Thomas Harper Ince was an actor, screenwriter, producer and film director born in Newport, Rhode Island 6 November 1882 and died in unclear circumstances on November 19, 1924. Highlighted by a rigorous style production based on the planning and monitoring.
As it was born into a family of actors, was linked from infancy to the art world and knowing in all kinds of shows. Brothers John Ince and Ralph Ince, also were actors and film directors.
His work in cinema
He was the son of John Ince and Emma Brennan Ince Theatre actors. At age 15 had already participated in various shows and even worked on Broadway as a singer and dancer. In 1910 he began to work as an actor at the Carl Laemmele Independence Motion Picture Company. In 1911 went to work for the New York Motion Picture Company in Edenlade, California where his first film was first released on December 12, 1911 in which he worked as a director, producer, film cowboy Bar Z’s New Cook guionsta and actor. By that time studies moved to a larger premises located six miles north of Santa Monica who would later become known as Inceville and hired the company from the Miller brothers, a circus that filming their own movies, composed of some 350 people including riders, actors, Indians with their caballadas, mules, and other computers.
The study began with two dressing rooms and a platform on which assembled the decorations; also used for filming a nearby village inhabited mostly by Russians and Japanese fishermen and their families. War on the Plains (1912), the first film in which appeared Inceville, Indians was praised by critics for its historical accuracy, costumes and photography. Custer’s Last Raid (1912) film obtained authorization from the u.s. Government to hire some one hundred Indians sioux reservation which were added to those already working regularly as extras.
Ince directed, wrote and produced all the studies until the autumn of 1912; films personally mounting did it in the kitchen of his house assisted by the wife movies which passed while he was busy cutting and joining the negatives and later began to share the task with Francis Ford.
In 1912 the company was merged with the universal and started a fight that ended when the brand was the universal power and Ince alongside Adam Kessel and Charles o. Baumann, two of the owners of the Bison, founded Kay-Bee Productions
Ince working style was characterized by strict control over economic costs contrasted with improvisation that generally handled the industry, which were few companies who started studied budgets. Implemented many mechanisms for the production of films, such as using a detailed shooting script that also contained information on those who were on scene, a list of all indoor and outdoor use, payroll costs, and other more scenarios. It was also the first to require instead of one person doing everything would specializations in directors, editors and writers. This standardization and automation facilitated film in series production.
In 1914 he filmed the film The Battle of Gettysburg that lasted more than 800 actors that filming with eight cameras from different angles in war scenes on a scale never seen before. Then released the new brand “Domino” with which produced movies interpreted by Japanese star Tsuru Aoki and his troupe of artists, which built a Japanese village in Santa Ynez. Episodes like The Wrath of the Gods or the wrath of the gods (1914) and The Typhonn performed by that Star alongside her husband Sessue Hayakawa movies were filmed there. Studies should soon a Spanish Mission, a Dutch town with channel and mill including wind, a town in the West, a street of the West Indies and Indian camp.
Produced in quantity of West movies with William S. Hart becoming the star of his time oestre among those highlighted The bargain, what constituted a very profitable line at the same time making social pretensions and quality films with stars such as Mildred Harris and William Desmond. Ince wrote many scripts, including The Italian (1915) was preserved by the National Film Registry of United States.
In 1915, Ince partnered with D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett to create Triangle Motion Picture Company in Culver City, California. In 1918 he sold his share to Griffith and Sennett acquired free of charge from real estate speculator Harry Culver a 16-acre plot located in Culver City, next to a dusty road that eventually would be Washington boulevard and formed the studies Thomas H. Ince in activity between 1919 and 1924.
Ince left direct and dedicated to the expansion of the company and production monitoring scripts, framing and work in general of eight directors. 1916 Saw civilization film, a story of war and peace in an imaginary country that favored the anti-war campaign of President Woodrow Wilson during the First world war. A truca which battles explosions was expanded to give more realism was built for the film. The last important films produced by Ince include Human Wreckage (1923) which is an allegation against drug abuse and Anna Christie (1923).
In 1925, Cecil B. Demille acquired the estate and baptized him studies DeMille Studios. A Culver City street, which crosses the Culver Studios called Ince Blvd., in his honor, and is planned to build in the near future a theatre Ince Theatre in an empty lot near Ince Blvd.
Thomas Ince, style with his personal supervision of all scripts and production plans made him one of the most prominent producers of the first two decades of American cinema. Many actors who were then popular figures as well as young directors who went on to consecrated passed through his study.
His death
Saturday, November 15, 1924, in San Pedro, California, the luxurious yacht Oneida magnate William Randolph Hearst went for a walk towards San Diego weekend in honor of his birthday n * 42 Ince and, among other guests were Charlie Chaplin, Louella Parsons journalist, Hearst Dr. Daniel Carson Goodman, the author Elinor Glyn production manager and Marion Davies, Aileen Pringle, Jacqueline Logan, Seena Owen, Margaret Livingston and Julanne Johnston film actresses. Ince could not climb aboard because delayed by your business occupations which traveled by train to San Diego and made him the next morning, so attended the Festival in her honor that Sunday night. Early morning Monday a boat transported it from the yacht coast accompanied by Dr. Goodman, who was a doctor received but not practiced his profession and between Tuesday night and early morning of Wednesday 19 died.
Death certificate signed by his personal physician, Dr. Ida Glasgow indicated an attack on the heart as a cause of death. His body was cremated and his widow soon departed for Europe.
Later on his death
In later years were circulated several stories conflicting of what happened, some commenting that Hearst shot is in a fit of jealousy or accidentally while quarreled with Chaplin due to Davies, and then using their power and influence to conceal the fact.
1927 Worldwide Louella Parsons, who was an influential and feared journalist in the world of Hollywood entertainment said that William Randolph Hearst shot in the head Thomas Ince in error since you want to throw at Chaplin. Hearst would have suspected that Davies and Chaplin were lovers in secret and to watch them invited both in this voyage in the course of which found in a situation that promised them and went to seek his weapon. Ince, awakened by the cries of Davies, would have raced to the scene and received the shot to Chaplin.
A second version was Ince, suffered from ulcer in the kitchen looking for something for stomach pain at night when entered Hearst and mistaking Chaplin shot him on Sunday. Another version spoke of a fight for the pistol in the lower deck between unidentified passengers during which escaped a shot that went through the wall of wood and killed Ince who was in his cabin.
Abigail Kinsolving, Secretary of Manon Davies, who was not married, added at the same time more elements of confusion when he said that that weekend Ince had raped her on board the yacht. Months later gave birth to a baby, and soon after died in a mysterious accident car near the Hearst Ranch. The body was found by two bodyguards Hearst along with a suspicious-looking suicide note and the girl was sent to an orphanage with financial support from Marion Davies.
Chaplin Toraichi Kono Secretary also intervened saying him his wife who had seen Ince when reaching the coast with a gunshot wound to the head, that bled. History quickly spread among Japanese domestic workers from Beverly Hills to a point in which the Prosecutor in San Diego was forced, one month after the fact, to initiate an investigation. It was limited to take depositions to Dr. Goodman, who explained that once on land had taken the train towards Los Angeles along with Ince but as it felt wrong fell in del Mar and registered at a hotel, from which Goodman called a doctor and Nell Ince, who agreed to travel to del Mar. Goodman, unclear whether it was a heart attack or indigestion said that had stopped the hotel before the arrival of the wife. With this single statement Prosecutor closed the investigation.
Gossip and suspicion, however, continued to expand among the same people who had shared with Ince fatal trip this weekend. Chaplin always denied having been there and insisted he had visited with Hearst and Davies at the mourner Ince later in the week, stating that Ince had died two weeks after your visit, when actually it had 48 hours of having abandoned the Oneida.
Marion Davies also made its contribution to the mystery never acknowledged that Chaplin or Goodman were aboard this weekend and also denied there find Louella Parsons. Davies insisted that Nell Ince called it later that Monday United Studios telling you the death of Ince, which would involve a premonition that newborn died Tuesday.
It seems Willliam Randolph Hearst would have rewarded Louella Parsons for their silence. When it came to pass that trip was cinema in New York for one of its newspapers columnist and after the fact gave a lifetime contract and extended coverage of his collaborations with his legendary power over Hollywood which flourished. Supposedly also handed a trust fund to Nell Ince just before they left towards Europe in retribution for his decision that is not to do an autopsy and immediately incinerara corpse. Also ran the rumor that had paid the mortgage which weighed on the Department of building Chateau Elysee Ince in Hollywood. D.W. Griffith always said: “All what to do to see Hearst put white as a spectrum was mentioning the name of Ince.” “There are many strange things there, but Hearst is too big.”
In 2001, Peter Bogdanovich directed the film the Meow Cat whose story is based on such rumors. Bogdanovich claimed that he had heard the version of director Orson Welles who, in turn, heard it writer Herman j. Mankiewicz. The novel published by Scribner Ed. 1996 entitled Murder at San Simeon written by Patty Hearst and Cordelia Frances Biddle also relies on the fact.
Filmography
Actor
* The Seven Ages (1905)
* Richard III (1908)
* Cardinal the’s Conspiracy (1909)
* King Lear (1909)
* His New Lid (1910)
* The Englishman and the Girl (1910)
* Bar Z’s New Cook (1911)
* For Her brother’s sake (1911)
* Their First Misunderstanding (1911)
* The Gangsters and the Girl (1914)
Director
* Artful Kate (1911)
* Behind the Stockade (1911)
* The Brand (1911)
* A dog’s tale (1911)
* The Fisher-Maid (1911)
* For Her brother’s sake (1911)
* Her Darkest Hour (1911)
* The Hidden Trail (1911)
* His Nemesis (1911)
* The House That Jack Built (1911)
* In Old Madrid (1911)
* In the Sultan’s Garden (1911)
* Little Nell’s Tobacco (1911)
* Maid or man (1911)
* A Manly Man (1911)
* Message in the Bottle (1911)
* New Cook (1911)
* Over the Hills (1911)
* The Penniless Prince (1911)
* Sweet Memories (1911)
* The Aggressor (1911)
* Across the Plains (1911)
* The Dream (1911)
* Their First Misunderstanding (1911)
* The Battle of the Red Men (1912)
* Blazing the Trail (1912)
* The Clod (1912)
* The Colonel’s son (1912)
* The Colonel’s Ward (1912)
* A Double Reward (1912)
* The Empty Water Keg (1912)
* For Freedom of Cuba (1912)
* For the cause (1912)
* The Law of the West (1912)
* A Mexican Tragedy (1912)
* War on the Plains (1912)
* The Invaders (1912)
* The Altar of Death (1912)
* The Sergeant’s Boy (1912)
* Custer’s Last Raid (1912)
* The Desert (1912)
* The Colonel’s Peril (1912)
* His Message (1912)
* Soldier’s honor (1912)
* The Outcast (1912)
* The Lieutenant’s Last Fight (1912)
* The Post Telegraphers (1912)
* The Deserter (1912)
* The Crisis (1912)
* The Indian Massacre / Heart of an Indian (1912)
* The Tables Turned (1912)
* Through the Flames (1912)
* The Kid and the Sleuth (1912)
* The Ambassador’s Envoy (1913)
* The Boomerang (1913)
* Bread Cast Upon the Waters (1913)
* Days of ‘ 49 (1913)
* Granddad (1913) Ř
* The Hateful God (1913)
* A Shadow of the Past (1913)
* In Love and War / Call to Arms (1913)
* The Battle of Gettysburg (1913)
* The Drummer of the 8th (1913)
* The Hour of Reckoning (1914)
* The Last of the Line (1914)
* The Village ‘ Neath the sea (1914)
* Out of the Night (1914)
* The Death Mask (1914)
* The Coward (1915)
* The Toast of Death (1915)
* The Cup of Life (1915)
* The Alien / The Sign of the rose (1915)
* The Devil / Satan’s Pawn (1915)
* Dividend (1916)
* Civilization (1916)
* The Stepping Stone (1916)
* Peggy (1916)
* Anna Christie (1923)
* Flicker Flashbacks No. 1 (1947) (scenes taken from Behind the Stockade, 1909)
Screenwriter
* Little Nell’s Tobacco (1910)
* For the Queen’s honor (1911)
* The Fortunes of War (1911)
* The Forged Dispatch (1911)
* The Stampede (1911)
* Across the Plains (1911)
* Sweet Memories (1911)
* The Mirror (1911)
* Bar Z’s New Cook (1911)
* The Army Surgeon (1912)
* The Altar of Death (1912)
* The Outcast (1912)
* The Deserter (1912)
* The Battle of the Red Men (1912)
* The Indian Massacre (1912)
* War on the Plains (1912)
* The Battle of Gettysburg (1913)
* In the Sage Brush Country (1914)
* The Last of the Line (1914)
* A Political Feud (1914)
* The Fortunes of War (1914)
* The Bargain (1914)
* The Vigil (1914)
* The Mills of the Gods (1914)
* The Worth of a Life (1914)
* The Word of His People (1914)
* Stacked Cards (1914)
* The Winning of Denise (1914)
* An Eleventh Hour WEA (1914)
* The City (1914)
* The Curse of Humanity (1914)
* The Voice at the Telephone (1914)
* The Wrath of the Gods (1914)
* The Latent Spark (1914)
* In the Cow Country (1914)
* Out of the Night (1914)
* Shorty exhaust Marriage (1914)
* The Rightful Heir (1914)
* Wolves of the Underworld (1914)
* The Gringo (1914)
* Desert Gold (1914)
* Or Mimi San (1914)
* The Hammer (1915)
* Tools of Providence (1915)
* The Reward (1915)
* The Conversion of Frosty Blake (1915)
* Bad Buck of Santa Ynez (1915)
* The Cup of Life (1915)
* The Taking of Luke McVane (1915)
* On the Night Stage (1915)
* The Spirit of the Bell (1915)
* The Roughneck (1915)
* The Devil (1915)
* Tricked (1915)
* In the Switch Tower (1915)
* The Girl Who Might Have Been (1915)
* Satan McAllister’s Heir (1915)
* Winning Back (1915)
* The Sheriff’s Streak of Yellow (1915)
* The Grudge (1915)
* Mr. ‘Silent’ Haskins (1915)
* The Scourge of the Desert (1915)
* A Confidence Game (1915)
* The Italian (1915)
* The Despoiler (1915)
* Aloha Oe (1915)
* The Disciple (1915)
* The Coward (191
