Frederica Sagor Maas abandoned Hollywood a half century before she published her tell-all memoir, at the age of 99, about life as a screenwriter in the movie industry’s early days. But the passage of time made her tales no less scathing or scandalous. In The Shocking Miss Pilgrim: A Writer in Early Hollywood, Maas dished about movie moguls and Hollywood legends, including an account of starlet Clara Bow dancing naked on a table at a Jazz Age party. Film historian Alan K. Rode called it “perhaps the best muckraking memoir about early Hollywood.”
Born to Russian immigrant parents in New York City, Maas studied journalism at Columbia University. When her “chauvinistic” bosses at Universal Pictures in New York wouldn’t help her become a screenwriter, she left for Hollywood on her own, at age 23, said the Los Angeles Times. She studied her craft in movie theaters, watching movies over and over to learn how to write for the screen. In 1925, she wrote the script for The Plastic Age, which launched Bow, and went on to claim nearly 20 screenwriting credits. She grew frustrated, however, with rampant plagiarism in the studio system. “Unless you wanted to quit the business, you just kept your mouth shut,” she later wrote. In 1927, she married screenwriter Ernest Maas, who became her writing partner.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.