From 1915 to 1933, two-time Oscar winner Frances Marion was the
highest paid and most respected writer in Hollywood, earning
$3000 a week at the height of the Great Depression, and shaping
the screen images of some of Hollywood's greatest stars
including Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Greta Garbo, Wallace
Beery and Marie Dressler. Born Marion Benson Owens, Frances
Marion was the daughter of one of San Francisco's wealthiest
families, hobnobbing with the likes of Jack London, but at the
age of 27, she abandoned that life for Hollywood's fledgling
film industry and its promise of opportunities denied women in
other walks of life. Her beauty landed jobs as an actress and as
a model but she disdained work in front of the camera, and
sought jobs behind the scenes, first painting advertising
posters for movie studios then writing for the movies
themselves. Eventually she became close friends with Mary
Pickford (so close that she, Mary and their respective husbands,
actors Fred Thomson and Douglas Fairbanks, honeymoon