IN: Jarmusch was born January 22, 1953, in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, the middle of three children of middle-class suburbanites. His mother, of German and Irish descent, had been a reviewer of film and theatre for the Akron Beacon Journal before marrying his father, a businessman of Czech and German descent who worked for the B.F. Goodrich Company. She introduced Jarmusch to the world of cinema by leaving him at a local cinema to watch matinee double features such as Attack of the Crab Monsters and Creature From the Black Lagoon while she ran errands. The first adult film he recalls seeing was the 1958 cult classic Thunder Road, the violence and darkness of which left an impression on the seven-year-old Jarmusch.

Jarmusch's final year university project was completed in 1980 as Permanent Vacation, his first feature film. It had its premiere at the International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg (formerly known as Filmweek Mannheim) and won the Josef von Sternberg Award. It was made on a shoestring budget of around $12,000 in misdirected scholarship funds and shot by cinematographer Tom DiCillo on 16 mm film. The 75 minute quasi-autobiographical feature follows an adolescent drifter (Chris Parker) as he wanders around downtown Manhattan. The film was not released theatrically, and did not attract the sort of adulation from critics that greeted his later work. The Washington Post staff writer Hal Hinson would disparagingly comment in an aside during a review of Jarmusch's Mystery Train (1989) that in the director's debut, "the only talent he demonstrated was for collecting egregiously untalented actors". The bleak and unrefined Permanent Vacation is nevertheless one of the director's most personal films, and established many of the hallmarks he would exhibit in his later work, including derelict urban settings, chance encounters, and a wry sensibility. Jarmusch's first major film, Stranger Than Paradise, was produced on a budget of approximately $125,000 and released in 1984 to much critical acclaim. A deadpan comedy recounting a strange journey of three disillusioned youths from New York through Cleveland to Florida, the film broke many conventions of traditional Hollywood filmmaking. It was awarded the Camera d'Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival as well as the 1985 National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Film, and became a landmark work in modern independent film.

Did the autiobiographical later become successful?

OUT: Permanent Vacation is nevertheless one of the director's most personal films, and established many of the hallmarks he would exhibit in his later work,

IN: Born Florence Annie Bridgwood in Hamilton, Ontario, she was youngest of three children of George Bridgwood, an English-born carriage builder and Charlotte "Lotta" Bridgwood (nee Dunn), a vaudeville actress. Charlotte Bridgwood had emigrated to Canada from Ireland after the Great Famine with her family as a child. She was known professionally as Lotta Lawrence and was the leading lady and director of the Lawrence Dramatic Company. At the age of three, Lawrence made her debut onstage with her mother in a song and dance routine.

Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D.W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Biograph's leading lady, Florence Turner, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 a week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week. After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908 Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name was never publicized, fans began writing the studio asking for it. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her "The Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named, because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate. She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, filmdom's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with John R. Cumpson, as Mr. Jones, and Arthur Johnson. The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they were promptly fired.

What is Biograph Studios?

OUT:
looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D.W. Griffith.