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35-530: The 2016 documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time details the history and recovery of the films, and features footage restored from the reels. The DFF is also featured in the 2013 documentary short Lost Forever: The Art of Film Preservation . The 533 film reels date "between 1903 and 1929 and were uncovered in the rubble beneath [an] old hockey rink". Films starring Pearl White , Helen Holmes , Grace Cunard , Lois Weber , Fatty Arbuckle , Harold Lloyd , Douglas Fairbanks , and Lon Chaney , among others, were among

70-709: A comeback and mused that acting in silent films was more difficult than acting in sound films. By this time, White had gained a substantial amount of weight. She told reporters she did not like to be photographed as she felt that photos made her face look fat, adding "Why should I have my picture taken when I can get paid for it?" White was married twice and had no children. She married actor Victor Sutherland on October 10, 1907. They divorced in 1914. In 1913 she lived with Jane Fearnley , an early film actress. In 1919, she married actor Wallace McCutcheon Jr., son of pioneering cinematographer and director Wallace McCutcheon Sr. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1921. By 1937, White

105-457: A dance hall. Her travels as a singer also took her to South America. In 1910, White had trouble with her throat, and her voice began to fail from the nightly theatrical performances. She made her debut in films that year, starring in a series of one-reel dramas and comedies for Pat Powers in the Bronx. It was at Powers Films that White honed her skills at physical comedy and stunt work. She became

140-479: A home near Cairo. According to published reports after her death, White's friends claimed that she intended to make a comeback in sound films. White later told friends that after she made a test for sound films in 1929, she was told that her voice was unsuitable. White made occasional visits to the United States in 1924, 1927, and 1937. On her last visit, White told reporters she was not interested in making

175-494: A number of slapstick comedy shorts from 1912 to 1914. White then took a vacation in Europe. Upon her return, she signed with Eclectic Film Company, a subsidiary of Pathé in 1914. Pathé director Louis J. Gasnier offered her the starring role in film serial The Perils of Pauline , based on a story by playwright Charles W. Goddard . The film features the central character Pauline in a story involving considerable action, for which

210-763: A popular player with the company and caught the attention of Pathé Frères . In 1910, White was offered a role by Pathé Frères in The Girl from Arizona , the French company's first American film produced at their studio in Bound Brook, New Jersey . She then worked at Lubin Studios in 1911 and several other of the independent studios, until the Crystal Film Company in Manhattan gave her top billing in

245-595: A producer on Erich von Stroheim 's The Wedding March (1928), along with Jesse Lasky and Adolph Zukor . (The latter was a former partner of Mitchell Mark who, like Powers, was a native of Buffalo, New York .) Patrick Powers, at age 78, died on July 30, 1948, at the Doctors Hospital in New York City after a brief illness. His August 1 obituary in The New York Times notes that at

280-479: A swimming pool to an ice rink, but because of improper conversion the ice rink suffered from uneven temperatures in the middle of the rink. In 1929, Clifford Thomson, then employed by the Canadian Bank of Commerce and also treasurer of the hockey association, solved the problem of the library's stock of film and the inadequate ice rink. Thomson took 500,000 feet of film and stacked the reels in the pool, covered

315-522: Is a fictionalized biography of Pearl White. Pat Powers (businessman) Patrick Anthony Powers (October 8, 1869 – July 30, 1948) was an American producer who was involved in the movie and animation industry from the 1910s to 1930s. He established Powers' Cinephone Moving Picture Company , also known as Powers Picture Plays . His firm, Celebrity Productions, was the first distributor of Walt Disney 's Mickey Mouse cartoons (1928–1929). After one year, Disney split with Powers, who started

350-498: Is important in both the evolution of cinema genres and the role of women. Like many silent films, many of White's films are now considered lost . The Perils of Pauline only is known to exist in a reduced nine-reel version released in Europe in 1916, but The Exploits of Elaine survives in its entirety and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1994. In 2008,

385-532: The Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater circuit to form RKO Radio Pictures . Powers invested in what remained of the sound film company DeForest Phonofilm in the spring of 1927. Lee De Forest was on the verge of bankruptcy, due to legal fees from a series of lawsuits against former associates Theodore Case and Freeman Harrison Owens . DeForest was by that time selling cut-price sound equipment to second-run movie theaters wanting to convert to sound on

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420-506: The Powers Cinephone so that Disney could make sound cartoons such as Mickey Mouse 's Steamboat Willie (1928). Unable to find a distributor for the sound cartoons, Disney began releasing his cartoons through Powers' company Celebrity Productions (also known as Celebrity Pictures). After one year of successful Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies cartoons, Walt Disney confronted Powers in 1930 about money due to Disney from

455-771: The Powers Moving Picture Company, also frequently billed in advertisements and credited in his films as "Powers Picture Plays". Early examples of his studio's releases include The Woman Hater (1910) with Violet Heming , Pearl White , and Stuart Holmes ; the comedy Lost in a Hotel (1911); the children's fantasy film An Old-Time Nightmare (1911); and the Western Red Star's Honor (1911). In 1912, Powers's company merged with Carl Laemmle 's Independent Moving Pictures Company (IMP) film company and others to create what eventually would become Universal Pictures . He served as treasurer of

490-530: The Universal Film Manufacturing Company. Later, in 1916 and 1917, Powers introduced a cartoon series titled Fuller Pep , which was similar to Paul Terry's Farmer Al Falfa series. Nine cartoons were produced. In 1912, Powers had led his own filmmaking company, part of multiple mergers that created Universal Pictures . Between the 1922 reorganization of Film Booking Office of America and October 1923, Powers, as one of

525-815: The animation studio Iwerks Studio with Disney's lead animator, Ub Iwerks . Powers was born in Waterford, Ireland . According to the Buffalo Courier-Express obituary dated August 1, 1948, his sister, Mary Ellen Powers, lived in Buffalo for her entire life. Powers partnered with Joseph A. Schubert Sr. and sold phonographs from 1900 to 1907, when they formed the Buffalo Film Exchange, 13 Genesee St. which purchased films from producers and rented them to nickelodeons . In 1910, Powers left Buffalo for New York City , where he founded

560-399: The athletic Pearl White proved ideally suited. The Perils of Pauline consisted of 20 two-reel episodes that were released weekly. The serial proved to be a hit with audiences and made White a major celebrity; she soon was earning $ 1,750 per week. She followed this serial with an even bigger box-office hit: The Exploits of Elaine (1914–1915). Over the next five years, White appeared in

595-523: The cheap. In June 1927, Powers made an unsuccessful takeover bid for De Forest's company. In the aftermath of the failed takeover, Powers hired a former DeForest technician, William Garity , to produce a cloned version of the Phonofilm sound recording system, which became Powers Cinephone . By this time, De Forest was in too weak a financial position to mount a legal challenge against Powers for patent infringement. In 1928, Powers sold Walt Disney

630-509: The company's new American investors, was effectively in command. Powers apparently(? ) changed the name of Robertson-Cole/FBO to the Powers Studio for a brief period, though there is no record of the company ever having produced or released a film under that banner. In 1925, he moved briefly to take over at the distribution outfit Associated Exhibitors . In 1928, Joseph P. Kennedy and RCA head David Sarnoff merged FBO and

665-608: The condensed version of Perils of Pauline was inducted into the Nation Film Registry. All of her films were made at studios on the East Coast because White reportedly never visited Hollywood. For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Pearl White has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6838 Hollywood Blvd. The 1947 Paramount Pictures film The Perils of Pauline , starring Betty Hutton ,

700-830: The distribution deal. Powers responded by signing Disney's head animator Ub Iwerks to an exclusive deal to create his own animation studio. The Iwerks Studio was only mildly successful, with cartoon series such as Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper , released through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer , and the ComiColor cartoons, released by Celebrity Pictures. The Iwerks studio closed in 1936 and Iwerks subsequently returned to Disney. As for Disney, he would go on to distribute his cartoons without Powers to Columbia Pictures . In his lifetime, Powers produced nearly 300 movies, most of them early silent films produced at Universal before 1913 or one-reel animated shorts. He is, however, also credited as

735-524: The filming of The Perils of Pauline , an injury that caused her pain for the rest of her life.) A male stunt double wearing a wig performed the majority of the more dangerous stunts in White's later films. The public was largely unaware that White and other actors used stunt doubles, but in August 1922, the truth was revealed. During the filming of White's final serial Plunder , John Stevenson, an actor who

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770-561: The find. Along with the lost feature films, there was also rare footage of historic events, including the 1919 World Series . Beginning in 1903, the Dawson Amateur Athletic Association (DAAA) began showing films in Dawson City, Yukon , Canada. The unreturned films were deposited in the local Canadian Bank of Commerce and later stored in the local Carnegie Library basement. The DAAA later converted

805-424: The last surviving records of some movie studios. Owing to its dangerous chemical volatility, the historical find was moved by military transport to Library and Archives Canada and the U.S. Library of Congress for both transfer to safety film and storage. Not all films are complete, as some were too damaged to restore in their entirety. Pearl White Pearl Fay White (March 4, 1889 – August 4, 1938)

840-682: The next two years, White appeared in 10 drama films for Fox but her popularity had begun to wane. At the Pathé movie studio, she met Blanche Rubenstein (later married Claude Auzello) and both travelled to France where White hoped to reboot her acting career. Influenced by her French friends from Pathé, White was drawn to the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris. While living there, she made her last film for her friend, Belgian-born director Edward José , who had directed her in several serials. Silent films could be made in any country, and as White

875-572: The popular serials The New Exploits of Elaine (1915), The Romance of Elaine (1915), The Iron Claw (1916), Pearl of the Army (1916–1917), The Fatal Ring (1917), The House of Hate (1918), The Lightning Raider (1919) and The Black Secret (1919–1920). In these serials, White flew airplanes, raced cars, swam across rivers, and did other similar feats. She did much of her own stunt work until Pathé decided that it could not risk injuring one of its popular stars. (She had already injured her spine during

910-430: The reels with boards and leveled the rink with a layer of earth. The DAAA continued to receive new nitrate films which would later fuel the destruction of the entire complex in a fire in 1951. The films stored under the ice rink were preserved by permafrost and were later uncovered in 1978 when a new recreation center was being built. The Dawson Film Find material was collected and preserved, with these prints becoming

945-674: The reputation of having been poorly directed, crudely edited and ungrammatically captioned. Still, it is far and away the most famous of all silent serials. The reason for this is its dynamic star."– Biographer Lon Davis in Silent Lives: 100 Biographies of the Silent Film Era. (2008). She began performing with the Diemer Theater Company while in her second year of high school. Against the wishes of her father, White dropped out of school, and in 1907, she went on

980-730: The road with the Trousedale Stock Company, working evening shows while keeping her day job to help support her family. She soon joined the company full-time, touring through the American Midwest . White played minor roles for several years, when she was spotted by the Powers Film Company in New York. She claimed she had performed in Cuba for a time under the name Miss Mazee, singing American songs in

1015-622: The suburb of Neuilly due to issues with her liver. She slipped into a coma on August 3, 1938, and died the following day of what was identified in her obituaries as a "liver ailment" (likely cirrhosis due to years of heavy drinking). She was 49. White was buried in Cimetière de Passy after a small, private funeral. White left the majority of her fortune, including jewelry and property, to Theodore Cossika. She also bequeathed money to her father, nieces, and nephews, and her will provided $ 73,000 to charities. Pearl White's place in film history

1050-520: The time she retired from films in 1924, White had amassed a fortune of $ 2 million ($ 36 million in 2023). A shrewd businesswoman, she invested in a successful Parisian nightclub, a Biarritz resort hotel/casino, and a stable of 10 race horses. White divided her time between her townhouse in Passy and a 54-acre estate near Rambouillet . She became involved with Theodore Cossika, a Greek businessman, who shared her love of travel. Together, they purchased

1085-690: Was a recognizable star worldwide, she was offered many roles in France. She made Terreur (released as The Perils of Paris in the United States), her final film, in France in 1924. White returned to the stage in a Montmartre production Tu Perds la Boule . In 1925, she accepted an offer to star with comedian Max Wall in the "London Review" at the Lyceum Theatre in London, where she earned $ 3,000 per week. She then retired from performing. By

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1120-543: Was an American stage and film actress. She began her career on the stage at age 6, and later moved on to silent films appearing in a number of popular serials . Dubbed the "Queen of the Serials", White was noted for doing the majority of her own stunts, most notably in The Perils of Pauline . Often cast as a plucky onscreen heroine, White's roles directly contrasted those of the popularized archetypal ingénue. White

1155-519: Was born in Green Ridge, Missouri to Edgar White, a farmer, and Lizzie G. House. She had four brothers and sisters. The family later moved to Springfield, Missouri. At age 6, she made her stage debut as "Little Eva" in Uncle Tom's Cabin . When she was 13, White worked as a bareback rider for the circus. " The Perils of Pauline was not the first serial ever made, nor was it the best. It has

1190-438: Was doubling for White, was supposed to leap from the top of a bus on 72nd Street and Columbus Avenue onto an elevated girder. He missed the girder and struck his head. Stevenson died of a fractured skull. After the filming of Plunder was complete, White traveled to Europe for another vacation. By 1919, White had grown tired of film serials and signed with Fox Film Corporation with the ambition to appear in dramatic roles. Over

1225-486: Was dying of liver failure. The injury she sustained to her spine while filming The Perils of Pauline had continued to cause her pain, which she eased with drugs and alcohol. A year before her death, White got her affairs in order, purchased a plot in Cimetière de Passy ( Passy Cemetery ) near her home and arranged her own funeral. In early July 1938, she checked herself into the American Hospital of Paris in

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