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American screenwriter Jonathan Emerson and his wife Anita Loos helped develop the screen persona of silent superstar Douglas Fairbanks. He also directed a number of silent films. Originally the Sandusky, Ohio-born Emerson aspired to become an Episcopalian minister like his father, but later got bitten by the acting bug and began appearing in plays. This eventually led to Broadway and then to work backstage as a director and stage manager. Emerson wrote his first screenplays and appeared in his first films in 1912. Three years later he began working under D.W. Griffith at Triangle and it is there that he got to work with Fairbanks. He became a full-time screenwriter in the mid 1920s and frequently collaborated with Loos. Emerson also produced a few films.