I’ve found another interesting little nugget about the connections of the Lovecraft Circle with the movie business in New York City. Arthur Leeds had been in the movies there, and Everett McNeil (who Leeds employed at one time) had been an experienced screenwriter. Now I find that George Houtain was also once in the movie business. He was an amateur journalism colleague who later published Lovecraft ‘shocker’ stories in Home Brew. But only a few years earlier he was head of Gray Seal Productions, before the industry moved west. This appears to be a new discovery.
Not only that, but Houtain employed another Lovecraft colleague in 1919…
“Dench Joins Gray Seal, Inc. President George Julian Houtain announces the appointment of Ernest A. Dench” “Mr. Dench will handle the special publicity of the Gray Seal stars, who include Myrtle Stedman, Wheeler Dryden, Grace Harte and Richard Turner.” — Moving Picture World (March 1919).
Wheeler Dryden, you’ll recall, attended a number of meetings of the Kalems with Lovecraft. Motion Picture News (April 1919) reported that Dench resigned this “special publicity” role after a few weeks, due to taking an extended trip back to England…
Dench must have either primed the files with some stories before he went, or returned soon, as an article by him in favour of Gray Seal appeared in Photo-Play Journal (July 1919). It reveals the address of Gray Seal…
Gray Seal Productions made a number of movies with the comedy star Wheeler Dryden, Chaplin’s half-brother. Dryden reportedly made 26 comedy shorts for Gray Seal in 1919. Myrtle Stedman was an “old time” star, having “been associated with the industry since its earliest days”, and presumably played older women. Grace Harte was a young society girl who was a “find” of Houtain’s. Richard Turner was the leading man and also a production supervisor.
It appears the company may have been named for a memorable gangster/crime movie character, “The Gray Seal” (1916). The brand doesn’t appear to have survived the industry’s move to the west of America. Houtain, along with Leeds, Dench and McNeil stayed in New York City. As mentioned above, Wheeler was Charlie Chaplin’s brother and is known to have attended many meetings of Lovecraft’s circle, the Kalem Club in the mid 1920s. So it appears that he also stayed and was in New York at least in 1925/26, but Chaplin historians may know more about his movements at that time.
The above adds to my “How did H.P. Lovecraft come to know McNeil?” section in my book Good Old Mac, on the life and work of Everett McNeil.