Wow! 111! Silent Movie Screenwriter Frederica Sagor Maas has died.

[joeybee12]

She told of Hollywood moguls chasing naked would-be starlets, the women shrieking with laughter. She recounted how Joan Crawford, new to the movies, relied on her to pick clothes. Almost obsessively, she complained about how many of her story ideas and scripts were stolen and credited to others.

Frederica Sagor Maas told all — and maybe more — in interviews and in her memoirs, which she published in 1999 at the age of 99. Before dying on Jan. 5 in La Mesa, Calif., at 111, Mrs. Maas was one of the last living links to cinema’s silent era. She wrote dozens of stories, adaptations and scripts, sat with Greta Garbo at the famed long table in MGM’s commissary, and adapted to sound in the movies, and then to color.

Perhaps most satisfying, Mrs. Maas outlived pretty much anybody who might have disagreed with her version of things. “I can get my payback now,” she said in an interview with Salon in 1999. “I’m alive and thriving and, well, you S.O.B.’s are all below.”

(She was also the 44th-oldest person in the world, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which keeps records of such things and which announced her death.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/arts/frederica-sagor-maas-scriptwriter-from-the-silent-era-dies-at-111.html?_r=1&hpw

I doubt there's anyone left from that time now. RIP Ms. Maas

[The Straight Story]

1. We need a silent thread as a tribute :) (nt)

[Octafish]

5. !

.

[liberal N proud]

2. Incredible life

RIP

[virgogal]

3. When I first saw your OP header I wondered why the 111 was there.

My God,it was her age.

RIP Mrs. Maas

[Ron Obvious]

4. Johannes Heesters

From the same era, the world lost the oldest still active(!) actor, the Dutch/German Johannes Heesters a few weeks ago at age 108 after a brief illness

We should all be so lucky.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

6. awww...sad to hear. She was cool.

I'm a huge fan of the era and I had the honor of talking to her and getting her autobiography signed about 10 years ago (she wrote it at 98 - I highly recommend it.)

There's a tiny handful of people from silents still with us:

Carla Laemmle, who turns 103 this year. She was the granddaughter of Universal founder Carl Laemmle. She wasn't a star (and she'd be the first to tell you that), but grew up at the studio and had bit parts in films like the 1925 version of Phantom of the Opera, which starred Lon Chaney.
She's still quite active, recently wrote a book and is currently touring film festivals to help promote a short documentary on her life. A really sweet lady when I interviewed her a few years ago.
Here's a recent appearance at a 'Dracula' event:

Lupita Tovar, who is also 102. She's best known for starring in the Spanish version of Dracula that filmed on the same sets as Lugosi's version. They came in and worked at nights when the English-speaking crew left. She starred in a handful of silents, including one with Lugosi.


former silent child actress Baby Peggy (Diana Serra Cary), who is 93.


and, of course there's also Mickey Rooney, who started as a kid in silents.

The last actual star of the era was probably Anita Page, who died in 2008 at 98. And the last that I know of who received top billing in a film was the Barbara Kent, who died a few months ago at 103.

[PCIntern]

9. thank you for your informative post...

a few years ago, my kid had a friend whose parents are pretty interesting, and the Dad was talking to me about his family, and mentioned that his relative was Carl Laemmle who I wouldn't have heard of. I replied that when I was young I'd read a book entitled "A Million and One Nights" and I certainly knew who he was. He told me that in his entire life, I was the only person younger than 80 who knew of Laemmle, and that he was amazed. Later, he participated in a game of Trivial Pursuit with me and a few others which I won answering the question, "Who was Nixon's appointments secretary, to which I replied "Dwight Chapin". He said laughing, "I give up, you win at everything."

Funny, small world.

[JI7]

7. i wonder when the last person born in the 1800s died

[tkmorris]

8. The last person born in the 1800's has yet to die

What I mean to say is there are still a handful of people born in the 1800's yet alive. The LAST person born in that century is probably not one of them.