Love, Life, and Laughter

Dear Doug Fairbanks,

You wrote a book once telling all your secrets of life, to be happy, to love your friends, to keep your life clean and whole and all will be well.  Isn't that so?  Do you know I've been a fan of yours long before I had seen one of your movies?  You have this glow about you, strength, confidence,  Sure could use some confidence.  

When fall comes I think of you often.  The trees are ablaze with color, brilliant blue sky.  This really, really fresh air that you want to be a part of.  They say you made people feel that way when you entered a room and when you left all the glow went with you.  To be that supremely happy and giving must be a joy to you in Heaven now.  Maybe God has you greet the film fans when they come up so they don't worry so much about what they left.  What a wonderful ambassador you would have made.  

Douglas, did you have any idea that people would think of you after you died?  Certainly, your friends would.  

Your dearest friend was Charlie.  You two were great buddies, shared secrets and business.  You, with Mary Pickford, DW Griffith, and others formed the United Artists, which is the very first company for the actor, by the actor.  There was a lot more there than a quick grin and a witty quip.  You were clever, and protective and all the things they write about you.  

Well, I love you, Doug.  To see you fling yourself across a screen makes my heart soar.  Watch this--feel your heart soar!

I suppose I should have picked this one, but "A Modern Musketeer" is my favorite of your earlier pictures.  It shows the kind of man a girl would like, clean, full of joy of life, confidence, and a dreamer.  You'd exhaust a lesser man and did many times.  Oh we have all these so-called 'stars' now, none of which I'll mention, but none with your verve, your sparkle.   Or your good looks.  My goodness, if you suggested some of the tumbles you took (the ones your stunt man didn't do!) they'd scream for their union!  

I sure hope you don't mind me visiting you where you rest in Hollywood.  It's quiet there, and very pretty.  Just over the wall the Paramount studio still thrives, buzzing with activity and the energy that you so thrived on!  I love you very much, Douglas.  I love the thought of you, a man so full of movement and life.  You may have been the greatest egotist but who cares?  What I wouldn't have given to meet you.  Your voice would ring out--yes, he did have a voice.  He had a lovely voice.

Dear Doug as as the last drop of fall wrings its way to the Earth, I think of you today.  Mary Pickford, the wife you loved, said, "He was an arrow in full flight."  Surely that is the best way to describe you.  An arrow that went through the air and met it's target every single time.