In Theda Bara's Tent (as Reviewed by Publisher's Weekly)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Everyones calling up, Faye told me when we collided in the hall at work.
To see if hes okay?
No. To find out if hes brain damaged.
Who says hes brain damaged?
Everyone.
Whos everyone?
The people at Chase Bank.
Anyone else?
Someone from the telephone company said she heard hes a vegetable.
Anyone else?
A reporter from the Wall Street Journal.
What did you say?
Hes expected to recover.
Have you seen him?
Yes.
And?
He could talk.
Heres what you do. Have public relations meet with reporters. Lets squash the rumors.
All of us at the Hells Kitchen building were surprised to discover that Mr. Fox’s favorite boast, that he was a one-man show and that the whole venture would collapse without him, was not based on fact. Even without Mr. Fox, everything ran smoothly.  We at Movietone News—editors, cameramen, sound men, producers, cutting staff, contact men, artists, lab technicians—still met two deadlines a week. We were team Movietone News, touchdown after touchdown. An esprit de corps developed, and I heard no one wishing Mr. Fox would hurry up and get well.
After a few months, he called a press conference, invited about thirty reporters to Fox Hall and appeared before them so they could see for themselves that he was not brain damaged. We read in the papers that he had referred to himself in the third person and greeted them with “William Fox has invited you to his home today to tell you something of his plans for the next twenty-five years.” He told them about his new big-screen process, Grandeur, and the first production, The Big Trail, starring John Wayne, scheduled to open at the Roxy Theater soon.  He told them that he had seen the new invention, television, and said, “If we dont give them a big screen, they will one day sit at home watching radio beams on small screens. He told them about the economies of scale that would happen when Fox merged with Loew’s, how MGM would continue to produce high-class pictures, and Fox Films would produce inexpensive pictures. He explained that there would be just one distribution arm instead of two, one home office, one mammoth chain of theaters, and he assured them that he was the only man in the world who could run such a vast operation.
Molly and I were both busy at work, she on the Coast again, doing a piece about Gloria Swanson’s wardrobe of skin-tight metallic dresses, and me, doing a piece about the start of construction on the Empire State Building. I would cover both those who were in favor of the skyscraper and those who mourned the loss of the fabulous Waldorf Astoria, razed to make room for progress. But in October 1929, all other stories paled compared with the big news. The stock market crashed. A stampede of frantic sellers dumped millions of shares.
 The shares of Loews that Mr. Fox bought for seventy-three million dollars fell to less than half that value. His brokers called his margins. We saw him at the office limping around with a cane, much less of him now inside his suits.
Box-office receipts declined. To lure customers, theaters offered two pictures for the price of one. Double bills required twice the product. To pay for the Loew’s shares and for the theaters he had acquired, Mr. Fox depleted the reserves of the Fox Film Corporation, so he no longer could produce enough pictures for double features at Fox Theaters. He couldn’t compete. Customers stayed away. The rumor on Wall Street was that Fox Film and Fox Theaters were about to collapse, that Mr. Fox had mismanaged his companies. His stockholders turned against him. They claimed he misrepresented, falsified records and made up bogus corporations to hide income. We couldn’t open a newspaper without reading about Mr. Foxs latest humiliation. No one offered to rescue him. It seemed as if his bankers were happy to watch him drowning.
His partner in Grandeur was a manufacturer and seller of theater equipment. The partner offered to buy a controlling stake of Fox Film. Though the shares were valued at about three hundred million dollars, Mr. Fox was so desperate he accepted eighteen million, and his partner, Harley Clarke, a man who knew nothing about making movies or running a chain of theaters, became president of the Fox Film Corporation. The first thing he did after moving himself into Mr. Foxs office was order the refurbishing of hundreds of Fox theaters, whether they needed it or not. He awarded the contract for installing new seats and carpet to his own company, National Theater Supply Corporation.

We at Movietone News continued to prosper, though an avalanche of debts overwhelmed Mr. Fox. His woes got wide circulation in every big newspaper. When the federal government came after him demanding that he pay three million dollars in back taxes, he declared bankruptcy.
One day I opened the newspaper and a headline screamed:  “William Fox, Movie Man, Bribes Bankruptcy Judge.” I assumed this was a mistake, that he was falsely accused, that he would be exonerated when the case came to trial. It was impossible to see him to ask him for the truth, because he never came into the office and he would not return my phone calls.  I was stunned to read in the paper that he confessed to bribing the judge in charge of his bankruptcy hearing. The judge, according to Mr. Fox’s testimony, complained about the expense of his daughter’s wedding, said fifteen thousand dollars would help. Mr. Fox sent money to the judge in an unmarked envelope. The judge demanded more. Mr. Fox used his own daughter as a courier, sent her to some hotel with twelve thousand dollars worth of bills wrapped in newspaper. She testified that she put the wad in the hands of some man she was instructed to meet there. Mr. Fox was indicted on a charge of conspiracy to obstruct justice. He was sentenced to prison. The doors of the Lewisberg Penitentiary clanked shut behind him.