coins

Frances Marion (1915), the first woman to twice win an Academy Award for screenwriting & Hollywood’s highest paid screenwriter from 1917 to the mid-1930s

“In her autobiography (Off With Their Heads), Frances Marion recounts how, amused by her letter requesting a screenwriting job at the then outrageous salary of $200 a week, producer William Fox granted her an interview, but when he sees her, he is mystified by her desire to write screenplays since she is good-looking enough to be an actress.

‘Why does a pretty girl like you want to be a writer?’ he asks incredulously, and goes on to tell her how she would look in ‘the most expensive outfits they got at Saks Fifth Avenue, earrings, bracelets, no phonies, all real stuff.’ ‘Actresses -yes! They got glamour-‘ he says later, ‘but writers, the poor schliemiels! Now if you’re smart you’ll gamble on yourself. Easy, just like tossing a coin.’

‘A coin, Mr. Fox, can only fall heads or tails,’ Frances Marion says she said, and even if it’s staircase wit, it should go down in history as the true shooting script, ‘and I’ll gamble on heads, they last longer.’”