Valeska Suratt article

[misspickford9]

So since I have the newspaper articles handy I was finally able to piece together Valeska Surrat's real filmography (http://www.forgetthetalkies.com/2009/03 ... uratt.html). I also found a really great Terre Haute article on her that just came out last week and I feel it was really well researched. I find it odd no one talks about the Demille lawsuit much:

http://www.tribstar.com/history/local_s ... 25216.html

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: Looking at the twists and turns in the life of Valeska Suratt

By Mike McCormick
Special to the Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE — On the Broadway stage and the silent screen, Terre Haute actress Valeska Suratt skillfully exhibited a handful of personalities.

The more one studies the twists, turns and contradictions in her life, the easier it is to accept her enigmatic behavior.

But acceptance does not answer the question that has plagued historians for seventy years: Who was the real Valeska Suratt? Coquette, vamp, humanitarian or religious zealot?

Perhaps she was all three.

Born June 28, 1882, near Owensville in Gibson County, Indiana, Valeska moved to 323 N. 17th St., in Terre Haute, during 1889 with her parents, Ralph and Anna, stepsister Myrtle Strickland, older brother Austin and younger sister Leah.

Her grandparents were immigrants. Her father’s parents, natives of France, spelled their name, “Surratt.” Her mother’s parents came from England.

Ralph opened a blacksmith shop near 14th and Wabash. Valeska’s younger brother Richard Surratt, known as “Judge,” was born in 1891 at Terre Haute.

According to sister Leah, Valeska decided at age 12 that she wanted to be in show business. Leah told Terre Haute newspaper reporter Frances Hughes in 1961, Valeska made “wishes on the stars” every night.

Valeska apparently quit attending school in 1899 and secured a job with the Albert Le Clear Photograph Studio. Saving money, she was able to travel to Indianapolis, where went to work for $5 a week at William H. Block department store.

Bright and vivacious, she changed the spelling of her surname and decided she had to improve her voice and dance skills. After two years in Indianapolis, she relocated to Chicago, taking with her a cheap poster of Polish-born actress Anna Held, common law wife of Florenz Ziegfield known for her flirtatious nature and risque songs.

While attending a party at Chicago’s Wellington Hotel during August 1902, Valeska met Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich of Russia, who asked to take her to lunch. Known for his brash and unpredictable behavior, Boris asked Suratt if there was something she would really like to do. “Yes,” she responded, “I want to go on the stage.”

According to her interview in Photoplay magazine years later, the Grand Duke wrote Valeska a check for $10,000 with no strings attached. Suratt said she sent most of the money home to help her family and used the rest to travel to New York City.

Leah told Frances Hughes that Valeska “borrowed” about $1,000 Leah had won in a Honduras lottery to pay her way to New York. On Oct. 19, 1902, Valeska’s 23-year old brother Austin fell under a Big Four train at the Greencastle depot and was killed. She was devastated by the loss.

Before relocating to New York, Valeska met and married vaudeville comedian and dancer Billy Gould and the couple trekked to South Africa, a country starving for entertainment, for several months, and then to England.

In the summer of 1906, Edward Edelston, producer of the musical comedy “The Belle of Mayfair,” saw Suratt’s hour glass figure on the staircase at London’s Hotel Savoy in a homemade backless black velvet gown. He quickly concluded that she was “the perfect Gibson girl” he needed for the play. Upon discovering that Valeska had untapped talent, he asked composer Leslie Stuart to integrate song and dance routines into her character. The song, “Why Do They Call Me a Gibson Girl?,” was a staple. The play opened at New York’s Daly Theater in December 1906. It was a sensation — “almost the best yet in musical comedy.” — and Suratt was the catalyst. Stuart’s music, according to the New York Times, had “all the charm, all the novelty of that which he wrote for ‘Florodora.’ Occasionally, it is superior.”

Valeska was so captivating that Edna May, the dazzling American actress-singer who overwhelmed London audiences for two years in “The Belle of New York,” almost caused international incident by quitting the cast. The New York Times wrote:

“As a matter of fact, ‘Why Do They Call Me a Gibson Girl?,’ is the sort of song to make any actress jealous of another’s opportunity to sing it, and with its novel specialty of living Gibson pictures it created another sensation at Daly’s last night.”

By April 1907, New York millinery shops were promoting “Valeska Suratt Hats.” After “The Belle of Mayfair,” Valeska signed a vaudeville contract with Oscar Hammerstein I for $2,500 a week. That sum soon was raised to $3,000. Gould & Suratt perfected conversational song and dance routines and a version of ”Salome’s Dance of Veils.” During this chapter of Valeska’s show business career, she was called “vaudeville’s greatest star” while nurturing a reputation as a femme fatale and queen of fashion She provided the funds to purchase 1634 N. Ninth St., a four bedroom house in Terre Haute, where her mother died May 3, 1914 and where she stored trunks of her many costumes. During this time, Suratt and Gould parted and she married actor Fletcher Norton.

Valeska returned to legitimate theater in late 1909 with “The Belle of Boulevards,” a modest success. “The Girl With the Whooping Cough, “on the other hand, was closed May 10, 1910 by Mayor Gaynor for being “too risque.” She recovered with “The Red Rose,” which received much acclaim and many encores. It reached Terre Haute on tour.

Valeska was the first vaudeville star to sign a motion picture contract, working briefly with Paramount and starred as a vamp with Fox.

But Suratt disliked Hollywood so she abandoned movies. Between 1917 and 1929, “The Queen of Vaude” returned to New York in triumph, shattering Al Jolson’s crowd record at the Winter Garden. She also became a screenwriter and a Biblical scholar.

During World War I, Valeska quietly donated $500 a week to the American Red Cross. When parts of her screenplay, “Mary Magdalene” were adapted by Cecil B. DeMille in his silent film masterpiece, “The King of Kings,” she sued. The case was tried in February 1930 but it was settled without publicity. Afterwards, it seems, Suratt was blacklisted. Valeska disappeared and was found years later living as a hermit in a small New York hotel. She died in a nursing home in Washington, D.C. on July 2, 1962.

[Henry Nicolella]

Regarding the Valeska Suratt lawsuit; Suratt owned the exclusive rights to a book about Mary Magdalen written by Mirza Ahmed Schnab. Suratt claimed she gave the book to film czar Will Hays who then gave it to C.B. De Mille. De Mille returned the book to Suratt but when she saw "King of Kings" she claimed parts of the book had been plagarized. She sued De Mille, Hays and Jeanne McPherson for a million dollars. The suit dragged on for several years but in 1930 it was dismissed by Federal Judge Frank Coleman who, according to an article in the Oakland Tribune (8/12/30) said that "while Miss Suratt's scenario was based on the life of Mary Magdalen abd was 95% fiction,the "King of Kings" was based on the life of Christ and that he found no similarity in the two except in those parts which already of general knowledge."
I've heard that Suratt's 1917 "She" may survive. Anyone have an idea as to where it might be?
Henry Nicolella

[misspickford9]

Regarding the Valeska Suratt lawsuit; Suratt owned the exclusive rights to a book about Mary Magdalen written by Mirza Ahmed Schnab. Suratt claimed she gave the book to film czar Will Hays who then gave it to C.B. De Mille. De Mille returned the book to Suratt but when she saw "King of Kings" she claimed parts of the book had been plagarized. She sued De Mille, Hays and Jeanne McPherson for a million dollars. The suit dragged on for several years but in 1930 it was dismissed by Federal Judge Frank Coleman who, according to an article in the Oakland Tribune (8/12/30) said that "while Miss Suratt's scenario was based on the life of Mary Magdalen abd was 95% fiction,the "King of Kings" was based on the life of Christ and that he found no similarity in the two except in those parts which already of general knowledge."
I've heard that Suratt's 1917 "She" may survive. Anyone have an idea as to where it might be?
Henry Nicolella

Interesting! As I found all those bits in seperate articles but no one ever put them together. Was she actually a Bahai? I know she became very religious in later life but no one ever said of what faith.

The 2 rare Valeska fans I have spoken with said nothing survives as obviously this was mostly (or all?) FOX. Would be very interesting if it did (despite judging by the newspaper ads they didnt seem to think much of it compared to her other films).

[Henry Nicolella]

I'm not sure if she was a Bahai but there are some indications she was. I believe she did a lot of writing on religion but I don't know if any of it survives.
No, "She", both the movie and Valeska, did not get good notices. Here's a couple of comments from the "Variety" review:
"At its best, "She" is a fantastical bit of writing, the titular character being conceived with a certain vagueness that Valeska Suratt does not entirely suggest, her characterization relying principally on a long piece of gauze in which she enraps herself, allowing the outline of her form to be strikingly visible, at times permitting the covering to slip to such an extent there is nothing left to the imagination. This alone will be be reason enough to establish the box office drawing quality of the film."
Henry Nicolella