Volume III: Biographies Volume III: Biographies
Thanhouser Career Synopsis: Frank A. Grimmer was an assistant director and casting director for Thanhouser circa 1911-1917.
Biographical Notes: Frank Adolph Grimmer was born in New York City on August 8, 1886 and was educated in public schools there and in New Rochelle. He followed a career on the stage, spending five years with Cohan and Harris and one year with Klaw & Erlanger. At one time he was in George M. Cohan's play, Forty-Five Minutes From Broadway and was also seen in The Talk of New York. Frank A. Grimmer worked for Thanhouser from about 1911 to 1917. In the summer of 1913 he was Eugene Moore's chief assistant director at the studio. A note in The New Rochelle Pioneer, August 29, 1914, told of a change in Grimmer's activities (which actually had taken place the preceding April): "In taking over the cast directorship of the local studio, Frank Grimmer, 150 Main Street, gives Dave Thompson a chance to get back on the screen again...."
The September 26, 1914 issue of The New Rochelle Pioneer carried this item: "Frank Grimmer is such a busy man as cast director at Thanhouser's that he had had a facsimile stamp made of his signature. Frank has to handle about a hundred people a day in stock and as extras, besides keeping run of about 200 more. Some job Frank has, but he's covering it great." On February 14, 1915 he became the father of a little girl, whom enthusiastic Thanhouserites dubbed "Miss Valentine." Frank Grimmer married Maude Pease on June 25, 1913. At one time Miss Pease acted in Thanhouser films. (Refer to the Pease biography for details of the wedding.)
A 1914 Sketch: The New Rochelle Pioneer, October 31, 1914, printed this sketch by John William Kellette: "'Kicks are more valuable than boosts' if one knows how to utilize them, and it is not the intention of the writer to kick at Frank A. Grimmer, because he gets kicking enough around the Thanhouser plant, where the genial Frank is the cast director. To say this of Grimmer is to admit that he is cast director of the greatest producers of motion pictures in the world, because the laurel has been awarded to the local concern since its wonderful serial The Million Dollar Mystery, and its exploitation of Zudora, said to be the bill topper in the film industry.
"Frank A. Grimmer knows how to utilize the 'kicks,' hence the 'boosts' have come to him. It is no easy task to have the names and faces of about 5,000 people stored away in one's gray matter, being able to call them by name, or even to remember their home address and phone number, but Grimmer knows these things and has made himself rise above the kicks. And why the kick? Listen: a script is handed to a director. It may call for from four to ten lead parts and any number of extra people in the cast. It is up to Grimmer to cast that picture outside the leads (male and female) assigned to the director. Frank must know which would be the most winsome ingenue, the weak sister, the strong brother, the erring husband, the foolish wife, the best looking society girl; men who look more like gunmen under the grease paint than 'Gyp the Boob' ever did; he must know whose face will bring the tears, the heart throbs, the laugh; he must know what woman will gain sympathy; he must know what man can act the part the character is supposed to represent, and all these things he is doing nobly and silently.
"He doesn't hire a brass band to whang out his virtues, nor an undertaker to bury his failures. Frankly, Frank is simply an intelligent man in an exacting position. When he 'ties' up a character with one director after giving him to another, and thus delays a picture, he must be diplomatic enough to keep the director from shooting his hat off, and appeasing his own desire to lift him a clip to make him behave. The life of a cast director is not all peaches and cream. When he does good work there is seldom an appreciative word. When he makes a mistake - 'Zowie!' He gets everything in the deck from the ace to the ten spot. It is up to him to keep the 'stock people' working upon a 100% basis; to guarantee people to the limit of their guarantee; he must arrange for taxis and autos, and keep the time that each is out on a picture. He can make or break a company by retrenchment or waste. And it is seldom known what part he plays in the making of a picture. His hand is seen on the screen but not recognized. He might cast the wrong person in a part and the error would be glaring, hence the required intelligence displayed upon nearly all occasions by cast directors.
"With Grimmer it comes from studying people. He is a great student of human nature. He has to interview from 10 to 100 people a day. They all tell of their successes and none of their failures. To Frank they must 'look the part' or they won't be cast. Yet he must tell them frankly and fearlessly whether there is a chance for them in the picture game. Many others wouldn't. They'd tell an expectant employee they'd be sent for when wanted, and the actor or actress would go home and hold up the butcher, baker, landlady and everybody else upon the strength of the promise that they'd soon get work. With Grimmer it is all different. He'll tell them at the first interview whether or not he can use them. And if he says he'll use them they get the job; if not, there's no use in spending carfare from the big burg to the '45 Minutes from Broadway' town.
"Speaking of Forty-Five Minutes, etc. Frank was born in New York City on August 8, 1886. For five years he played with Cohan & Harris, the firm that wished the three-quarter hour stuff on New Rochelle, and it was perhaps because Frank, in playing juvenile parts with the 'miracle man's' companies, realizing the damage he helped do to New Rochelle [a reference to the satirization of the community in Forty-Five Minutes From Broadway], gladly came here to live out a life of atonement. He was educated here and has been with Thanhouser three years, during which time he's played before the camera, assisted directors, directed a picture for the Princess brand, and rose to cast director. But his greatest ambition is to be an honest-to-goodness director himself and visualize his stuff on the screen.
"Mr. Grimmer is married, his wife is charming, and is held in high esteem in the 'City Beautiful.' He is of American parentage, 5 feet 8 1-2 inches tall and weighs 150. His complexion is fair, he has light hair and pretty blue eyes. His favorite sport in summer is ball playing. In winter, emptying the ash pan so that his wife won't have to do it. He finds in his work that the most amusing feature connected with it is finding work for the extra people. To them it appears that it is 'up to Grimmer' whether they work or not. As a matter of fact it is not. He can put extras to work only when extra parts are called for in a script. In mob scenes he is limited by the number that the director of the script wants to work. It is then up to him which of the most deserving gets the parts.
"With Frank sentiment cannot conflict with business. No matter how much he'd like to put into the cast the woman who comes and tells him that 'the high cost of living' has made her husband retrench in her support; the boy who 'just loves to act' because it looks so easy, and the young girl who wants to pose before the camera because Harry Benham makes love so beautifully, he is held back from his desire to give them all a chance because he has his orbs glued to the payroll.
"His work doesn't begin when he hits the studio nor cease when he goes home at 5:30 to dinner. All through the night he dreams of taxi-meters working overtime, sees myriads of faces in endless procession begging for a chance to work in pictures; hears directors whispering into his ear that he wants so and so for the 'villain' in his next picture, and Frank awakes in the morning and chokes the alarm clock for revenge. He can't kick anyone. But he must stand the knocks everybody gives him. Truly, Grimmer is living a grim life. But to Frank '"it's the life!'
"He recently told the writer that 'If a girl is good looking, blonde or brunette, tall and girlish-looking, not too thin; never fat; good eyes and real complexion, whether she can act or not, he'd take a chance of her making good before the camera. If she is a brunette of distinctive type and an intelligent face, is willing to learn, she has a future in pictures.' And this, despite the fact that 'experts' all over the country say that unless one has stage experience they never get a chance. If you measure up to the qualifications related above, go and see Frank A. Grimmer."
Other Information: The October 1916 edition of the Motion Picture News Studio Directory noted that his film career to that point involved six years with Thanhouser. He was 5'8" tall, weighed 160 pounds, and had dark hair and blue eyes. He lived at 297 Huguenot Street in New Rochelle and was employed as a casting director by Thanhouser. The 1917 and 1918 editions repeated the same information. His pastimes were swimming, riding, and music.
Frank A. Grimmer's entries in New Rochelle city directories were complex: Listings indicate that he was a theatrical agent in 1910, and lived at 6 (or 16) Howe Avenue, the home of his parents, Mr. and Mrs. A.C. Grimmer. In 1911 he was listed as a "piano tuner," and his home address was 417 Main Street. In 1913 and 1914 he was listed as an assistant director, and his home address was given as 150 Main Street. In its edition of June 27, 1913 The Evening Standard noted that he had just moved into his new home at 150 Main Street. In 1915 he was listed as a director, and his home address was back at 6 Howe Avenue. In 1916 he was living at 54 Ellenton Avenue. In 1917 he was at 337 Main Street, and by 1917 he had moved to 9 Mt. Aetna Place, and was listed as a moving picture director. As noted, studio directories in 1916 and 1918 gave a different address for the period: 297 Huguenot Street. His address listings of the period are somewhat confusing.
From 1910 to 1913, his brother, George Grimmer lived at home with their parents. In 1916 his mother and his father, Adolph C. Grimmer, an insurance agent, were at the same address; by 1917, when Frank Grimmer had moved from 54 Ellenton Avenue to 9 Aetna Place, Adolph C. Grimmer stayed behind and was listed as a piano tuner; by 1918, Adolph C. had moved his piano tuning business and residence address to 307 Huguenot Street. In 1922 he was listed as a salesman, with his residence at 42 Dewey Avenue. In later years Frank A. Grimmer was a timekeeper for the Arnold Constable firm and made his residence in New Rochelle at 42 Clinton Place. He died on October 13, 1942. His wife, the former Maude Pease, survived him, as did a son, Frank, of New Rochelle, a daughter, Mrs. Lilyon Sarles, of Yonkers, New York, and a brother, George A. Grimmer, of Mount Vernon, New York.
Thanhouser Filmography:
1912: The Star of Bethlehem (12-24-1912)
1913: The Spartan Father (8-29-1913)
1915: The Magnet of Destruction (3-30-1915), The Patriot and the Spy (6-7-1915)
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Copyright © 1995 Q. David Bowers. All Rights Reserved.