Douglas Fairbanks (May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer.

He became noted for his swashbuckling roles in such movies as The Mark of Zorro (1920), The Three Musketeers (1921), Robin Hood (1922), The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and The Black Pirate (1926). His last silent picture was The Iron Mask.

He was born Douglas Elton Ulman in Denver, Colorado, the son of Hezekiah Charles Ulman (born September 1835) and Ella Adelaide Marsh (born 1850). His half-brother was John Fairbanks (born 1873); and his full brother was Robert Payne Ulman (March 13, 1882-February 22, 1948).

His father, Charles, who was born in Pennsylvania, was a prominent New York City attorney. Fairbank's mother, who was born in New York, had previously been married to a man named John Fairbanks and was left a widow. She then divorced another man named Wilcox, who turned out to be an abusive brute, with the help of her lawyer, Ulman, who she later married. In about 1881, Charles Ulman purchased several mining interests in the Rocky Mountains and relocated the family to Denver, where he re-established his law offices. Charles abandoned the family there when Doug was five years old and he and Robert were raised by their mother.

He was expelled from Denver High School for dressing up the school statues on St. Patrick's Day. Even though it was reputed that Douglas Fairbanks attended Colorado School of Mines and Harvard University, neither school has a record of his attendance. Since Fairbanks had a tendency to expound with enthusiasm during interviews, this information was probably told to a reporter during one of those lively interviews.

He worked in a hardware store and as a clerk in a Wall Street office before appearing on the Broadway stage in 1902.

In 1907, Fairbanks married Anna Beth Sully, the daughter of a wealthy industrialist; they had one son, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. They moved to Hollywood in 1915.

In 1915, he signed with Triangle Pictures and began working under the supervision of D.W. Griffith. Fairbank's athletic propensity did not fit well with Griffith and he was directed to John Emerson and Anita Loos, who wrote and directed many of his early romantic comedies. Fairbanks had not invented the action heroes of Zorro or Robin Hood until the 1920s.

Douglas Fairbanks met Mary Pickford in 1916 at a party. They quickly fell in love and began having an affair. During the war bonds drive in 1917, Doug, Mary and Charlie Chaplin traveled across the U.S. selling bonds. He and Beth were divorced in 1918.

In 1917, Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin were the two highest paid actors in Hollywood. Within eighteen months of being in Hollywood, Doug Fairbank's popularity and business acumen raised him up to be the third highest paid actor in Hollywood. To curtail these stars' astronomical salaries, the big studios attempted to monopolize the distributors and exhibitors.

To avoid being controlled by the studios and to protect the art of filmmaking, Doug, Pickford, Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith formed United Artists in 1919 which created their own distributorships and gave them complete artistic control over their films and the profits of their work.

Fairbanks was bent on marrying Mary, but she was still legally married, but separated from her alcoholic and abusive husband, actor Owen Moore. Both Mary and Doug were concerned that the public and their audience would shun their pictures if they married each other, since both had been divorced previously. But Doug gave Mary an ultimatum, wherein Mary obtained a quick divorce in Nevada on March 7, 1920 and then married Doug on March 28, 1920. The Pickford divorce was contested by Nevada leglslators, and the dispute was not settled until 1922. Even though the lawmakers objected to the marriage, the public and their audience went wild over the idea of Everybody's Hero marrying America's Sweetheart. They were greeted during a European honeymoon with crowds up to 300,000 people in London and Paris. They were Hollywood's first celebrity marriage.

During the years of their marriage, Fairbanks and Pickford were regarded as "Hollywood Royalty," and they became famous for entertaining at their Beverly Hills estate, Pickfair. His and Pickford's hand and foot prints were the first ones placed in cement at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood. The idea of the footprints in cement occurred to Sid Grauman, the owner of the Chinese Theater, after Mary's dog, named Zorro, ran through freshly laid cement during the theater's construction.

By 1920 Doug had completed 29 comedies, mostly with the same theme. The public was wanting something new. Doug contemplated doing a costume picture. Costume films were not popular with the public up to that point, but he took a chance and made The Mark of Zorro. It was a smash success and he made swashbuckling costume films through the 1920s.

He was elected President of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1927 and hosted the first Academy Awards program.

He and Pickford separated in 1933 and were divorced in 1936. On March 7, 1936, Fairbanks married his third and last wife, Sylvia Ashley. He lived in retirement with Sylvia at 705 Ocean Front (now Pacific Coast Highway) in Santa Monica, California.

At fifty-six years of age, he died in his sleep of a heart attack at around 12:45 a.m. in Santa Monica. His funeral service was held at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather Church at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, where he was placed in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum. His widow, Sylvia, then commissioned an elaborate monument for him in another cemetery, with long rectangular reflecting pool, raised tomb, and classic Greek architecture, and he was removed from Forest Lawn. He is entombed at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood.

Douglas Fairbanks' hand and foot prints are immortalized in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater and he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7020 Hollywood Boulevard.

External links

• AFI Catalog entry for Douglas Fairbanks