Frederica Sagor Maas

Frederica Alexandrina Sagor Maas (; July 6, 1900 – January 5, 2012) was an American dramatist and playwright, screenwriter, memoirist, and author,

the youngest daughter of Jewish immigrants from Russia. As an essayist, Maas was best known for a detailed, tell-all memoir of her time spent in early Hollywood. A supercentenarian, she was one of the oldest surviving entertainers from the silent film era. Maas's parents, Arnold and Agnessa Zagorsky, Jewish immigrants from Moscow, Russian Empire, and anglicized their surname to Sagor. Her mother supported the family as a very successful midwife. One of four daughters, Sagor was born on July 6, 1900, in a cold-water, railroad flat on 101st Street near Madison Avenue in Manhattan.She studied journalism at Columbia University and held a summer job as a copy- or errand-girl at the New York Globe newspaper. She dropped out before graduation in 1918 and took a job as an assistant story editor at Universal Pictures' New York office at $100 a week. By 1923, Maas was story editor for Universal and head of the department. A year later in 1924, Maas had become dissatisfied with her position and left Universal to move to Hollywood.