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Thomas H. Ince (November 16, 1882 – November 19, 1924) was an American silent film producer, director, screenwriter, and actor. He revolutionized the motion picture industry by creating the first major Hollywood studio facility and invented many mechanisms of professional movie production by introducing the "assembly line" system of filmmaking after being the first mogul to build his own film studio, dubbed "Inceville," in Palisades Highlands. He was also instrumental in developing the role of the producer in motion pictures. Known as the "Father of the Western" he was responsible for making over 800 films. Two of them: ''The Italian'' (1915), for which he wrote the screenplay, and ''Civilization'' (1916), which he directed, were selected for preservation by the National Film Registry. He partnered with D.W. Griffith and Mack Sennett to form the famous Triangle Motion Picture Company whose studios are the present-day site of Sony Pictures. He then built his own studio, the present-day site of Culver Studios.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Culver Studios )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=LA Screening Room - The Culver Studios )〕 Ince is also famous for his mysterious and untimely death, allegedly aboard the private yacht of media tycoon William Randolph Hearst, just as he was about to join forces with Hearst’s International Film Corporation. ==Life and career== Thomas Harper Ince was born on November 16, 1882 in Newport, Rhode Island, the middle of three sons and a daughter raised by English immigrants, John E. Ince and Emma Ince〔(Emma Brennan Ince;(mother of Thomas) Internet Broadway Database )〕. His father was born in Wigan, Lancashire, England, in 1841, and was the youngest of nine boys who enlisted in the British Navy as a "powder monkey". He later disembarked at San Francisco, and found work as a reporter and coal miner. But his father and mother longed to act and around 1887, when Ince was about four, the whole family moved to Manhattan where to pursue theater work. Ince's father worked as both an actor and musical agent and his mother, Ince himself, sister Bertha and brothers, John and Ralph all as actors. Ince made his Broadway debut at 15 landing a small role in a revival of an 1893 play, ''Shore Acres'' by James A. Herne. He appeared with several stock companies as a child and was later an office boy for theatrical manager Daniel Frohman.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Special Collections - Margaret Herrick Library - Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences )〕 Later he would form an unsuccessful Vaudeville company known as "Thomas H. Ince and His Comedians" in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Mysterious Death of Newport Movie Mogul Thomas Ince )〕 In 1907, Ince met actress Elinor Kershaw (also known as "Nell) and they were married on October 19 of that year. They had three children together: William T.,〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=William T. Ince (1909 - 1972) - Find A Grave Memorial )〕 Richard Kershaw〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Richard Kershaw Ince (1915 - 1938) - Find A Grave Memorial )〕 and Thomas H. Jr.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Thomas Harper Ince, Jr (1912 - 1970) - Find A Grave Memorial )〕 Ince's directing career began by luck fashion when he found himself in the right place at the right time. In 1910, through a chance encounter in New York with an employee from his old acting troupe, William S. Hart, he found his first film work as an actor for the Biograph Company, being directed by his future partner, D.W. Griffith. Griffith was impressed enough with Ince to hire him as a Production coordinator at Biograph. This led to more work coordinating productions at Carl Laemmle's Independent Motion Pictures Co. (IMP).〔 That same year he discovered that a director at IMP was unable to complete work on a small feature film. In a moment of bravado, Ince suggested the idea to IMP's owner Laemmle of hiring him as a full-time director to complete the film. Impressed with the young man, Laemmle sent him to Cuba to make one-reel shorts with his new stars, Mary Pickford and Owen Moore, out of the reach of Thomas Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company—the trust that was attempting to crush all independent production companies and corner the market on film production.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=MoMA )〕 Ince's output, however, was small. And, although he tackled many different subjects, he was strongly drawn to Westerns and American Civil War dramas. When clashes between the trust and independent films became exacerbated, Ince felt he should move to California to work away from these pressures. He wanted to achieve the sort of spectacular effects accomplished with minimal facilities that Griffith had done. This, he believed, could only be accomplished in Hollywood. After only a year with IMP, Ince quit. In September 1911, attempting to convey the appearance of a successful director by wearing a borrowed suit and a large diamond ring loaned from a jeweler, Ince walked into the offices of actor-financier Charles O. Baumann (1874-1931) who co-owned the New York Motion Picture Company (NYMP) with actor-writer Adam Kessel, Jr. (1866-1946). Ince had found out that NYMP had recently established a West Coast studio named Bison Studios at 1719 Alessandro (now known as Glendale Blvd.) in Edendale (present-day Echo Park) to make westerns and wanted to direct those pictures. ''The offer came as a distinct shock, but I kept cool and concealed my excitement. I tried to convey the impression that he would have to raise the ante a trifle if he wanted me. That also worked, and I signed a contract for three months at $150 a week. Very soon after that, with Mrs. Ince, my cameraman, property man and Ethel Grandin, my leading woman, I turned my face westward.''〔 Together with his young wife and a small entourage, Ince moved to Bison Studios to begin work immediately. He was shocked, however, to discover that the studio was nothing more than a "tract of land graced only by a four-room bungalow and a barn." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Thomas H. Ince」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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