales of movies. Also, domestic prices were increasing across the board. At the same time, the cost of production was in an inflationary spiral."By 1915, feature films were becoming more of the trend in Hollywood. By 1915, over 600 feature films were produced annually in the United States. However, Universal was not ready to downsize its short film business. There was a recurring claim that Carl Laemmle was the longest-running studio chief resisting the production of feature films. After all, short films were cheaper, faster, and more profitable to produce than feature films.
In January 1915, Vernon's life took an unexpected twist. It started with a publicity-seeking marriage proposal by a newspaper reporter. Vernon shocked everybody by accepting the offer, kick-starting a chain of events over four months. The entire sequence of events is examined in the [|marriage section] of this article.
Vernon's 1915 film output would increase to thirty-five short films. This year would become the highest film production of her entire movie career. This total included another twenty films with Murdock MacQuarrie. 1915 would become Vernon's introduction to Hobart Henley in the film Jane's Declaration of Independence, released on July 3, 1915. The pairing would only produce five short films.
As Edmunds also observes, "At this time Universal was very strong on teams. Groups developed almost into stock companies with the same director, actor, actress, and supporting cast. Laemmle believed that if the public liked a certain girl and boy, they would like them in another picture."
Vernon was assigned to the William Worthington company in mid-1915. This assignment started a continuing professional relationship with the director and actress. Over Vernon's movie career, her relationship with Worthington would produce twenty-two films, including six feature films. The film Misjudged, released on August 31, was Vernon's first movie, directed by Worthington and starring Herbert Rawlinson. The combination would only produce three films in 1915, but the screen chemistry would result in another eleven films in 1916 and three features in 1917.
Another significant event occurred in early 1915. At 10 am on Monday, March 15, 1915, 10,000 people applauded as Carl Laemmle, president of the universal film manufacturing company, unlocked the gate to Universal City. It was a realization of Laemmle's dream to build the world's only city devoted solely to motion picture production. Company executives and movie stars greeted them as they passed through the gate. In the afternoon, the actors returned to their movie sets and resumed work on their projects as fans watched.