Mary Murillo

[urbanora]

I'm putting together a piece on Mary Murillo for the Women Film Pioneers Sourcebook (vol. 2), and for the filmography they require print sources for extant films. I don't have access to the FIAF database, and I wonder if anyone could help me with a few films that I haven't pinned down yet.

The Little Gypsy (d. Oscar Apfel, p.c. Fox Film Corp., 1915). Is this held by the Library of Congress? It may possibly be known under an alternative title, The Minister. I have a reference to a copy (also under the title of The Minister?) being held by RIHS - might this be the Rhode Island Historical Society?

Jack and the Beanstalk (d. Sidney Franklin, Chester M. Franklin, p.c. Fox Film Corp. 1917) - is this held by George Eastman House?

The New York Idea (d. Herbert Blaché, p.c. Realart, 1920) - this is held by the BFI National Archive, but is it also held by George Eastman House?

Any help that can be provided would be most welcome.

[urbanora]

Perhaps next you should take on another prolific but obscure scenarist of British extraction: E. Mangus Ingleton.

Guess what, Eugenie Magnus Ingleton turns out to be most interesting. Someone else should take up the challenge properly, but there's plenty to be found out about her. There's an interview with her from Moving Picture World in 1915 when she was reference librarian at World Film studio, Fort Lee, in Richard Koszarski's Fort Lee: The Film Town (you can find the extract through Google Books), where she talks about her stage career and how she started in films in Britain with Cecil Hepworth, writing and acting (no mention of her in Hepworth's biography or any British film sources that I know of). She claims to have worked for the Secret Service while in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War; certainly she was in the country at that time as an actress. She came to the States in 1911 in the play Bunty Pulls the Strings.

Thereafter you can follow her extensive screenwriting credits, starting at World in 1915 and going on until 1925, on IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0408863), but the date of birth is wrong by ten years - she was born in London in 1876 as Eugenie Magnus and has numerous mentions in The Era and The Stage journals as she toured the UK in stock companies. She married an actor Fred W. Leonard (possibly real name Fred Watkins), who died some time before 1911, then married again a Scotsman, George Ingleton.

Her writing credits include The Moonstone (1915), Trilby (1915), McTeague (1916) and films directed by Ruth Ann Baldwin such as The Storm Woman (1917) and The Woman Who Would Not Pay (1917). She also directed two films, Avarice (1917) and a feature, The Birth of Patriotism (1917). Someone should be picking up her story as part of the Women Film Pioneers project - at least I hope so.

A couple years on from this question about the obscure British scenarist E. Magnus Ingleton, I've had one of her descendants send me some family history information about her. I'm going to post it here (with permission) should anyone be interested to pursue her story further:

Born Anne Eugenie Magnus
on 24 April 1874 in London (the internet gives her birth year with abt 1886)
baptised on 24 May 1874 at St. James, Norland, London
parents Ernest Magnus (1842-1919) and Anne Elizabeth Robertson (1845-?) Haven’t found her death yet.
married Frederick William Watkins on 28 Dec 1896 at Register Office Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland, UK
(My notes for this gentleman say: He was born William Frederick Watkins and he is listed under that name in the 1871 and 1881 censuses with his family. In this latter census he is an Engine Fitter and must have changed his profession and become an actor, adopting the stage name of Fred W. Leonard, sometime between 1881 and 1891. In the 1891 census he is listed under his stage name of Fred W. Leonard in Slattocks, Lancashire. In 1896 he married Eugenie Magnus under the name of Frederick William Watkins. Their son, born in April 1897 is listed in a newspaper birth notice under Leonard. The 1901 census finds the couple in Kirkdale, Lancashire, where he and his wife are listed as Fred W. and Eugenie Leonard, both theatre professionals. In the 1911 census, Eugenie is listed under her maiden name on her own as a widow, actress and composer, in Chelsea, London, whereas Fred Leonard, actor, is very much alive and living in Chatham, Kent, with Gladys Leonard, an actress, listed as his wife and nearly 20 years his junior).
William Frederick Watkins was born in the June Quarter 1864 in the Basingstoke, Hampshire. I am still chasing his death date.
Fred W. Leonard and Eugenie Magnus had one child, a son, according to this birth notice:
From The Era, London, Saturday 24 April 1897, Isssue 3057, Births:
Leonard. - On Sunday, April 11th, Mrs. Fred W. Leonard (nee Miss Eugenie Magnus) of a son. Australian Papers please copy.
I have no idea what happened to the son, his name or place of birth but Eugenie states in the 1911 census that she had one child and that the child is still alive.
On 9 December 1911 Eugenie Magnus, 34, married, actress, migrated to the States, departing Southampton for New York, USA, as a first class passenger on board the "Minnewaska".
I don’t know where and when Eugenie met George Ingleton (born 1860 in Glasgow, Scotland) but George Ingleton migrated to the United States, leaving Glasgow on 16 September 1911 as a first class passenger on the "California" for New York. I assume they met in New York but I’m not sure they actually married.
George Ingleton, 46, and his wife Eugenie, 36, both Artists, are passengers on the "Philadelphia", from Southampton to New York on 23 August 1913. Last UK addresses are Agnes Ingleton (sister) of 244 W. Princes Street, Glasgow, and Ernest Magnus (father), 16 Wallgrave Road, Earls Court, London.
George Ingleton is supposed to have died in a motor vehicle accident in Dark Canyon, California, on 19 May 1926. Still looking for proof.
Eugenie Magnus-Ingleton died on 3 August 1936 in Los Angeles and was buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on 6 August 1936.
Apparently her burial permit doesn't list her date of birth but it does say that she lived 50 years, 3 months and 9 days. She was buried in Section 2, Grave #986. She has neither a grave stone or a marker. She was interred by the Motion Picture Relief Fund.

Maybe you know someone who would be happy to receive this information.
Regards,
Sigi McMahon
Melbourne

[urbanora]

Back in 2009 I wrote a blog post on the little-known British screenwriter Mary Murillo. The post was as much about how to use online resources for researching obscure names as it was about Murillo herself, and Nitratevillians were very helpful in suggesting angles of enquiry.

http://thebioscope.net/2009/11/05/searc ... y-murillo/

Six years on and I've found a great deal more about Mary Murillo, the most significant discovery being that she was the daughter-of-law of French early film magician Gaston Velle. I've written a post updating Mary Murillo's story.

http://lukemckernan.com/2015/05/16/gast ... -and-mary/

There will also be a short strand at this year's Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna on Gaston Velle, Mary Murillo and her husband, the 1920s cinematographer Maurice Velle.

http://www.cinetecadibologna.it/cinemar ... v/Sections

Luke

[earlytalkiebuffRob]

Unless someone's mentioned it already, there is a photography museum in Bradford, which also deals with cinema and was well worth a visit. Can't remember what the full name is as not been there in 30 years, and think there have been a few name changes, but should be easy to Google. As a locally born lady, they may well have further information...

[urbanora]

It's the National Media Museum -http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/. It's a film, TV and photography museum, focussed on equipment, and won't have anything connected with Mary Murillo, but I ought to do something to raise interest in her with film groups in Yorkshire, so thanks for the idea.



Luke