Maibelle Heikes Justice (1871 — March 11, 1926) was an American novelist and screenwriter.
Early life Maibelle Heikes Justice was born in Logansport, Indiana, the daughter of James Monroe Justice and Grace E. Heikes Justice (later Grace Justice-Hankins). Her father was a lawyer and politician, and an American Civil War veteran.Jehu Z. Powell, History of Cass County Indiana (Lewis Publishing 1913): 238-239. She was educated in New York City and Philadelphia, and spent two years with the military, for which she was given honorary rank of captain in the U.S. Army.
Career
Justice was credited as a writer on over 40 silent films between 1913 and 1925, most of them shorts. Among her notable films was The Post-Impressionists (1913; Hardee Kirkland, dir.), a comedy based on her visit to the Armory Show that year.Eileen Bowser, The Transformation of Cinema, 1907-1915, Volume 2, Part 2 (University of California Press 1994): 268. The Song in the Dark (1914) was about a blind canary and her blind owner."Miss Justice in Wider Field" The Moving Picture World (June 24, 1916): 2226.
Her Husband's Honor (1918, working title The Gadabout) starred a fellow Logansport native, actress Edna Goodrich."Edna Goodrich Starts 'The Gadabout'" Motography (June 8, 1918): 1092. She visited the "death house" at Sing Sing prison to research her screenplay for Who Shall Take My Life? (1917), a drama about the execution of an innocent man.Daniela Bajar and Livia Bloom, "Maibelle Heikes Justice" Women Film Pioneers Project. In 1917 she was commissioned to write a movie about the World War I work of the Red Cross."Red Cross Movie Drama Latest Idea of World War" Pittsburgh Daily Post (August 5, 1917): 31. via Newspapers.com
Justice published fiction in The Cosmopolitan and other national publications.Maibelle Heikes Justice, "The Other Man" The Cosmopolitan (May 1913): 787-796.Maibelle Heikes Justice, "The Wasp" Green Book Magazine (August 1909): 322-331. She also wrote a novel, Durand of the Bad Lands, which was adapted for film in 1917, and again in 1925.Larry Langman, A Guide to Silent Westerns (Greenwood Publishing 1992): 128.
Personal life Her sister Anne Shymer, a chemist and president of the United States Chemical Company, was among the passengers who died in the sinking of the Lusitania in 1915."Anne Shymer", The Lusitania Resource."Tiding of Lusitania Message from Grave?" Los Angeles Times (May 9, 1915): II1. Maibelle Heikes Justice died in 1926, aged 55 years."Dead Woman Named Heir" El Paso Evening Post (October 17, 1930): 1. via Newspapers.com
Justice inherited a large portrait of a young Abraham Lincoln, The Railsplitter (1860), from her father."Rare Lincoln Painting Carried in Civil War" New York Times (February 13, 1916): SM7. She donated it to the Chicago History Museum, where it remains on display.The Railsplitter (1860), Chicago History Museum.
Partial filmography
The Post-Impressionists (1913) directed by Hardee Kirkland, a comedy based on her visit to the Armory Show that year The Song in the Dark (1914), about a blind canary and her blind owner Birthright (1920)
References
External links