I explain in my book Utterly Immoral why Robert Keable’s novel Simon Called Peter was never made into a Hollywood movie and how Warner Brothers bought the rights to the sequel Recompense. It was the director Harry Beaumont who decided to cast Marie Prevost as Julie in the silent movie.

Julie was the nurse in both Simon Called Peter and Recompense who has an on-off-on-off affair with the priest. The inspiration for the character was Robert Keable’s girlfriend, and later common-law partner, Jolie Buck.

Marie Prevost

By 1924 when Recompense went into production Marie Prevost was already a star of silent films having started her career as one of the Sennett bathing beauties.

Marie was born in the town (now city) of Sarna, Canada, just north of Detroit but moved with her parents around America whilst young, before settling in Los Angeles where she attended St. Mary’s high school. There are two slightly different versions of the story about how she became an actress.  According to the 1924 Blue Book of the Screen a girl friend took her to visit Sennett studios and the director Ford Sterling, filming a comedy, asked her to enter the crowd as ‘atmosphere’. Later she took a role in the Ben Turpin film East Lynne With Variations and became one of Sennett’s ‘bathing beauties’. Michael G. Ankerich in his book Dangerous Curves states that she was working in the office of the lawyers for Keystone Film Company and, whilst running an errand, was asked to take the bit part in Ford Sterling’s His Father’s Footsteps. Mack Sennett was so impressed by the performance he demanded she come to his office and signed her up straight away.

So, Marie was chosen as one of the original Sennett Bathing Beauties along with Evelyn Lynn and Cecile Evans. Hundreds more followed. The ‘bathing beauties’ always performed in bathing costumes, usually in comedy shorts. They were also used for promotional events such as Venice Beach beauty contests. Whilst with Keystone, the company Sennett worked for, Marie was in a number of films including a six-reel special Yankee Doodle in Berlin, where she appears opposite a cross-dresser called Bothwell Browne who disguises himself as a woman so he can steal a map from the Kaiser. Whilst working for Sennett Marie met and married socialite Henry Charles Gerke but soon after they separated, and she kept news of her marriage secret.

From Keystone Marie moved on to Universal in 1921 starring in two light comedies, The Moonlight Follies and Kissed. She had started at Keystone on $15 a week but earned $1,000 a week at Universal and in 1922 signed for Warner Brothers for $1,500 a week – for which she worked hard making seven films in 1922, three in 1923 and nine in 1924. In 1922 she was cast alongside her boyfriend Kenneth Harlan in F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and Damned. Warner’s decided to publicise the film by announcing that Marie and Kenneth were going to get married on set. Soon after Henry Gerke filed for divorce and the Los Angeles Times ran a story with the headline: ‘Marie Prevost Will Be a Bigamist if She Marries Kenneth Harlan’.

Cast as Julie

There is a five–minute film of pictures showing Marie’s progress from Bathing Beauty to comedy film star and onto more dramatic roles at https://youtu.be/UjVAbrScNEU. By the end of 1924 she was at the height of her fame. She had divorced her first husband and finally married Kenneth Harlan, the bad press over possible bigamy had been long forgotten, and the two featured in the gossip columns as a perfect couple.

At first, for anyone who had read Simon Called Peter and Recompense Marie was not the obvious actor to play Julie. Julie was described in the books as a ‘girl of medium height’, slim and athletic whilst Marie was petite, under five foot. That said however, Marie was an excellent swimmer and rider and the papers were happy to claim she was perfect for the part as ‘the “gay outrageous Julie” who sought love beyond the spiked fence of convention.’ Ridiculously, after studying photos of Marie, Warner’s quoted Robert Keable as saying:

Miss Prevost seems to be absolutely in the mental attitude of Julie. She seems to have studied the character from the book and absorbed the woman’s psychology.

The Washington Times was particularly rude about her performance suggesting that to say she did better than fair ‘would be stretching the truth’. They continued:

Back in the old days… Marie Prevost was a bathing girl. Marie’s a nice sweet girl, but they surely spoiled one gorgeous eyeful of figger when they decided to put clothes on her and make the damsel a third rate actress.

The Seattle Star was more generous.

Marie Prevost is especially vivacious and expressive in her role as Julie.

Mordaunt Hall in the New York Times found Marie Prevost:

‘well suited to the role… ‘her kisses are of the usual motion picture variety – prolonged and violent.’

After Recompense

Recompense came out in the spring of 1925 and had a successful run, taking more than twice the cost of the film. The following year Marie’s mother died in a car crash, Warner ended her contract and her husband left her. Marie continued to find parts in silent movies and her last starring part, was in Howard Hughes’s 1928 film The Racket. A short clip can be seen here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NJLH5EXI_w

Marie had a brief relationship with Howard Hughes and some have suggested that it was the end of that affair which began her slide down the slippery slope. In truth even after the end of silent era she continued to be cast in movies, but only very small parts and she began to put on weight and to drink heavily.

In January 1937, with her estate worth less than $300, she was found dead in her flat a few days after she had died. Supposedly half-eaten by her pet dog.  Years later Nick Lowe wrote and recorded the song, Marie Provost, released on his album Jesus of Coolin 1978. The song contains the immortal lines:

‘She was the winner that became a doggie’s dinner’.