R.I.P.: Frederica Sagor Maas (1900–2012)

Some of you might have caught a headline yesterday about the third oldest Californian passing away at the age of 111. What you may not have known is Frederica Sagor Maas had been a screenwriter. From the LAT:

One of the last links to the silent film era, Frederica Sagor Maas wrote the script for 1925’s “The Plastic Age,” which launched actress Clara Bow. But she watched in horror as her serious treatment on women and work was turned into a frivolous 1947 musical, “The Shocking Miss Pilgrim,” starring Betty Grable.

It was Maas’ final Hollywood credit.

Disgusted by the “shallow” industry, she and her screenwriter husband contemplated suicide before leaving the movie business altogether, she later wrote.

For Maas, living an exceedingly long life was the best revenge.

“It’s my only consolation to think, ‘All you lousy so-and-sos are all 20 feet under, and I’m still here.’ It’s a satisfaction, but not a great satisfaction,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle in 1999.

What was her education in screenwriting?

Film school was the movie theater, where she watched current releases over and over to understand the “rhythm of the scenes.”

And about the contemplated suicide:

Many of the screenplays she and her husband wrote between 1938 and 1950 were never produced. Hopeless, humiliated and having little money, the couple drove to a hilltop overlooking Hollywood with the intention of committing suicide in their Plymouth. Clutching each other, they started sobbing and realized that “none of these things mattered. We had each other,” wrote Maas, who had no children. Her husband died in 1986.

And we think it’s tough being a screenwriter today! Here is a scene from The Plastic Age (1925) starring Clara Bow:

Here’s a scene from The Flesh and the Devil (1926) starring Greta Garbo:

Frederica Sagor’s IMDB page.

For the rest of the LAT article, go here.

Godspeed, Frederica Sagor Maas.