Frances Harmer

Frances A. Harmer was born in England. She moved to the United States as a young woman,"Writers of the Day" The Writer (November 1919): 170-171. and worked as a teacher.Alma Whitaker, [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22447241/frances_harmer_1925/ "Sugar and Spice"] Los Angeles Times (November 8, 1925): 28. via Newspapers.com{{open access}}

Harmer lived in New York City, and then in Los Angeles, California. She wrote under several pseudonyms. Published short stories by Harmer included "The Cheat" (1907), "Losing to Win" (1908),Frances Harmer, [https://books.google.com/books?id=np5EAQAAMAAJ&dq=Frances+Harmer&pg=PA383 "Losing to Win"] The New Broadway Magazine (June 1908): 383. "Counting Love's Toll" (1908), "When Love is Lord", "A Newport Nobody", "The Test", "The Wooing of Sheilah", "Hidden Gold" (1910), "The Helping Hand" (1913), "Both Fair and Good" (1913),Frances Harmer, [https://books.google.com/books?id=cBBG4rG_g50C&dq=Frances+Harmer+writer&pg=PA337 "Both Fair and Good"] Hearst's Magazine (September 1913): 337-343. "The Lame Boy's Gift" (1914),Frances Harmer, [https://books.google.com/books?id=jNU_AQAAMAAJ&q=Frances+Harmer+&pg=PA16 "The Lame Boy's Gift"] Christian Register (January 1, 1914): 16. "The Transient" (1914),Frances Harmer, [https://books.google.com/books?id=jNU_AQAAMAAJ&q=Frances+Harmer+&pg=PA328 "The Transient"] Christian Register (April 2, 1914): 328. "The Gift of Speech" (1914),Frances Harmer, [https://books.google.com/books?id=jNU_AQAAMAAJ&q=Frances+Harmer+&pg=PA400 "The Gift of Speech"] Christian Register (April 23, 1914): 400. "The Painting of Perdita" (1915), "A Pair of Pink Shoes" (1915), "While His Mother Was Away" (1916),Frances Harmer, [https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22451330/frances_harmer_1916/ "While His Mother was Away"] Ottumwa Tri-Weekly Courier (April 22, 1916): 6. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} "The Girl He Left Behind Him" (serialized, 1917),Frances Harmer, [https://books.google.com/books?id=RS5HAAAAYAAJ&dq=Frances+Harmer+story&pg=PA539 "The Girl He Left Behind Him"] Farm Journal (October 1917): 539. "The Honorable Roy Carteret" (1917), "Managing Miriam" (1917), "The Portrait" (1917), "Peggy Steals a Week" (1917), "The Mentor and the Maid" (1918), "The Backward Path" (1918),[http://www.philsp.com/homeville/gfi/s457.htm Frances Harmer] in The General Fiction Magazine Index, and "Pretty Plaything" (1922).Frances Harmer, [https://archive.org/details/snappy-stories-15-july-1922/page/9 "Pretty Plaything"] Snappy Stories (July 1922): 9. A story by Harmer was the basis for the Bebe Daniels film One Wild Week (1921, now lost). Kenneth White Munden, ed.,[https://books.google.com/books?id=rlLbRAPOgP0C&dq=Frances+Harmer+Lasky&pg=PA572 The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States, Part 1] (University of California Press 1997): 572. {{ISBN|9780520209695}}

Harmer was called "Little Mother of the Movies".[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22447051/frances_harmer_1927/ "Frances Harmer, 'Little Mother of the Movies', Dies"] Los Angeles Times (January 5, 1927): 16. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} She worked at the Famous Players–Lasky studio as head of the reading department, evaluating scripts. Later she was "literary assistant" to William C. de Mille,[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/22440323/frances_harmer_1921/ "After the Show"] Greensboro Daily News (November 11, 1921): 3. via Newspapers.com{{open access}} and adapted stories for the screen. She was described as "a little white-haired old lady, simply dressed in gray" in 1921.[https://books.google.com/books?id=634NAQAAIAAJ&dq=Frances+Harmer+Lasky&pg=RA2-PA29 "A White-Haired 'Child of Promise'"] Photoplay (October 1921): 25. She described the challenges of reading scripts in the silent era in a 1922 essay: "Too few writers, whose laurels are yet to be won, are able to visualize – to look at a blank wall and see thereon the figures of their characters in Moving Action."Frances Harmer, [https://archive.org/stream/photodramatist32phot#page/n19 "Common Faults in Continuity Writing"] The Photodramatist (May 1922): 11-12. Elsewhere, she also discussed the problem of hopeful screenwriters attaching their names to existing well-known theatrical scripts, saying "People seem to think we moving picture people have never read, seen, nor heard anything."[https://archive.org/stream/photodramatist32phot#page/n355/search/Harmer "H. H. Van Loan's Own Corner"] The Photodramatist (December 1922): 31.

In 1922 she wrote an open letter in the aftermath of William Desmond Taylor's murder, insisting that "Hollywood is not a hotbed of iniquity or a 'Sodom and Gomorrah,' nor at all worse than any other city."[http://silentera.com/taylorology/issues/Taylor49.txt "Defends Films and Hollywood"] Hollywood Citizen (February 17, 1922).

Frances Harmer retired in 1924, and died in 1927, aged 68 years (though her age was frequently exaggerated in newspapers), in New York City.

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Category:1858 births

Category:1927 deaths

Category:20th-century English writers

Category:English emigrants to the United States