100 years ago in Spokane: City waits in anticipation for ‘influx’ of stars

Spokane was anticipating an influx of famous movie actors in connection with the opening of the new Washington Motion Picture Corp. in Minnehaha Park.

Tyrone Power, the famous silent-movie leading man (and father of Tyrone Power Jr.) was scheduled to arrive, along with Florence Turner.

Turner was a huge star, known to millions as the “Vitagraph Girl,” after the name of her former studio. She had been cast as the female lead, opposite Power, in the studio’s first movie, “Fool’s Gold,” the story of an early-day prospector.

Evelyn Brent, “one of the beauties of the screen,” was arriving to play the daughter of Tyrone Power. She would go on to have an illustrious career in both silent movies and talkies.

Jane Murfin, a top script writer and playwright, was also arriving to be the studio’s resident writer. She would go on to a successful career as a screenwriter into the 1940s.

More movie people were scheduled to arrive in the coming weeks.

“A score of people prominently identified with the motion picture industry are gathering here from New York and California, and will form a permanent colony in Spokane,” said the studio’s general manager.

This, along with many other predictions for Spokane’s future as a movie colony, would prove to be too optimistic.

Also on this date

(From Associated Press)

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