The True Story of Fred Thompson (1924) 🇺🇸

Mr. Fred Thompson was just tickled to death when he found out he was about to be interviewed and have his pictures in the magazine and everything.

told by Grace Halton

He was especially delighted, I’m sure, that the interviewer assigned to the task of presenting him to the dear public was a woman. Mr. Thompson [Fred Thomson] just loves to be interviewed, especially by women.

Yes, he does — not.

I tracked that man for a week. Martin Johnson, the movie big-game hunter, who would walk a mile for a camel and do goodness knows what for a lion, has nothing on me now when it comes to hounding his prey. In fact, I’m certain I could give him a few pointers.

If it had not been for Frances Marion, who combines the pleasant occupation of being our leading scenario writer with that of being Fred Thompson’s wife, I doubt that I ever should have caught him. She invited me to luncheon one day, and before Mr. Thompson arrived, smoothed the way graciously by explaining that Mr. Thompson did not yet understand that interviews were a necessary part of a film actor’s program. I had about decided to forget all about him, and interview Miss Marion, when he roared up the driveway in his roadster. A moment later he stood in the French doorway leading to the garden, and faced me. There was, in his eye. I may say, the look of a stricken deer, done to the death at the hand of one loved and trusted. However, he rallied ‘round and accepted an introduction politely enough. He is not, however, past master at concealing his private convictions. I know that he was convinced I would go and write up a lot of slush about him. Someone, sometime, I’m morally certain, has gushed over Mr. Thompson in the public press, and he never has forgotten, nor despite his Christian principles, forgiven it.

During luncheon the conversation was general, tho, of course, the leading topic was motion pictures — the criticism and censorship of pictures, the difficulty of transferring to the screen such stage successes as Anna Christie and Rain; and such books as Cytherea, the Hergesheimer novel recently adapted by Miss Marion. She led the conversation, expressing herself freely. I should like to give you some of her views, but I cannot be certain that this would please her. as she was not talking for publication, of course. You probably have heard Miss Marion spoken of as the most beautiful as well as the most brilliant woman in Hollywood. I give you my report on her in two words.

She is.

But back to Mr. Thompson. After luncheon I cornered him in the living-room, alone, Miss Marion having left for the studio — and wrung from him the story of his life. For the most part as he talked, he stamped up and down the pleasant, sunny room, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. He is of muscular build, over six feet tall I should say, his hair is brown and decidedly curly (much to his private disgust, no doubt) and his eyes are of a light-grey blue. Peculiar eyes. The eyes of an idealist.

I don’t know how much you already know about him. He hasn’t appeared in many pictures. His first role was that of a German officer in Mary Pickford’s “The Love Light.” Afterward, he accepted roles in three or four other feature pictures, and last year did a serial for Universal. Now he is engaged in making feature western pictures.

But Fred Thompson the man will, I believe, always be more interesting than Fred Thompson the actor. The story of his life reads like that of a Harold Bell Wright or Ralph Connor hero, written up by Peter B. Kyne. If you think such a combination impossible, harken to the following, my friends.

Fred Thompson is the son of a Presbyterian minister, was born in Pasadena, a few miles from Los Angeles, and graduated from Occidental College here. He then departed for Princeton, where he took a three-year post-graduate course in philosophy and theological work.

During those three years at Princeton, Mr. Thompson did a few things besides study philosophy and theology. If you’re a college man or woman, or a high-school student particularly interested in sports, you know that Fred Thompson won the National Ten-Events Championship of the U. S. A. in ‘10, ‘11, and ‘13, and in the latter year won the title of world’s champion all-round athlete.

That record has not been broken so far, his young brother now at Oxford being the only man who has even approached it. It has been predicted that Fred Thompson’s record will see the century out. At the close of his three years at Princeton, the world’s champion athlete entered the ministry, his first charge being Peck-Memorial at Washington, D. C.

A year later found him shepherding a flock at the Hope Presbyterian Church in Los Angeles, and shortly afterward he took his two-fisted Christianity to Goldfield, Nevada, where he remained among the miners there until the World War broke out.

Honestly, I hardly dare go on. This gets more story-bookish every minute. I don’t see how you’re going to believe it all, since you were not with me, and couldn’t see Mr. Thompson stamping up and down the Chinese rug in his living-room as he told me about it. I would think the life-story of the handsome Mr. Thompson pure fiction, myself, if I didn’t know that it is true.

Well, to resume — when war was declared with Germany, Thompson became chaplain of the 143d Field Artillery, stationed at Camp Kearney near San Diego.

Oh, that picturesque 143d Field Artillery! It was the “Mary Pickford Regiment” and she was its honorary colonel. One of Miss Pickford’s closest friends was Frances Marion, and it was during this time that Miss Marion met the handsome young chaplain of the regiment. I remember that there was a great deal in the local papers about him at the time, and I’m certain that next to the Prince of Wales, there wasn’t a young man in the country whom we California girls so wished to meet.

Presently the 143d went overseas, but as was the case with a good many Western troops, failed to get into active service before the Armistice put a stop to hostilities. Miss Marion was overseas also, with the Committee of Public Information, and she and the young chaplain were married while they were still abroad, if I remember correctly.

Returning home, Miss Marion plunged into the writing and directing of “The Love Light” for Mary Pickford and Mr. Thompson put away his uniform and became an actor.

He couldn’t give it so much, tho, and I doubt that the screen would have held him long, had he not seen here an opportunity to stimulate the interest of boys and young men in athletics, by appearing in a series of out-of-door pictures, himself.

“I’m making pictures for boys,” he said. Fred Thompson speaks in short forcible sentences. “Children learn a great deal from the screen. Much more than you may imagine. I found that out in Goldfield. Pictures were pretty wild at that time, as you may remember. No censorship.

“There was a Catholic priest there, and he and I worked shoulder to shoulder. We knew that motion pictures were becoming a force in community life that couldn’t be ignored. They were reaching more people than we were. I would have, perhaps, a hundred people in my church on Sunday. There were between two thousand and three thousand persons in the town. Some of them went to see the films every night, and the children were seeing things they shouldn’t see.

“The favorite excuse of producers in putting sex-dramas on the market, is that their stories serve as object lessons to those who see them. That is not true. An adult person never learns right living from seeing that sort of a picture. After you’ve passed a certain age you know whether you’re doing right or wrong. You don’t need the screen to teach you.”

Mr. Thompson fixed me with a cold eye. He was at that moment every inch the minister.

“With children it is different,” he continued. “They do learn from the screen.

“I was Scout Master in Washington, and Boy Scout Commissioner in charge of the Scout troops of Nevada, while I was in Goldfield. I like boys. In making motion pictures myself my only interest is to encourage them in outdoor activities, to show them the benefits of living clean, athletic lives. The moral standards of young men in college today are considerably higher than they were ten years ago. This is directly due to the increased interest in athletics. I wish to stimulate this interest thru my pictures, too. They will all be outdoor pictures. Children like those, you know. There will be lots of action, and thrills. I think they’ll like my horse, Silver King, too. I trained Silver King, myself!”

Mr. Thompson sat down abruptly and stared moodily at a cluster of yellow spring jonquils in bowl of Chinese blue.

“But I hate grease-paint,” he announced vigorously. “I hate to act. Hate to see stuff written about me in the papers, too. Always did.”

If Mr. Thompson could find someone else to carry out his ideas and do his stunts for him, he probably wouldn’t appear on the screen himself, at all. But the disadvantage of being the world’s champion athlete is that you can’t find a double, and he is so sincere in his efforts to provide clean entertainment for the youngsters that he endures the grease-paint, and interviews too, since they’re part of the game.

And now listen to me, particularly if you’re the father or mother of growing children, believe in an intelligent censorship of pictures and a clean screen. The next time you see a Fred Thompson picture advertised in your neighborhood, take the kids and go to see this champion athlete, this man who is bending every effort to give your children proper amusement. I know of no one else in Hollywood who has their interest so at heart. I rather imagine that he’s going to be popular with a lot of grown-up boys and girls too.

While he was chaplain, the men of his regiment gave him a silver horseshoe, and inscribed thereon the words: “To Fred Thompson, world’s greatest athlete and a he-man.”

At the risk of getting slushy, I humbly wish to add that those lads certainly knew what they were talking about. He-Man is right.

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Fred Thompson hates grease-paint and the screen wouldn’t have held him this long if he had not seen here an opportunity to stimulate the interest of boys and men in athletics by appearing in a series of outdoor pictures. Silver King is the name of the thorobred mount

Photo by: Walter Fredrick Seely (1886–1959)

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Frances Marion, the beautiful scenario writer, is Mrs. Fred Thompson. They met thru Mary Pickford, who was honorary colonel of the picturesque 143d Field Artillery of which Mr. Thompson was chaplain

Photo by: Walter Fredrick Seely (1886–1959)

Fred Thompson the man will always be more interesting than Fred Thompson the actor. The story of his life reads like that of a Harold Bell Wright or Ralph Connor hero, written up by Peter B. Kyne

Photo by: Nelson Evans (1889–1922)

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The dual interviewers, Gladys Hall and Adele Whitely Fletcher, have written a one-act playlet with Mary Pickford. “We Interview Mary” is one of the most amusing and interesting of these double interviews which we have ever published. And it is to be illustrated with new and exclusive pictures which were taken of Miss Pickford during her recent visit in New York

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Winston Miller was determined not to remain eligible to the Only Their Sisters Club. So he turned his face towards the movies which have brought Patsy Ruth [Patsy Ruth Miller] her fame. His name has come to be sought after in casts these days

Photo by: Clarence Sinclair Bull (1896–1979)

Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, July 1924