June Mathis: The Rise and Fall of a Silent Film Visionary

by Thomas J. Slater

Along with thousands of other girls and young women hoping to escape tedious employment and domesticity, June Mathis (1887–1927) started acting when she was fourteen. After more than a decade of stepping onto stages across the US, she moved into the burgeoning film business and behind the camera to begin a prolific career as a screenwriter and producer for profound movies like The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) and Blood and Sand (1922). With her expert use of melodrama and masterful technique, Mathis would eventually become the first female head writer at Metro Pictures.

In June The Rise and Fall of a Silent Film Visionary, Thomas J. Slater illuminates Mathis's important and complicated life and work, not only detailing her discovery of the silent movie superstar Rudolph Valentino and her involvement on the original screenplay for Ben-Hur (1925) but also her prowess in all aspects of production. Slater pulls from historical records as well as letters, never-before-studied scripts, and Mathis's handwritten will to build a robust narrative for someone who always had to struggle for success, even though Photoplay acknowledged her as "the most powerful woman in the motion picture industry" in 1923. Slater discusses Mathis's artistic and moral failings, as well as how her efforts—such as overlooked collaborations with writer Katherine Kavanaugh and actress Alla Nazimova—consistently challenged male dominance, militarism, and greed.

Despite her talent and achievements, Mathis was pushed to the margins when the industry began removing women from spheres of influence. Following a few months of freelancing, she suffered a heart attack during a Broadway show and died at the age of forty. Very quickly, this woman whose ideas shaped American film for more than a decade was forgotten. June Mathis portrays the cinematic legacy of this "million-dollar girl" whose complex story ended too soon but remains relevant today.

304 pages, Hardcover

Published April 8, 2025

About the author

I was born in 1955 and grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the youngest of six children. Among other jobs, I had a paper route for six years and often worked as a janitor in the schools during my vacations since that was my dad's career. I entered Michigan State in 1974 hoping to be the next Woodward or Bernstein but graduated four years later with a double major in Urban Policy Problems and American Studies. I moved on to the University of Maryland where my greatest achievement was to meet Mary Ann Saur and marry her in 1981. Two years later, our oldest daughter, Gretchen, was born in Stillwater, Oklahoma. In 1987, our second daughter, Allison, was born in St. Joseph, Missouri.
In 1985, I received my Ph.D. in English from Oklahoma State University, where I wrote my dissertation on the films of director Milos Forman. At that time, I also learned about June Mathis, a silent film screenwriter who gained tremendous influence during the 1920s. I was curious about what she had accomplished, what she had wanted to achieve, and what obstacles she faced. Over the next several years, I learned where I could study many of her scripts, watch the films completed from her work, and find documents that revealed her struggles in Hollywood. I also met some of her descendants and got to know researchers and archivists who gave me copies of her personal letters, more knowledge of her life, knowledge of filmmaking in silent-era Hollywood, and access to crucial sources I would never have found on my own. With all these resources, I was also able to benefit from grants and sabbaticals from Indiana University of Pennsylvania for research trips to Los Angeles, New York City, Rochester, NY, and Washington, DC. Most importantly, I had the support of my wife and daughters to go off and do this work and tremendous editing assistance from Mary Ann to help my work make sense. The great help I've received from the University Press of Kentucky editors and staff along with their manuscript reviewers have made this work as entertaining as it could possibly be.
In 2020, I retired from thirty years of teaching and Mary Ann from a distinguished career as a journalist and librarian. We now enjoy active retirement lives in Fuquay Varina, North Carolina.

Reviews

[W.S. Luk · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm grateful to Thomas J. Slater and the University Press of Kentucky for providing me with a copy via LOST ART magazine, for which I reviewed this book. This biography charts the life and career of June Mathis, the woman who shaped influential early blockbusters like The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. I was particularly impressed by Slater's detailed analysis of Mathis' movies, unpicking how they used the tropes of melodrama to explore early feminist and anti-war themes, as well as contending with how she employed racist stereotypes in her work. The book is academic in style, with dense references to other scholars and sources, but will be an invaluable resource for anyone interested in this luminary of Hollywood's early years.

[Samantha Glasser]

Thomas J. Slater will sign copies of his book at the Columbus Moving Picture Show May 22-25, 2025 in Columbus, Ohio.