We now conclude our 2009 March Donation Drive and month-long Fairbanks online film festival with the final episode from “The Great Swashbuckler,” produced by Delta Entertainment with the assistance of the Douglas Fairbanks Museum.
Pt. 9 explores the last days of Douglas Fairbanks: his constant jetsetting with new wife Lady Sylvia Ashley, his return to California and contemplation of a “comeback” in films; movie projects he was working on which remained unfinished due to his rapidly declining health.
This segment also reports on Fairbanks’ financial woes in his final days, and his 12-year legal battle with the IRS over back taxes that kept him fighting all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court…and until his very last breath in 1939.
Towards the end of his life, Fairbanks Sr. and Jr. finally found pleasure in each other’s company after a lifetime of mutual avoidance — this segment explores their troubled relationship and reconciliation. Historians discuss Fairbanks’ many written works (newspaper columns, magazine articles, books, screenplays), remakes of Fairbanks films, his lasting legacy as the screen’s first great swashbuckler, his influence on later action-adventure stars such as Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Tyrone Power, Gene Kelly, Mel Gibson, and Johnny Depp — and why Douglas Fairbanks still matters today.
Featuring rare Fairbanks film clips, photographs and other materials from the museum’s archives. Also includes interviews with museum curator and Fairbanks biographer Keri Leigh, film historian Sparrow Morgan, and Annette Lloyd of Hollywood Forever.
90 minutes, available in 9 parts on YouTube or on DVD through the museum’s online gift shop at http://DouglasFairbanks.org
Enjoy this episode? Please support the museum during our annual donation drive. We need your help this year!
You can make a donation quickly, easily, and safely through PayPal using a credit card, debit card or bank account below. Every donation, small or large – even just dropping $5.00 in our Virtual Donation Box - brings us one step closer to accomplishing our mission. That goal is establishing a permanent place in history for Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., to ensure that film historians and fans have his work, his extraordinary life and legacy to study and enjoy for many generations to come.
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