Page "Howard Hawks" Paragraph 4

In 1916, Hawks ' grandfather, C. W.

Howard, bought him a Mercer race car and Hawks began racing and working on his new car during the summer vacation in California.

It was at this time that Hawks first met Victor Fleming, allegedly when the two men raced on a dirt track and caused an accident.

Fleming had been an auto mechanic and early aviator when his old friend Marshall Neilan recommended him to film director Allan Dwan as a good mechanic.

Fleming went on to impress Dwan by quickly fixing both his car and a faulty film camera and by 1916 had worked his way up to the position of cinematographer.

Meeting Fleming lead to Hawk's first job in the film industry as a prop boy on the Douglas Fairbanks film In Again, Out Again for Famous Players-Lasky, which Fleming was employed on as the cinematographer.

According to Hawks, a new set was in need of quickly being built when the studios set designer was unavailable and Hawks volunteered to do the job himself, much to Fairbank's satisfaction.

He was next employed as a prop boy and general assistant on an unspecified film directed by Cecil B. DeMille ( Hawks never named the film in later interviews and DeMille made five films roughly in that time period ).

While breaking into the film industry in the summer of 1916, Hawks also unsuccessfully attempted to transfer to Stanford University, and then returned to Cornell in September 1916.

Hawks left Cornell in April 1917 when the United States declared war on Germany and entered World War I.

Like many college students who joined the Armed services during the war, he received a degree in absentia in 1918.

Before Hawks was called for active duty, he took the opportunity to go back to Hollywood and by the end of April 1917 was working on Cecil B. DeMille's The Little American, where he met and befriended the then eighteen-year-old slate boy James Wong Howe.

Hawks next worked on the Mary Pickford film The Little Princess, directed by Marshall Neilan.

According to Hawks, Neilan did not show up to work one day and the resourceful Hawks offered to direct a scene himself, which Pickford agreed to allow.

Hawks then had his first experience as a film director at the age of twenty-one when he and cinematographer Charles Rosher spent the day filming a tricky double exposure dream sequence with Pickford.

Hawks worked with Pickford and Neilan again on Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley before joining the United States Army Air Service.

Hawks's military records were destroyed in the 1973 Military Archive Fire, so the only account of his military service is his own.

According to Hawks, he spent fifteen weeks in basic training at the University of California in Berkeley where he was trained to be a squadron commander.

When Mary Pickford visited Hawks at basic training, his superior officers were so impressed that they promoted him to flight instructor and sent him to Texas to teach new recruits.

Due to boredom, Hawks attempted to get a transfer during the first half of 1918 before finally being sent to Fort Monroe, Virginia.

But the Armistice was signed in November of that year and Hawks was discharged as a Second Lieutenant without having seen active duty.