Maxine Alton

Maxine Alton (born Belle Trompeter) was an American screenwriter, playwright, talent agent, and actress from Willis, Kansas.^[1] She was also credited as Maxie Alton early in her career.^[2]

Maxine Alton
Born	Belle Trompeter May 3, 1886 Willis, Kansas, US
Died	June 16, 1954 (aged 68) Los Angeles, California, US
Education	Washington University in St. Louis Arts Student League
Occupation(s)	Screenwriter, playwright, novelist, agent
Spouse	William Alfred Allen

Biography

Maxine was born in Willis, Kansas, to photographer John Trompter and his wife, Rose Lee Williams. She was educated at the Sacred Heart Convent in Saint Joseph, Missouri, and attended Washington University in St. Louis.^[3] She developed an interest in the arts at an early age, and performed in opera productions in Missouri in her teens.^[2]

She later attended the Arts Student League in New York City, where she studied drawing.^[4] While looking for ideas for a theater's poster competition as a student, she visited an NYC theater and met a producer who suggested she give acting a try. From there, she appeared in plays and vaudeville sketches all over the country during the 1910s.^[4]

She was working as a play broker by the early 1920s, securing the American rights to works by Parisian composer Andre de Croisset, among other projects.^[5] She was also in charge of a stable of actors she represented as an agent.^[6]

She had settled in Los Angeles by 1924 after chaperoning her client—the young, innocent Clara Bow^[7]—on her journey from New York to Hollywood. Alton had secured Bow a contract with B.P. Schulberg.^{[8][9][10][11][12]} Two years later, Alton had begun to try her luck at screenwriting; her first credit was on The Cowboy and the Countess, which she co-wrote with Adele Buffington.^[13] She wrote a string of screenplays through the end of the decade, ending with 1930's Call of the Circus.^[14]

In the early 1930s, she returned to writing plays and novels.^[15] She also wrote created and wrote the radio series Hollywood Cinderella later on in the decade, a fictionalization on the goings-on in the movie colony.^[16]

Selected works

As screenwriter:

• Call of the Circus (1930)
• Hold Your Man (1929)
• Linda (1929)
• Devil Dogs (1928)
• The Masked Angel (1928)
• Coney Island (1928)
• The Cowboy and the Countess (1926)

As playwright:

• Arrest That Woman (1936)
• Calling All Cars (1936)
• Daughter of Cain (1935)

As novelist:

• My Mother's Rosary (1933)

References

1. "The Hit of the Show". The Horton Headlight-Commercial. 3 Jan 1907. Retrieved 2019-03-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
2. "Almost a Horton Actress". Horton Commercial. 27 Dec 1906. Retrieved 2019-03-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
3. Hunt, Rockwell Dennis (1932). California and Californians. Lewis Publishing Company.
4. "Loves Stage Work". The Washington Herald. 12 Nov 1916. Retrieved 2019-03-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
5. "Music Rights". Daily News. 1 Jun 1923. Retrieved 2019-03-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
6. "Story Selected". The Dayton Herald. 13 Aug 1923. Retrieved 2019-03-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
7. "Is That You, Clara?". Chicago Tribune. 5 Nov 1933. Retrieved 2019-03-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
8. "Who's Who and What's What". The Los Angeles Times. 21 Sep 1924. Retrieved 2019-03-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
9. "Clara's First Ride". The Pittsburgh Press. 29 Dec 1929. Retrieved 2019-03-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
10. "Sad Separation". The San Francisco Examiner. 23 May 1931. Retrieved 2019-03-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
11. Sicherman, Barbara; Green, Carol Hurd (1980). Notable American Women: The Modern Period : a Biographical Dictionary. Harvard University Press. p. 95. ISBN 9780674627338. maxine alton film.
12. Sicherman, Barbara; Green, Carol Hurd (1980). Notable American Women: The Modern Period : a Biographical Dictionary. Harvard University Press. p. 95. ISBN 9780674627338. maxine alton agent.
13. "New Jones Film". The Orlando Sentinel. 19 Mar 1926. Retrieved 2019-03-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
14. "At Family Theatre". The Wilkes-Barre Record. 21 Oct 1930. Retrieved 2019-03-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
15. "Screen Gossip". The Times. 28 Apr 1930. Retrieved 2019-03-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
16. "CFAC Notes". Calgary Herald. 26 Mar 1938. Retrieved 2019-03-18.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)