ZaSu Pitts

Eliza Susan Pitts was born January 3, 1894 in Parson, Kansas. She was the third of four children and her father lost a leg during the Civil War. At nine, her family moved to Santa Cruz, California. While attending Santa Cruz High School she joined the drama department. She made her stage debut in 1915.The unique Zasu was formed from the last syllables of her first and middle names. Usually mispronounced as Zazz-oo, the moniker should be spoken as Zay-soo or Zay-sue. She spelled it "ZaSu."Her motion picture career started in 1917 with "Uneasy Money" a one reel comedy directed by William Beaudine for Universal. Early on, she fluctuated between leading roles in low budget shorts at Universal, Nestor, Metro, Select and bit parts in feature productions. She appeared in "The Little Princess" and "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" both produced and starring Mary Pickford. At some point Zasu caught the eye of screenwriter Frances Marion who worked for Pickford. In 1918, she was again cast in a Pickford film "How Could You, Jean?" directed by William Desmond Taylor. Back at Universal, she received fourth billing in "Social Sensation." Playing opposite Carmel Myers and Rudolf Valentino, this film exists as a simple programmer. The actors don the cliché white-mask make-up and engage in grand pantomime. The plot line none too complicated, introductions and hand shaking, flirtations, young love, title cards to explain the obvious. Myers, radiant against the lakeside setting, Valentino doing his best, but looking none too comfortable - Valentino before he became Valentino. Then there is Zasu herself - the cake mask stopping at her jaw-line, her brunette mane piled high atop her head fitting the time, an attractive, competent player, but lacking that luminous quality. Perhaps destined to become the wallflower.Like most actors trying to catch on there were potential setbacks. D.W. Griffith fired her from his production of "The Greatest Thing in Life" supposedly because of her resemblance to Lillian Gish. Chaplin signed her to a sixth month contract and cast her in "A Dog’s Life." Her role was cut from the film. She appeared in Allan Dwan’s "Modern Musketeer" starring Douglas Fairbanks. Again hers was an anonymous bit. Writer/Director King Vidor cast Zasu as the lead in "Better Times." Two more performances for the up and coming director were to follow closely.Starting in 1920 and through the calander year of 1924, Zasu appeared in twenty-two films. Erich von Stroheim's GREED was the twenty-third.In 1923, she auditioned for the part of Trina in the Goldwyn company’s production of the Frank Norris novel McTeague. Erich von Stroheim, after the humiliation of Universal firing him during the production of "Merry-Go-Round," slated to direct. Stroheim’s ambition was to put Norris’ naturalistic tome on screen faithfully. Production began in San Francisco on March 13, 1923.To this point, Zasu was a comedienne. Even in dramatic films, she was typed for comic relief. Stroheim saw something else...“The average person thinks she is funny looking... I think she is beautiful, more beautiful than the famous beauties of the screen, for I have seen in her eyes all the vital forces of the universe and I have seen in her sensitive mouth all of the suppressions of humankind. I’ve seen her lifted to the heights of great acting. Art must weep when Zasu Pitts plays a comedy role. She should not be in comedy, for she is the greatest of all tragediennes...”In San Francisco for principle photography, Stroheim had Zasu and the other actors live at the locations, the rooming houses and apartments where the narrative took place. He stressed that they remain in character at all times. The results paid off. A reporter, visiting the set at the time, noted... “... It was apparent, though, that this was an altercation between a man and a woman over some hoarded gold... I could hear him in his sing-song voice: “Oh, ain’t this fine! Ain’t it lovely! We could live like Christians and decent people if you wanted to. You got more’n five thousand dollars, and you’re so blamed stingy that you’d rather live in a rat hole and make me live there too...” A thick heavy-set lumpish figure of a man, grotesquely haloed by a mass of peroxided yellow hair... cringing next to him was a woman whose face was worn and eyelids bloated from weeping. Her heavy black hair was bound in huge coils about her head... They were Trina and McTeague. There was no mistaking them - by anyone who read Frank Norris’ novel...” The ten hour version of "Greed" has been talked about by filmmakers and historians. The French critic Georges Sadoul said of the principles, “The acting is powerful, with the sublime ZaSu Pitts and Gibson Gowland giving performances that have rarely been matched in American film.” The sequence where - as the sexually repressed Trina - she spreads the gold coins on the bed and caresses her body with them is a prime example of “the Stroheim touch.”Although regarded as a flop, Greed did moderate business in spite of hostile reviews and the censors. This didn’t lead to great dramatic work a la Lillian Gish and Zasu went back to alternating between leads in low budget films and supporting roles in studio features.In 1926, von Stroheim cast her in "The Wedding March" opposite himself and Fay Wray. The story is pure Stroheim – the Student Prince complete with sex orgies. Another film that has grown in reputation ove time, and like Greed it really didn't free Zasu from being typed. It wasn't just the producers... the public wouldn’t accept Zasu playing anything other than the dizzy dame. She worked steadily throughout the end of the silent era and into 1930s and 1940s.Toward the end of her career, Zasu worked exclusively in television. From 1956 through 1960, Zasu played on "The Gail Storm Show." Her last screen appearances were in Stanley Kramer’s all-star comedy “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” and the Doris Day vehicle, “The Thrill of it All” with James Garner.Zasu Pitts died on June 7, 1963. She’s buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California."It is worth comparing the roles of Zasu Pitts in "The Wedding March" and "Walking Down Broadway." She plays the tragic lover in both films, but in... Wedding March, her presence(even in the complete version) is overshadowed by the story of Mitzi. That film is clearly Fay Wray's, but Walking Down Broadway clearly belongs to Zasu Pitts. A minor character in the original material, her role gradually developed as von Stroheim worked on the screenplay, and in his synopsis of the film, published years later, it appears that she is all he was ever interested in here. In the later synopsis, he insistently refers to the character of Millie by the name "Zazu" identifying the character completely with the actress who played her. The importance of Zasu Pitts to von Stroheim's cimena can not be exaggerated."