Hugh Ford

Hugh Ford (February 5, 1868 – December 29, 1942) was an American stage actor, director, and producer. He performed on stage as an actor from 1889 through 1904. From 1898 on he also directed plays: for stock companies, the F. F. Proctor organization, Liebler & Company, and later as an independent through 1932. His Broadway credits span over forty years as performer and creative crew; he also adapted and wrote several plays, and an article on modern stagecraft as employed in early films. He worked in the silent film industry for eight years, directing 31 films and writing for 19 between 1913 and 1921. This film experience later proved useful when he directed and co-produced the Kaufman and Connelly Broadway hit, Merton of the Movies, which ran an entire season for nearly 400 performances. Ford retired in 1932, devoting himself to landscape art until his death ten years later.

Early years Hugh Ford was born February 5, 1868, in Washington, D.C., to German immigrants George Ford and Henrietta Price Ford. The family moved to California after Ford's birth. He attended the Van der Naillen School of Mines and Engineering in San Francisco. This three-act play by Henry Churchill de Mille and David Belasco premiered in November 1889. Ford's name does not appear in any cast list for the production. Assuming he did take part, it was while he was a drama school apprentice at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in that same theatre.

His next known credit dates from October 1890, when he and Maude Adams were listed among players in the newly formed stock company of Charles Frohman slated to perform in the premiere of Men and Women on Broadway. Ford was still with the Charles Frohman stock company in April 1891, playing Men and Women on tour in Chicago, and the following month in Salt Lake City. The tour visited Los Angeles in June, and finished up in Washington state during July 1891.

Ford then joined the company of Gracie Emmett, touring in an old melodrama she bought and had rewritten, The Pulse of New York, starting in April 1892, and continuing through May 1893. In late October 1893, he was engaged for a tour in Canada with H. B. Clarke. For a month the company played Halifax, Nova Scotia and Saint John, New Brunswick, only to be abandoned at the latter by Clarke, without their final week's pay or return fare to New York.

By August 1895 Ford was in San Francisco with the Henry E. Dixey company, which included Maurice Barrymore and Rose Coghlan. He performed minor roles in Masks and Faces and As You Like It, before going on tour with Dixey in The Lottery of Love through March 1896. Ford returned to San Francisco for a summer season with the L. R. Stockwell company at the California Theatre.

Ford was hired in September 1896 for character parts with the Grand Opera House stock company in Salt Lake City. This was a new company, and among its other members was actress Jessie Izett from Denver. During March 1897 Ford won a bet with the company's juvenile, Thomas W. Ross, over the Corbett–Fitzsimmons fight. He then accepted an invitation to hold their own four-round bout, for a $50 wager. The Salt Lake Herald reported that Ford had eight pounds and a bit of a reach on Ross, and was known for his skill at boxing. There was no acrimony between them, and they, along with other stock company actors, played baseball against officers of the 24th Infantry at Fort Douglas in April 1897. Ford wrote a play titled Social Bubbles, which was accepted for production by Herbert Kelcey that same month. After the stock company's season ended, Ford joined leading man Walter Edwards for the summer season at Elitch Theatre in Denver. Jessie Izett, whose hometown it was, also went to Denver.

Marriage and early stage management

Ford next went to Pittsburgh's Grand Theatre stock company, in which he would perform "old men's characters". Walter Edwards, playing "heavies", and Jessie Izett, "female juveniles", also joined this company in August 1897. Ford directed a production of amateurs in Our Boys for a charity benefit in February 1898. He was later reported as being assistant stage manager during his season with the Grand Theatre. While Jessie Izett remained with the Grand Theatre stock company, Ford joined the Imperial Theater's new stock company in St. Louis, Missouri during September 1898. After playing in Romeo and Juliet in St. Louis, he took a week off in late March 1899 to marry Jessie Izett in Pittsburgh. They continued their separate bookings until June 1899, when Jessie joined Ford in the newly-formed Lawrence Hanley stock company, performing outdoor theatre in Olympia Park.

Ford and his wife moved to New York City, where he signed with the William Morris company. He was on tour with them in The Adventure of Lady Ursula when their only child was born in late December 1899. By October 1900 Ford and Jessie Izett had joined the Grand Opera House stock company in Indianapolis, Indiana. but the venue soon shut down and the Fords were forced to accept separate engagements. Jessie Izett went on tour with Howard Kyle's company in Nathan Hale, while Hugh Ford joined the Dearborn stock company in Chicago, playing eccentrics and character parts.

Their professional paths crossed again in Memphis, Tennessee when both were hired for the Hopkins stock company of the Grand Opera House. Jessie Izett, who had done well on the Nathan Hale tour, was hired as the leading lady, while Ford was appointed stage director, and expected to play character parts as well. His first directorial effort, for The Little Minister, was well received, while a later report praised not only his direction but his providing set designs for the scene painter to color. Both Ford and Jessie Izett were popular with Memphis audiences; their benefit performance on February 14, 1902 in Caprice were SRO at the matinee and evening show.

Proctor's organization

After Memphis, Ford and his wife again went in different directions for employment. Jessie Izett toured with William S. Hart and J. H. Gilmour in The Suburban, while Ford joined F. F. Proctor's organization, a group of stock companies based at the four Manhattan theatres Proctor owned. In those pre-Equity days, Proctor moved performers and plays between theatres at will. Ford was with Proctor's 125th Street Theatre in Harlem during February 1903, and in April with the company at Proctor's Fifth Avenue Theatre. By that time Jessie Izett and The Suburban company were playing at the Academy of Music in Manhattan. Ford was stage director for Proctor's Fifth Avenue Theatre by July 1903. A month later Jessie Izett joined Ford at Proctor's to star in a revival of Caste. This was a one-week run for Jessie Izett, who was committed to touring. Ford stayed with Proctor's, both performing and directing. At a revival of Trilby in December 1903, Ford directed and played Svengali opposite Lotta Linthicum in the title role.

Ford recounted tales of stage effects gone wrong to Adolph Klauber in January 1904, mentioning the 125th Street Theatre in particular: "The Harlem house was always a Jonah to me... whenever there was a smash in an intricate scene, it was always in Harlem that it happened." Jessie Izett replaced female lead Agnes Ardeck as Molly Wood in the original Broadway production of The Virginian the following month, but was able to join Ford in a one time performance of Her First Offense by Julius Chambers in March 1904. They teamed up again in April for a revival of Audrey by Harriet Ford, for which they had permission from Liebler & Company, and used the original scenery and costumes for that Eleanor Robson vehicle. By June 1904 Ford was referred to as the general stage director for Proctor's organization.

Liebler & Company

Ford was hired by Liebler & Company in August 1905, to direct their new production of The Prodigal Son by Hall Caine on its opening tour. Liebler & Company was a partnership between producer George C. Tyler and investor Theodore A. Liebler (1852-1941) They had founded Liebler & Company in 1898, and since then had become a major producer of plays. By the time Ford staged Sydney Rosenfeld's musical The Vanderbilt Cup in January 1906, he was general stage director for Liebler & Company.

As general stage director, he supervised other directors who had responsibility for revivals and touring companies, while he himself staged new works, such as Salomy Jane (1907), The Man from Home (1907), The Melting Pot (1908), The Dawn of a Tomorrow (1909), Alias Jimmy Valentine (1909), and The Deep Purple (1910). He also worked with English writer Louis N. Parker to stage the latter's work, when Pomander Walk (1910) and Disraeli (1911) had their premieres. Ford travelled with Tyler and Edward A. Morange to Biskra, Algeria during April 1911, where they met up with English author-playwright Robert Hichens, for inspiration on set designs, and to recruit local people for The Garden of Allah.

The Garden of Allah was a highly successful spectacle; over 375,000 people saw it during the Broadway run (Oct 1911-May 1912) at the massive Century Theatre, more than any single play to that date. To follow it, Liebler & Company chose a French drama by Pierre Loti and Judith Gautier, called The Daughter of Heaven (La fille du ciel). This was a tragedy set in Ming dynasty China. Hugh Ford and Edward A. Morange travelled to Paris for consultations with the playwrights, while a young writer, Heywood Broun, was sent to China to collect photos and drawings for the settings and costumes. The translation from French was done by Mrs. Golding Bright under her pen name of George Egerton. Tang Young Lee, nephew of Tang Shaoyi, was engaged as technical advisor on Chinese culture. Ford spent nine months preparing and staging the play, which ran for nearly 100 performances, but still lost money. His final work for Liebler & Company was to produce and direct plays for the Children's Theatre that was installed on the roof of the Century Theatre in the Fall of 1912.

Film industry After leaving Liebler & Company, Ford staged the long-running success Potash and Perlmutter during the summer of 1913, but received little credit for it. According to George S. Kaufman in 1916, the success of the play was due to Ford's staging. Kaufman, then a drama critic for the New-York Tribune said of Ford: "He did more than stage it; he built it. So valuable were his services, in fact, that he is said to have been paid a royalty upon the play. Yet few persons heard of Mr. Ford in connection with the production of Potash and Perlmutter."

Ford joined the Famous Players Film Company, along with another Liebler stage director, Frederick Stanhope, and set designer Edward Morange, during December 1913. Ford was the first major stage director to try making films. He directed 31 films between 1913 and 1921. He was inactive in the theater during these years. Ford also wrote for 19 films between 1913 and 1920. He started his film career as co-director of The Prisoner of Zenda in 1913.

Kaufman and Connelly Ford joined with his old Liebler & Company boss George C. Tyler to produce two plays by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. Tyler had given the duo their first playwriting assignment with Dulcy in 1921, followed by To the Ladies, and the musical revue The Forty-Niners.

Kaufman and Connelly's most successful play for Tyler, Merton of the Movies, was co-produced by Ford, who also staged it. An adaptation of the Harry Leon Wilson novel, the comedy starred Florence Nash and Glenn Hunter in a Hollywood satire. The production lasted eleven months on Broadway, running to nearly 400 performances.

Kaufman and Connelly's last collaboration with George C. Tyler was The Deep Tangled Wildwood, a light satire on rural comedies, which Ford again staged and co-produced. Critic Arthur Pollock said the jokes were good but there was little else to the play; it was withdrawn after two weeks on Broadway.

Later years During Spring 1924, Ford and George C. Tyler produced a series of Broadway matinee performances by Madame Simon. They recruited José Ruben and Eva Le Gallienne to support her in La vierge folle by Henry Bataille, followed by La couturière de Lunéville by Alfred Savoir, and Le passé by Georges de Porto-Riche. They also continued to manage Glenn Hunter and the Merton of the Movies touring company, and produced Mrs. Fiske in a long-running revival tour for The Rivals. Ford also directed, and co-produced with Tyler, the Owen Davis comedy Ma Pettengill, which toured the Midwest starting in March 1925.

Ford had retired from film-making in 1921, but told Burns Mantle he had made enough money in that industry to last his lifetime. However, the Wall Street crash of 1929 persuaded him to accept a staging job for Diana in December 1929. Originally titled Isadora in tryouts, it depicted the famous dancer Isadora Duncan, who had died two years earlier. Ford had unwisely invested some money in Diana, for this work by Irving Kaye Davis failed after one week, leading the playwright to make accusations of moral prejudice against critics.

Ford's last stage involvement was in the Fall of 1932, when he and co-producer Harry Askin took on the managerial lease for the Hudson Theatre, which had fallen into bankruptcy with the Great Depression. Their idea was to present original plays for low prices, letting each one run for so long as it made money. It failed after a week, and Ford retired permanently. Ten years later he died, on December 29, 1942.

Personal character

Outgoing and athletic in the 1890s, Ford became wary of personal publicity as he moved into stage directing. He was often interviewed by newspaper and magazine journalists on various aspects of the theater, but never discussed himself. A private person, his wedding had only two guests: the married couple with whom his bride then boarded, who also served as witnesses. An English melodrama set in a steel mill that advocated eight hour work days and profit sharing. 1892 The Pulse of New York Dicey Moran Touring company Ford played a bouncer from April 1892 1894 A Ride for Life Giovanna Touring company Train melodrama by Walter Fessler, who also starred. Ford played an "Italian rascal".

Masks and Faces Hundsdon Columbia Theatre The Henry E. Dixey company performed at this San Francisco venue. By Henry Churchill de Mille, this was Ford's first performance with future wife Jessie Izett. The Lights o' London Clifford Armytage Grand Opera House Last production for the Grand Opera House stock company. 1898 A Wife's Peril Crossley Beck Imperial Theater Drama by Victorien Sardou starred Frank Losee in this St. Louis revival. Hamlet Ghost/Laertes Olympic Park Theatre A dual role for Ford while Jessie Izett had a trouser role as Osric.

Diplomacy Baron Stein Grand Opera House Ford drew a sketch of his character for this drama by Victorien Sardou. "Problem play" by Sydney Grundy was Ford's first performance with the Dearborn stock company.

Aren't We All? (Director) Gaiety Theatre Broadway debut of a London production by Frederick Lonsdale. Home Fires (Director) 39th Street Theatre Three-act play by Owen Davis ran for seven weeks on Broadway. The Deep Tangled Wildwood (Director)/(Co-Producer) Frazee Theatre

La vierge folleLa couturière de LunévilleLe passé (Co-Producer) Gaiety Theatre Three French matinees starring Madame Simon were performed during March 1924. |group=fn 1925 Ma Pettengill (Director)/(Co-Producer) Touring company Comedy by Owen Davis, adapted from Harry Leon Wilson stories, starred Edna May Oliver, Burr McIntosh, Raymond Hackett, and Jean Ford. 1929 Diana (Director)/(Assoc. Producer) Longacre Theatre Three-act drama starring Mary Nash as a thinly-veiled Isadora Duncan. 1932 The Budget (Director)/(Co-Producer) Hudson Theatre Weak domestic comedy starred Lynne Overman, Mary Lawlor, and Raymond Walburn.

Filmography

Director

The Prisoner of Zenda (1913) co-director Such a Little Queen (1914) co-director The Crucible (1914) co-director The Morals of Marcus (1915) Niobe (1915) When We Were Twenty-One (1915) Sold (1915) Poor Schmaltz (1915) The White Pearl (1915) Zaza (1915) Bella Donna (1915) The Prince and the Pauper (1915) co-director Lydia Gilmore (1915) co-director The Eternal City (1915) co-director The Woman in the Case (1916) Sleeping Fires (1917) The Slave Market (1917) Seven Keys to Baldpate (1917) Sapho (1917) Mrs. Dane's Defense (1918) The Danger Mark (1918) Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch (1919) The Woman Thou Gavest Me (1919) Secret Service (1919) In Mizzoura (1919) Civilian Clothes (1920) His House in Order (1920) Lady Rose's Daughter (1920) The Call of Youth (1921) The Great Day (1921) The Price of Possession (1921)

Screenwriter

The Prisoner of Zenda (1913) Such a Little Queen (1914) The Crucible (1914) Jim the Penman (1915) Still Waters (1915) The Prince and the Pauper (1915) The Old Homestead (1915) Lydia Gilmore (1915) Mice and Men (1916) Diplomacy (1916) The Innocent Lie (1916) Molly Make-Believe (1916) The Moment Before (1916) The Red Widow (1916) Saints and Sinners (1916) Silks and Satins (1916) Little Lady Eileen (1916) Sapho (1916) Sleeping Fires (1917) His House in Order (1920)