Corinne Griffith
Corinne Griffith was an American film actress, producer, author and businesswoman. Dubbed "The Orchid Lady of the Screen", she was widely regarded as one of the most beautiful actresses of the silent film era. In addition to her beauty, Griffith achieved critical recognition for her performance in Frank Lloyd's The Divine Lady, which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Originally from Texas, Griffith pursued a film career after winning a beauty contest in Southern California. In 1916, she signed a contract with Vitagraph Studios, appearing in numerous films for the studio through the remainder of the decade. In 1920, she began making films for First National Pictures and became one of the studio's bigger stars. In the mid-1920s, she began executive-producing features and served as a producer on 1925's Déclassée and Classified, in both of which she starred.
In the latter part of the 1920s, Griffith's film career slowed, though she had lead performances in Outcast and the drama The Garden of Eden. The following year, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Divine Lady. She starred in Lilies of the Field, a remake of the 1924 film in which she had also starred. Her following film, Back Pay, was promoted as Griffith's final screen appearance before her retirement. She did, however, appear as the lead in Lily Christine two years later.
After 1932, Griffith retired from acting and became a successful author and businesswoman, writing numerous fiction and non-fiction books, as well as venturing into real estate, in which she had begun investing in the 1920s. She married her third husband, Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall, in 1936, and remained married to him until 1958. She made her final film appearance with a minor role in Paradise Alley, which marked her first screen appearance in 28 years. A biographical film about Griffith was released in 1963 titled Papa's Delicate Condition, based on her 1952 memoir and focusing on the relationship between her and her father. After suffering a stroke in July 1979, Griffith was hospitalized in Santa Monica, California, where she died shortly after of a heart attack. She left behind a reported estate of $150 million, making her one of the wealthier women in the world at that time.
Biography
1894–1932: Early life and Vitagraph films
Griffith was born Corinne Griffin on November 21, 1894 in Waco, Texas, one of two daughters born to John Lewis "Jack" Griffin, a Methodist minister and train conductor of the Texas & Pacific railway, and Amboline Ghio. Griffith's maternal grandfather, Antonio Ghio, was an Italian immigrant who became a successful businessman in Texas and was a three-time mayor of Texarkana; her maternal grandmother, Maria Anthes, also an immigrant, was a native of Darmstadt, Germany. At the time of Griffith's birth, her mother Amboline was in her early 20s, while her father, John, was nearly 40. Griffith's parents had married in 1887, and the wedding was a celebrated event among local high society.Griffith and her sister were raised Catholic. Her early years were spent in Waco before the family moved to Texarkana, Texas, where Griffith lived until age 10; she moved to New Orleans, Louisiana to attend the Sacred Heart Convent school. Her father died in Mineral Wells, Texas on March 20, 1912. After completing her primary education, Griffin enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin for the 1912–1913 semester year. She also worked as a dancer before she began her acting career.
Accounts of Griffith's entry into the film industry vary. At some point after her father's death, Griffith left Texas and relocated with her mother and sister, Augusta, to Southern California. Some sources claim she was urged by Vitagraph Studios director Rollin S. Sturgeon to pursue an acting career after winning a beauty contest in Santa Monica, California, in which Sturgeon was a judge. According to another account, Griffith met Sturgeon at a high-society event in Crescent City, California, and he offered her a film contract on the spot. In a 1919 newspaper article, Griffith said she was approached by Sturgeon in New Orleans after she won a pageant during the Mardi Gras festival. According to Griffith, Sturgeon suggested she become an actress, and several months later she traveled to California to meet with executives at Vitagraph.
In 1916, she signed a $15-weekly contract with Vitagraph and took the stage name Corinne Griffith. She made her screen debut in a short film titled La Paloma, opposite Earle Williams. She appeared in a series of short films for the studio before becoming a leading lady. On April 22, 1920, Griffith married her first husband, Webster Campbell, in a private ceremony in Oceanside, California.
Griffith's performance in one of her later films for Vitagraph, The Broadway Bubble, was described by a critic of the Austin American-Statesman as the "strongest and most fascinating role in her notable career" and lauded it as her "crowning achievement."
1923–1932: First National contract
In 1923, after three years of marriage, Griffith divorced Campbell, whom she claimed was an abusive alcoholic. The same year, Griffith left Vitagraph Studios, signing a more lucrative contract of $10,000 a week with First National, where she became one of their most popular stars. Her first film for the studio was Frank Lloyd's Black Oxen, a drama in which she portrayed a mysterious Austrian countess. The film, in which Griffith co-starred with Conway Tearle and Clara Bow, became a hit.Griffith married producer Walter Morosco in February, 1924. The same year, she starred in and executive-produced three pictures: Single Wives, Love's Wilderness, and Lilies of the Field. All three of the films were box-office hits. By 1927, Griffith had begun investing her film income in real estate and owned approximately $500,000 worth of properties.
In 1928, she had the starring role in The Garden of Eden for United Artists which, though critically praised, was not a box-office hit. Disappointed by the film's lackluster dividends, Griffith returned to First National to appear in Frank Lloyd's The Divine Lady, a sound film featuring synchronized music, but no audible dialogue. Griffith earned critical accolades for her performance, including a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Griffith's first full sound film was Lilies of the Field, a remake of her 1924 silent film in the same role. Griffith's voice, which was regarded as nasal, did not record well, and the film was a box office flop. The following year, she starred in the drama Back Pay, based on a story by Fannie Hurst, which was promoted as her final screen appearance. After a two-year hiatus, Griffith starred in the British film Lily Christine and then left the public eye completely.
1933–1964: Post-film career
After her retirement from film, Griffith divorced Morosco in 1934. Two years later, she married businessman and Washington Redskins owner George Preston Marshall. In December 1941, the couple adopted two daughters, Pamela and Cynthia. In the early years of her marriage to Marshall, she wrote the lyrics to the truly racist original fight song, "Hail to the Redskins".In the 1940s, Griffith began investing in real estate in the Los Angeles area. She funded the construction of four commercial buildings on all four corners of the intersection of Wilshire Boulevard and South Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills, California. The construction of the buildings, each named after her, proved lucrative, and she turned down an offer of $2.5 million for them in 1950. The same year, she spoke at the inaugural National Association of Real Estate Boards convention in Florida. "I liked the vacant business lots I saw in Beverly Hills with the For Sale signs on them," she recalled. "They were so near the beautiful homes there in that section and I couldn't help but feel that someday the business section would grow up to the great buying power of these wealthy estates."
In addition to her real estate ventures, beginning in the 1950s, Griffith became a vocal supporter of repealing the 16th Amendment, which authorized income tax. Over the ensuing decade, she gave approximately 500 speeches on the subject. Commenting on her dedication to the topic, she stated: "We have no substitute of other taxes because we have no substitute for waste, graft and corruption. If the federal government will eliminate only part of its waste, just 40 billions of dollars a year of its waste... I can prove to you in dollars and cents that the government does not need the income tax." Griffith also spoke in support of women seeking their own financial autonomy.
Griffith was also an accomplished writer who published eleven books, including two best-sellers, My Life with the Redskins, and the memoir Papa's Delicate Condition, which chronicled her upbringing and family life in Texarkana. Her third publication, 1955's Eggs I Have Known, was a recipe book with gossipy anecdotes interspersed. In 1958, Griffith divorced Marshall. In 1960, she was honored for her contributions to the motion picture industry with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street. She later published her fourth book, Antiques I Have Known, a non-fiction book about her interest in antiques. Griffith returned to the screen in 1962 in the low-budget melodrama Paradise Alley, which received scant release and marked her final film role. Also in 1962, she published two books: Hollywood Stories, a selection of short fiction, and Taxation Without Representation—or, Your Money Went That-a-Way, which argued against the income tax. The following year, her memoir Papa's Delicate Condition was made into a biographical feature film of the same name starring Jackie Gleason.