A front page story: Earl Hays

Remember when the hero sees his picture on the newspaper in Grand Central station and he's on the run? Or the glimpse that the loving wife throws her husband when she's just read her famous lover is coming to town in the morning paper?

Surely, the prop man photocopied a pre-existing paper with their pictures and a fake article on top. Yeah, in 1910, they probably did. Very soon, the matters of credibility and copyright came up.

Then came Earl Hays. Don't look for his name in the credits, not even in a story based heavily on newspapers like Citizen Kane. And yet... Earl Hays was there. And he did it all.

Phyllis Thaxter and Earl's creation for Fort Worth

.

As early as 1921, he specialized on printing fake newspapers for the movie industry. He even had an office at 20th Century Fox. His first assignment was for The Speed Girl starring Bebe Daniels. Of course, over time, his technique allowed him to get better and better and to diversify his activities by printing posters, ads, programs, business cards, etc.

The secret was that he had collected newspapers and various items from all over the world since childhood, including famous copies like the one of the London Times announcing George Washington's death. He used this treasure to make his creations believable in terms of looks and content.

He would charge the studios from 24 to 38 dollars a copy in the 1950s, printing as much as 20 different newspapers for the single production of That Wonderful Urge for Fox.

Nowadays, the work of Earl Hays lives on through his firm (here's their website) which keeps providing major studios newspapers and other printed items for films or hit series like Desperate Housewives, as this article points out.

That's all for today folks!