Frederica Sagor Maas
| Frederica Sagor Maas | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Frederica Alexandrina Sagor July 6, 1900 New York City, New York |
| Died | January 5, 2012 (aged 111 years, 183 days) La Mesa, California |
| Occupation |
Playwright, screenwriter, memoirist and author |
| Years active | 1918–50 |
| Spouse(s) | Ernest Maas (1927–1986, his death) |
Frederica Alexandrina Sagor Maas /ˌfɹɛdəˈɹikə səˈgɔɹ mæs/ (July 6, 1900 – January 5, 2012) was an American dramatist and playwright, screenwriter, memoirist, and author, the youngest daughter of Russian immigrants. As an essayist, Maas was best known for a detailed, tell-all memoir of her time spent in early Hollywood. She was one of the oldest surviving entertainers from the silent film era.
Maas's parents, Arnold and Agnessa Zagorsky, emigrated from Moscow, Russian Empire, and anglicized their surname to Sagor. Her mother supported the family as a very successful midwife. One of four daughters, Frederica Alexandrina Sagor was born on July 6, 1900 in a cold-water, railroad flat on 101st Street near Madison Avenue in Manhattan.
She studied journalism at Columbia University and held a summer job as a copy- or errand-girl at the Newspaper New York Globe. She dropped out before graduation in 1918 and took a job as an assistant story editor at Universal Pictures' New York office at $100 a week. By 1923 Maas was story editor for Universal and head of the department. A year later in 1924, Maas had become dissatisfied with her position and left Universal to move to Hollywood.
Once in Hollywood, Maas negotiated a contract with Preferred Pictures to adapt Percy Marks's novel The Plastic Age for film. Based on this, she was signed to a three-year contract with MGM for $350 per week, though in her words: "I had the peculiar feeling that wily Louis B. [Mayer] was less interested in my writing ability than in signing someone who had worked for Ben Schulberg and Al Lichtman." It was in this period that she wrote Dance Madness and The Waning Sex.
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