THE FIRST WORLD WAR. A PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY. Edited With Captions and an Introduction by Laurence Stallings.
(A Photographic History of the First World War, published ...)
A Photographic History of the First World War, published before the beginning of the Second, which makes the Title something of a mystery. But this is how the book was published, in 1933.
(Describes every battle the AEF was in between June 4, l9l...)
Describes every battle the AEF was in between June 4, l9l8 until the end. Belleau Wood and Vaux, Saving Paris on the Marne, Aisne-Marne, Meuse-Argonne, Tunnel Offensives Meuse-Argonne final phase AND MORE. From when the First Yank soldiers stepped ashore in France until it was finished and Germany surrendered. tHE DOUGHBOYS- GREET THE EVER WITH GRATEFUL HEARTS.
Laurence Tucker Stallings was an American playwright, screenwriter, lyricist, literary critic, journalist, novelist, and photographer. His sucess began with his collaboration with Maxwell Anderson on the 1924 play What Price Glory and continued for many years.
Background
Laurence was born on November 24, 1894 in Macon, Georgia, United States, the son of Larkin Tucker Stallings, a bank teller, and Aurora Brooks. As a child, Stallings was steeped in Civil War history and enjoyed attending Confederate Memorial Day and Fourth of July parades, which are described in his later fiction.
After graduation from Gresham High School in 1911, Stallings moved with his family to Atlanta, where his father became treasurer of a wholesale drug company.
Education
He graduated from Gresham High School in 1911. In 1912, Stallings enrolled at Wake Forest College, where he majored in classics and biology. He completed his studies in 1915 and got his first job as a reporter at the Atlanta Journal. His B. A. was awarded in 1916.
Career
When the United States entered World War I, Stallings joined the Marine Corps Reserve. In October 1917, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Fifth Marines. He trained at Parris Island, South Carolina.
In 1918, he sailed to France. He saw heavy action at Chateau-Thierry and at Belleau Wood, where on the last day of battle, June 26, he was wounded in the right knee. The wound was serious and greatly affected his life, his work, and his determination to tell the truth about war. He spent eight months in a French hospital undergoing several operations to save his leg.
The hospital experience is the background for his short story "Vale of Tears" (1932), anthologized by Ernest Hemingway in Men at War (1942). He returned to America a captain in February 1919. Stallings and his wife settled in Washington, so that Stallings could continue treatment at Walter Reed Hospital.
During this time, he worked at odd reporting jobs for the Washington Times. In 1922, after a bad fall on ice that tore the surgeon's repair work on his leg, he returned to Walter Reed for amputation of the leg. During his recuperation Stallings worked on the autobiographical novel Plumes (1924). He then traveled to Europe with his wife and finally settled in New York, where he became the book reviewer for the New York World.
Among his colleagues at the World were Heywood Broun, Franklin P. Adams, Alexander Woollcott, and Maxwell Anderson, all of whom became charter members of the Algonquin Round Table. Stallings was the only member who had been seriously hurt by the war and was therefore revered as a hero. He loved telling stories even more than writing them. Stallings' constant talk about the war led Maxwell Anderson to sketch a play based on Stallings' experiences.
Stallings rewrote the play in an effort to instill it with realism as well as his newly learned philosophy that the hell of war was the same for men on all sides. What Price Glory? was an instant success on stage in 1924. Other collaborations with Anderson followed, such as First Flight and The Buccaneer (1925), but none was nearly so successful. Hollywood sought the suddenly famous war hero, and with the director King Vidor, Stallings achieved additional success with the film The Big Parade (1925), based on one of his short stories. The film ran for two years on Broadway.
Stallings then collaborated with Oscar Hammerstein and Vincent Youmans on the musical Rainbow, produced in 1928 and filmed in 1930 as Song of the West. Always restless and easily bored, Stallings went to work for the New York Sun in 1931 while also doing editorial work on magazines. In 1932 he adapted Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms to the screen. At the same time, he began writing more short stories and working on The First World War: A Pictorial History (1933). Despite the pain caused by numerous falls that injured his remaining leg, Stallings longed for action.
In August 1935, sponsored by Fox Movietone News and the North American Newspaper Alliance, he led an expedition to Ethiopia to cover the expected Italian attack; he returned to America in February 1936. In this period, Stallings worked on such films as Too Hot to Handle (1938) and Northwest Passage (1940). Stallings returned to active military duty in April 1942. Much of the time, he was stationed at the Pentagon, but he also spent time in Africa, Europe, and England as an adviser on public relations. Stallings retired in June 1943, a lieutenant-colonel, and settled in Whittier, California. Thereafter, he worked on such films as A Miracle Can Happen (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949).
He also wrote a play, The Streets Are Guarded (1944), set in World War II; it closed after twenty-four performances. In 1963, Stallings published The Doughboys, a widely read history of American participation in World War I. In that same year, his remaining leg had to be amputated. Before he died in Whittier, he was honored at home, where he lay legless for the last five years of his life, for his service to his country.
He read avidly throughout his life, but in his youth he was unaware that the history he learned was romanticized. Later, the impact of this awareness would contribute heavily to his disillusionment about war and be reflected in his writing.
Personality
Already enchanted with uniforms and parades, Stallings was particularly proud of his handsome appearance in his uniform and anxious for overseas action. Stallings was possessed of an exceptional memory, a great sense of humor, and an insatiable appetite for games of chance. He never tired of telling stories about the war. According to the novelist James M. Cain, Stallings' greatest emotional satisfaction came from his "military side. " Yet, Stallings maintained a sardonic attitude toward his wounds and refused to claim credit for being heroic.
Connections
On March 6 he married Helen Poteat, the daughter of Wake Forest's president. They settled in Santa Barbara, California, and had two children. Stallings and his wife were divorced in December of that year, and on March 19, 1937, he married Louise St. Leger Vance, a New York debutante who worked as his secretary at Fox.