Screenland (May-Oct 1938)

G amor Fanchon Royer, only woman film producer, proves there are other fields than acting for smart girls to conquer By Tom Kennedy IN ALL the lively cargo of glamor-seeking girls who are trundled into Hollywood from all corners of the land, you would be hard put to find a single prospective gift to the movies who ever expects_ to be a film producer. Not that many girls wouldn't like the idea if they stopped to think about it. But who would think about it? A film producer is one to whom everybody says "Yes, mister;" the big boss of a show that's for men only. That's what most everybody thinks. But thinking doesn't make it so, and you needn't be surprised when we introduce Fanchon Royer as a film producer with more than twenty-five productions to her credit. "•• Make no mistake, Hollywood's only woman producer was no different than her sister fame-seekers, before and since. When she went to Hollywood from Des Moines she had in mind 'only one thing— to become a star. That was in 1918, and Fanchon Royer was then sixteen, and very ambitious. One who has had so many extraordinary experiences needs no promptings to call up vivid accounts that form an amazing saga of the woman who has proved that members of her sex can find glamor and great success behind the cameras as well as in front of them. Even so, this particular reporter found the alert, stylishly slim and responsive Miss Royer he interviewed today even more interesting than the heroine of the almost legendary episodes that bring her career up to the latest Royer Production. She knows every trick and dodge, every corner and cranny of that labyrinth of artful business curves and twists that is known in the trade as the Independent Market. However, that is a different story. The woman producer the picture-goers don't know, is the aforementioned stylish, good looking youngmatron who rounds out ten years in film production with her newest film, "Religious Racketeers," an expose of fake spiritists, mediums, salesmen of the supernatural— independent producers must get "exploitation Fanchon Royer, left, has had a career as colorful as any Glamor Girl's! She makes pictures instead of acting in them. Above, a scene from her latest film, "Religious Racketeers," with Betty Compson and Mrs. Harry Houdini. At far left, with one of her five children. angles" into their pictures, because each film must be sold as an individual show, and not part of a group or program as in the case of the so-called "major" producer. Mrs. Harry Houdini, widow of the magician, is the feature of "Religious Racketeers." "I'm going to present this picture myself, as a special show in most of the large cities," Miss Royer was telling us That entails renting theatres and managing the whole show herself. "I don't want to sell it out for general distribution and then go back to Hollywood and have nothing to do until I start another production." The fact that such enterprise calls for a wisdom of show business that few of the foremost men producers would care to try their hand at in no way daunts this remarkably able woman. "It will be fun," she says. She can be equally blithe in telling how just two years a°-o she came back home to Hollywood broke, from Mexico where she had gone to tend to business m connection with her productions. Well, she wasn't exactly broke— there was sixteen dollars ; to take care of eight people: herself, her five children and two employees Mention of her five children tells you another phase of the remarkable career of Fanchon Royer. Her oldest child, a son, is fifteen ; her youngest, a girl, is not quite three years old. . In the lobby of a theatre where she previewed her tirst picture Miss Royer learned the essentials of independent production. In the first place she hadn't made the picture with any idea of launching herself as a producer. Fanchon Royer at that time was in a different line of the film business. After playing extra and bit parts in severa films she became the editor of a trade paper concerned with the actor's welfare and viewpoint. From that she had entered the agency business and had several promising voung people as clients. One in particular— a darkhaired blue-eyed chap— did not seem to be getting anywhere in particular. So she decided to make a picture to show producers that this tall, good-looking fellow was a real prospect. She made the picture, and Grant Withers was started on his way. He became an outstanding leading man of the screen and the man who led Loretta Young to the altar for a (Please turn to page 9/) 51