December 8, 2003

Book Offers New Insight On Idaho Film Director Nell Shipman

Editor’s note: For a two-minute film clip from “Trail of the North Wind,” visit http://www.boisestate.edu/hemingway/ifc/filmcat.html#Anchor-THE-37516. Scroll down to “Related Materials” and find “Trail of the North Wind.” Click on “Video Clip.”     “Letters From God’s Country,” a new book detailing the life of silent film icon Nell Shipman, picks up where her autobiography, “Silent Screen and My Talking Heart,” left off. The new book is a fascinating collection of letters, poems, photos and other memorabilia from the life of the screenwriter, actor, director and producer. “Letters From God’s Country” is edited by Boise State University English professor Tom Trusky, who is also director of the Idaho Film Collection, and Alan Virta, head of Special Collections at the Albertsons Library at Boise State, which houses the Shipman Archives. Richly illustrated with more than 50 black and white and color photos, maps, blueprints and sheet music, “Letters From God’s Country” (Hemingway Western Studies Series, 400 pages, $29.95 paperback, $59.95 hardback), is a true gem for film and women in history buffs. Shipman was born in Victoria, Canada, and grew up in Seattle, embarking on a vaudeville career as a young girl. After finding international success with the melodrama “Back to God’s Country,” Shipman brought a film crew and a menagerie of wild and domestic animals to the remote shores of Priest Lake in northern Idaho. At Lionhead Lodge, her wilderness film studio, Shipman battled weather and financial disasters to create films starring kind animals and strong women. Her attempts to create films on location in that rugged location resulted in dramatic footage and tragic events. “Letters From God’s Country” is organized chronologically, opening with a poem Shipman wrote in 1925 to her lover Charles Ayers, by whom she would have twins in Spain. Next are flurries of letters from New York and Hollywood publishers, agents and publicists such as Hearst gossip columnist Louella Parsons, as well as letters to and from her oldest son Barry (who eventually launched a successful career of his own writing Flash Gordon and Lone Ranger serials, as well as feature westerns), telegrams from Amelia Earhart, Shipman’s musings on the future of television and letters to Sidney Poitier, Walt Disney and more. Topics range from mothers with careers coping with disaffected children to travel to the independent filmmaking industry. The book concludes with Shipman’s death in 1970 in the small California town of Cabazon, where she lived out her life dependent on the kindness of strangers. From a glamorous life of stardom she gradually fell into one of obscurity — the local newspaper spelled her name wrong in her obituary, referring to her as Neil Shipman, and thieves broke into her home the day of her burial, carrying off her theater trunks filled with memorabilia. An Appendix section contains newly discovered material from her life, including an article she penned in 1912 for West Coast Magazine proposing the then-preposterous idea that screenwriters receive onscreen credit. There’s also a letter from then-popular author James Oliver Curwood telling Shipman he thinks she’s making a big mistake breaking her contract with him to strike out on her own. Five of Shipman’s screen projects were filmed in northern Idaho. Copies of three are currently in the Boise State archives. A copy of the fourth, a tinted print titled “White Water,” was discovered just last year. It contains remarkable footage of early 20th century logging and will be screened at Boise State in April 2004. The sole surviving print of Shipman's last “lost” made-in-Idaho film, “Wolf's Brush” (1924) was found this summer in England and has just been purchased by the Idaho Film Collection at Boise State. It will be premiered in fall 2004. More information about material in the archives is available at http://www.boisestate.edu/hemingway/ifc/nell.html. -30- Contact Tom Trusky Department of English 208 426-1999 Media Contact Kathleen Craven communications and marketing 208 426-3275