B. F. Zeidman, Once Fairbanks’ Press Agent, Recounts Odd Tales (1937) 🇺🇸
This is the ninth of a series of articles by our Hollywood correspondent on interviews with people prominent in production.
Presented by David J. Hanna
Your Hollywood correspondent is under instructions, in this current series of despatches, to submit stories about people prominent in production from the angle which is most apt to interest and aid the exhibitor in operation of his business. It is quite likely that ye editor did not foresee an encounter with a personality so fluent in relating tales of his experiences as a press agent for a famous and temperamental movie star as this week’s interviewee, so we are breaking through the restrictions and offer you some yarns from one film producer who does not change the subject when anyone mentions his past.
Bennie F. Zeidman [B. F. Zeidman] is now an established and highly regarded independent producer for Grand National. But the preposterous dodges of his days as a press agent, ridiculous in retrospect, yet almost tragic in their desire to create synthetic fame at the time they were conceived, are still fresh in his memory and he derives keen pleasure in recounting on occasion.
It was he who exploited Douglas Fairbanks [Douglas Fairbanks Sr.] to screen fame, almost in spite of the athletic star. Fairbanks, Zeidman recalls with a wistful smile, used to fire him every week or so with the utmost finality. the price of his magnificent imagination in staging publicity stunts.
When Bennie was first engaged by Fairbanks to handle his “public relations,” the star, well enough known on the stage, was unheard of by millions of screen fans. Zeidman must have been an awfully good persuader, because he managed to get Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin, then the outstanding movie luminaries, to have numerous pictures taken with Fairbanks. In every case, the canny Mr. Zeidman placed his client’s name first — and got plenty of space with the photographs so much so that “the Pickford, Fairbanks, Chaplin trio” became a household word. Promoting for all he was worth, Zeidman then managed to stage a prizefight between Fairbanks and Chaplin, at which Mary was guest of honor and Jack Dempsey the referee. The free space he got throughout the country on this match clinched the Fairbanks-Pickford-Chaplin tieup.
The first time Bennie got fired was during the World War when he arranged a Liberty Loan tour for Chaplin, Fairbanks and Miss Pickford. Frank R. Wilson, national head of the Liberty Loan advertising campaign, to whom Zeidman proposed the idea of a tour for the trio, jumped at the idea and wrote Zeidman that the local committees throughout the country were made up of clergymen, bankers and civic leaders, who had had no experience with exploitation and hence must be instructed in great detail concerning the necessary advance publicity for the tour. “This’ll have to be tremendous,” thought young Bennie, and laid out what he considered the proper program, including parades, banquets and the like. After sending copies to everybody concerned, he started out across the country ahead of his stars.
Arriving at the Chicago station, Zeidman bought a Tribune, and was amazed to find his name all over the front page, in an Associated Press dispatch. The Rev. E. E. Violet, head of the Kansas City Liberty Loan Committee, he discovered, had declared in a devastating statement to the press, that Fairbanks had an outrageously ambitious publicity man, whose demands for a reception were greater than the President of the United States would dream of making, and that Kansas City was going to ignore Zeidman and proceed independently. At his hotel Zeidman received the final blow in a telegram from Fairbanks firing him.
Desperate, Zeidman continued across the country ahead of the trio, seeing that his program was carried out. (Incidentally, it was welcomed in every spot but Kansas City.) Typically, the tour was a great success, and when Doug arrived in Washington he met Zeidman in the office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, slapped his press agent on the back and said, “Glad to see you.” Not a word was said about the Violet incident or the notice of dismissal.
The next time Doug fired Bennie, it all settled with a champagne hangover. As a part of the National War Work Charity campaign, Zeidman conceived the idea of staging a baseball game between a picked team of actors headed by Fairbanks, known as the “Sinners,” and Billy Sunday and his Tabernacle associates, known as the “Saints.” In spite of the fact that the story was spread all over the front pages, Fairbanks didn’t like the idea, and would only consent to take pat if it was fixed to have Sunday’s team win.
Zeidman didn’t tell Fairbanks that the “Sinners” consisted of picked men from the major leagues using assumed names. They romped away with the game, leaving Sunday and his team with a goose egg. Fairbanks, furious, fired Zeidman, leaving him to go home on a street car. Ten minutes after he got to his apartment, he got a phone call from Fairbanks, who shouted at him. “What you did was absolutely against orders, but, anyway, get our entire team together and give them a party at the Alexandria hotel. But don’t forget, you’re still fired.”
Bennie spent $925 for Fairbanks on champagne and appeared at the studio the next morning with a hangover, exchanged greetings with his employer, and never heard about the baseball game again, except that his next salary check contained a bonus.
In a few months Zeidman was fired again just because Fairbanks happened to visit William Gibbs McAdoo and his wife, the daughter of President Wilson. The host and hostess thought it would be fun to have some pictures taken of themselves and their guest riding horses in cowboy outfits for their personal amusement, of course. Fairbanks reassured them that nothing would be done to embarrass them. But the next day the enthusiastic Bennie found them in the Fairbanks studio. Delighted, he sent them to all the press services. “Marvellous,” he thought, “they’ll be on all the front pages.” And they were. The McAdoos were terribly upset, and Fairbanks, almost strangling, again fired Bennie. But after a few days the difficulty blew over and all was forgiven and forgotten.
The regard that the two men formed for each other has been a lasting one. For instance, some years later. Zeidman branched out as an Independent producer and was having a difficult time keeping things going. One day he learned that $25,000 had been deposited to his credit in a local bank. After some investigation he traced it to Fairbanks. Eventually the money was repaid, but the gesture will never begotten.
Today Zeidman is still the impetuous, quick-thinking man that marked his career in the early days of motion picture making. With a wealth of information and practical knowledge of the industry, he is quick to seize upon new ideas in his capacity as Grand National’s ace producer, and it is his future plans in that role about which we shall write next next week.
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Collection: Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin, February 1937