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diff --git a/old/68850-0.txt b/old/68850-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ff1fe15..0000000 --- a/old/68850-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8750 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of When the movies were young, by Linda -Arvidson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: When the movies were young - -Author: Linda Arvidson - -Release Date: August 26, 2022 [eBook #68850] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The - Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN THE MOVIES WERE -YOUNG *** - - - - - - WHEN THE MOVIES - WERE YOUNG - -[Illustration: Biograph’s studio, Eleven East Fourteenth Street, an old -brownstone mansion of New York City, the home of movie romance. - - (_See p. 1_) - - _Frontispiece._ -] - - - - - WHEN THE MOVIES - WERE YOUNG - - BY - - MRS. D. W. GRIFFITH - (Linda Arvidson) - - [Illustration] - - - NEW YORK - E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY - 681 FIFTH AVENUE - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1925, - BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY - - _All rights reserved_ - - - _Printed in the United States of America_ - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I. ELEVEN EAST FOURTEENTH STREET 1 - - II. ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS 8 - - III. CLIMACTERIC--AN EARTHQUAKE AND A MARRIAGE 14 - - IV. YOUNG AMBITIONS AND A FEW JOLTS 22 - - V. THE MOVIES TEMPT 29 - - VI. MOVIE ACTING DAYS--AND AN “IF” 37 - - VII. D. W. GRIFFITH DIRECTS HIS FIRST MOVIE 45 - - VIII. DIGGING IN 53 - - IX. FIRST PUBLICITY AND EARLY SCENARIOS 62 - - X. WARDROBE--AND A FEW PERSONALITIES 71 - - XI. MACK SENNETT GETS STARTED 77 - - XII. ON LOCATION--EXPERIENCES PLEASANT AND OTHERWISE 82 - - XIII. AT THE STUDIO 90 - - XIV. MARY PICKFORD HAPPENS ALONG 99 - - XV. ACQUIRING ACTORS AND STYLE 108 - - XVI. CUDDEBACKVILLE 115 - - XVII. “PIPPA PASSES” FILMED 127 - - XVIII. GETTING ON 134 - - XIX. TO THE WEST COAST 143 - - XX. IN CALIFORNIA AND ON THE JOB 155 - - XXI. BACK HOME AGAIN 173 - - XXII. IT COMES TO PASS 184 - - XXIII. THE FIRST TWO-REELER 190 - - XXIV. EMBRYO STARS 201 - - XXV. MARKING TIME 208 - - XXVI. THE OLD DAYS END 221 - - XXVII. SOMEWHAT DIGRESSIVE 234 - - XXVIII. “THE BIRTH OF A NATION” 245 - - - - -LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - - FACING PAGE - - Biograph’s studio, Eleven East Fourteenth Street _Frontispiece_ - - “Lawrence” Griffith 6 - - Linda Arvidson (Mrs. David W. Griffith) 7 - - Linda Arvidson (Mrs. Griffith), David W. Griffith and Harry - Salter, in “When Knights were Bold” 22 - - Marion Davies, Forrest Stanley, Ruth Shepley and Ernest - Glendenning in “When Knighthood was in Flower” 22 - - Advertising Bulletin for “Balked at the Altar” 23 - - Biograph Mutoscope of the murder of Stanford White 38 - - The first Biograph Girl, Florence Lawrence, in “The Barbarian” 39 - - From “The Politician’s Love Story” 39 - - The brilliant social world of early movie days 54 - - “Murphy’s,” where members of Biograph’s original stock company - consumed hearty breakfasts 55 - - From “Edgar Allan Poe” 70 - - Herbert Pryor, Linda Griffith, Violet Mersereau and Owen Moore in - “The Cricket on the Hearth” 70 - - “Little Mary” portraying the type of heroine that won her a - legion of admirers 71 - - Register of Caudebec Inn at Cuddebackville 71 - - Caudebec Inn at Cuddebackville 86 - - From “The Mended Lute,” made at Cuddebackville 86 - - Frank Powell, Mr. Griffith’s first $10-a-day actor, with Marion - Leonard in “Fools of Fate” 86 - - Richard Barthelmess with Nazimova in “War Brides” 87 - - From “Wark” to “work,” with only the difference of a vowel 102 - - Biograph’s one automobile 102 - - Annie Lee. From “Enoch Arden,” the first two-reel picture 103 - - Jeanie Macpherson, Frank Grandin, Linda Griffith and Wilfred - Lucas in “Enoch Arden” 103 - - The vessel that was towed from San Pedro. From “Enoch Arden” 103 - - The Norwegian’s shack. From “Enoch Arden” 103 - - The most artistic fireside glow of the early days 118 - - The famous “light effect” 118 - - From “The Mills of the Gods” 119 - - Biograph’s first Western studio 119 - - A desert caravan of the early days 134 - - From “The Last Drop of Water,” one of the first two-reelers 134 - - Mabel Normand “off duty” 135 - - Joe Graybill, Blanche Sweet and Vivian Prescott in “How She - Triumphed” 150 - - Mack Sennett, Mabel Normand and Fred Mace in a “Keystone Comedy” 151 - - Lunch on the “lot,” Biograph’s “last word” studio, the second - year 151 - - Mary Pickford as a picturesque Indian 166 - - The Hollywood Inn, the setting for “The Dutch Gold Mine” 167 - - From “Comrades,” the first picture directed by Mack Sennett 167 - - Mary Pickford’s first picture, “The Violin Maker of Cremona” 182 - - Mary Pickford’s second picture, “The Lonely Villa” 182 - - Mary Pickford and Mack Sennett in “An Arcadian Maid” 183 - - Mary Pickford, Mack Sennett, Joe Graybill and Marion Sunshine in - “The Italian Barber” 183 - - Linda Griffith and Mr Mackay in “Mission Bells,” a Kinemacolor - picture play 198 - - A rain effect of early days at Kinemacolor’s Los Angeles studio 199 - - A corner of Biograph’s stylish Bronx studio 214 - - The beginning of the Griffith régime at 4500 Sunset Boulevard 215 - - Blanche Sweet and Kate Bruce in “Judith of Bethulia,” the first - four-reel picture directed by D. W. Griffith 230 - - Lillian Russell and Gaston Bell in a scene illustrative of her - beauty lectures, taken in Kinemacolor 231 - - Sarah Bernhardt, the first “Famous Player” 231 - - - - - WHEN THE MOVIES - WERE YOUNG - - - - -WHEN THE MOVIES WERE YOUNG - - - - -CHAPTER I - -ELEVEN EAST FOURTEENTH STREET - - -Just off Union Square, New York City, there is a stately old brownstone -house on which future generations some day may place a tablet to -commemorate the place where David W. Griffith and Mary Pickford were -first associated with moving pictures. - -Here has dwelt romance of many colors. A bird of brilliant plumage, -so the story goes, first lived in this broad-spreading five-story old -brownstone that still stands on Fourteenth Street between Fifth Avenue -and Broadway, vibrant with life and the ambitions and endeavors of its -present occupants. - -Although brownstone Manhattan had seen the end of peaceful Dutch -ways and the beginning of the present scrambling in the great school -of human activity, the first resident of 11 East Fourteenth Street -paid no heed--went his independent way. No short-waisted, long and -narrow-skirted black frock-coat for him, but a bright blue affair, -gold braided and gold buttoned. He was said to be the last man in old -Manhattan to put powder in his hair. - -As he grew older, they say his style of dressing became more fantastic, -further and further back he went in fashion’s page, until in his last -days knickerbockers with fancy buckles adorned his shrinking limbs, and -the powdered hair became a periwig. He became known as “The Last Leaf.” - -A bachelor, he could indulge in what hobbies he liked. He got much out -of life. He had a cool cellar built for the claret, and a sun room for -the Madeira. In his impressive reception room he gathered his cronies, -opened up his claret and Madeira, the while he matched his game-cocks, -and the bets were high. Even when the master became very old and ill, -and was alone in his mansion with his faithful old servant, Scipio, -there were still the rooster fights. But now they were held upstairs in -the master’s bedroom. Scipio was allowed to bet a quarter against the -old man’s twenty-dollar note, and no matter how high the stakes piled, -or who won, the pot in these last days always went to Scipio. - -And so “The Last Leaf” lived and died. - -Then in due time the old brownstone became the home of another -picturesque character, Colonel Rush C. Hawkins of the Hawkins Zouaves -of the Civil War. - -Dignified days, when the family learned the world’s news from -_Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Paper_ and the _New York Tribune_, and -had Peter Goelet and Moses Taylor for millionaire neighbors. For -their entertainment they went to Laura Keene’s New Theatre, saw Joe -Jefferson, and Lotta; went to the Academy of Music, heard Patti and -Clara Louise Kellogg; heard Emma Abbott in concert; and rode on -horseback up Fifth Avenue to the Park. - -Of an evening, in the spacious ballroom whose doors have since opened -to Mary Pickford, D. W. Griffith, and Mack Sennett, the youths, maidens -and young matrons in the soft, flickering light of the astral lamp and -snowy candle, danced the modest cotillon and stately quadrille, the -while the elders played whist. Bounteous supper--champagne, perhaps gin -and tansy. - -But keenly attuned ears, when they paused to listen, could already hear -off in the distance the first faint roll of the drums in the march of -progress. “Little Old New York” was growing up and getting to be a big -city. And so the Knickerbockers and other aristocracy must leave their -brownstone dwellings for quieter districts further uptown. Business was -slowly encroaching on their life’s peaceful way. - - * * * * * - -Another day and another generation. Gone the green lawns, enclosed by -iron fences where modest cows and showy peacocks mingled, friendly. -Gone the harpsichord, the candle, the lamp, to give way to the piano -and the gas-lamp. Close up against each other the buildings now nestle -round Union Square and on into Fourteenth Street. The horse-drawn -street car rattles back and forth where No. 11 stands with some -remaining dignity of the old days. On the large glass window--for No. -11’s original charming exterior has already yielded to the changes -necessitated by trade--is to be read “Steck Piano Company.” - -In the lovely old ballroom where valiant gentlemen and languishing -ladies once danced to soft and lilting strains of music, under the -candles’ glow, and where “The Last Leaf” entertained his stalwart -cronies with cock fighting, the Steck Piano Company now gives concerts -and recitals. - -The old house has “tenants.” And as tenants come and go, the Steck -Piano Company tarries but a while, and then moves on. - -A lease for the piano company’s quarters in No. 11 is drawn up for -another firm for $5,000 per year. In place of the Steck Piano Company -on the large window is to be read--“American Mutoscope and Biograph -Company.” - -However, the name of the new tenant signified nothing whatever to the -real estate firm adjacent to No. 11 that had made the new lease. It -was understood that Mutoscope pictures to be shown in Penny Arcades -were being made, and there was no particular interest in the matter. -The “Biograph” part of the name had little significance, if any, until -in the passage of time a young actor from Louisville, called Griffith, -came to labor where labor had been little known and to wonder about the -queer new job he had somewhat reluctantly fallen heir to. - -The gentlemen of the real estate firm did some wondering too. Up to -this time, the peace of their quarters had been disturbed only by the -occasional lady-like afternoon concert of the Steck Piano Company. The -few preceding directors of the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company -had done their work quietly and unemotionally. - -Now, whatever was going on in what was once “The Last Leaf’s” gay and -elegant drawing-room, and why did such shocking language drift through -to disturb the conservative transactions in real estate! - -“Say, what’s the matter with you--you’re dying you know--you’ve -been shot and you’re dying! Well, that’s better, something like it! -You, here, you’ve done the shooting, you’re the murderer, naturally -you’re a bit perturbed, you’ve lots to think about--yourself for one -thing! You’re not surrendering at the nearest police station, no, -you’re beating it, _beating_ it, you understand. Now we’ll try it -again--That’s better, something like it! Now we’ll take it. All right, -everybody! Shoot!” - -The neighborhood certainly was changing. The language! The people! -Where once distinguished callers in ones and twos had come once and -twice a week--now in mobs they were crossing the once sacred threshold -every day. - -It was in the spring of 1908 that David W. Griffith came to preside at -11 East Fourteenth. Here it was he took up the daily grind, struggled, -dreamed, saw old ambitions die, suffered humiliation, achieved, and in -four short years was well started on the road to become world famous as -the greatest director of the motion picture. - -For movies, yes, movies were being made where once “The Last Leaf” had -entertained in the grand old manner. That was what the inscription, -“American Mutoscope and Biograph Company,” had meant. - -But movies did not desecrate the dignity of 11 East Fourteenth Street. -The dignity of achievement had begun. The old beauty of the place was -fast disappearing. The magnificent old chandelier had given place to -banks of mercury vapor tubes. There were no soft carpets for the tired -actors’ feet. The ex-drawing-room and ex-concert hall were now full and -overflowing with actors, and life’s little comedies and tragedies were -being play-acted where once they had been lived. - -Fourteenth Street, New York, has been called “the nursery of genius.” -Many artists struggled there in cheap little studios, began to feel -their wings, could not stand success, moved to studio apartments -uptown, and met defeat. But 11 East Fourteenth Street still harbors the -artist; the building is full of them. Evelyn Longman, who was there -when “old Biograph” was, is still there. On other doors are other -names--Ruotolo, Oberhardt, John S. Gelert, sculptor; Lester, studio; -The Waller Studios; Ye Studio of Frederic Ehrlich. - -In the old projection room are now stacked books and plays of the Edgar -S. Werner Company, and in the dear old studio, which is just the same -to-day as the day we left it, except that the mercury tubes have been -taken out, and a north window cut, presides a sculptor by the name of -A. Stirling Calder, who has painted the old door blue and hung a huge -brass knocker on it. - -Now, when I made up my mind to write this record of those early days -of the movies, I knew that I must go down once again to see the old -workshop, where for four years David W. Griffith wielded the scepter, -until swelled with success and new-gained wealth the Biograph Company -pulled up stakes and flitted to its new large modern and expensive -studio up in the Bronx at East 175th Street. - -So down I went to beg Mr. Calder to let me look over the old place and -take a picture of it. - -My heart was going pit-a-pat out there in the old hallway while I -awaited an answer to my knock. “Please,” I pleaded, “I want so much to -take a photograph of the studio just as it is. I’m writing a little -book about our pioneering days here; it won’t take a minute. May I, -please?” - -Emotion was quite overwhelming me as the memories of the years crowded -on me, memories of young and happy days untouched with the sadness that -years must inevitably bring even though they bring what is considered -“success.” Twelve years had gone their way since I had passed -through those studio doors and here I was again, all a-flutter with -anticipation and choky with the half-dreamy memories of events long -past. - -[Illustration: “Lawrence” Griffith. - - (_See p. 12_) -] - -[Illustration: Linda Arvidson (Mrs. David W. Griffith), as leading -ingénue with Florence Roberts in stock in San Francisco. - - (_See p. 15_) -] - -But don’t be tempted to announce your arrival if you have ever -been connected with a moving picture, for Mr. Calder has scarcely -heard of them and when I insisted he must have, he said, with much -condescension, “Oh, yes, I remember, Mr. Griffith did a Chinese -picture; it was rather good but too sentimental.” And he refused to let -me take a picture of the studio for he “could not afford to lend his -work and his studio to problematical publicity of which he had not the -slightest proof.” - -I felt sorry Mr. Calder had come to reside in our movie nursery at -11 East Fourteenth Street, for we were such good fellows, happy and -interested in our work, cordial and pleasant to one another. - -The change made me sad! - - - - -CHAPTER II - -ENDINGS AND BEGINNINGS - - -But now to go back to the beginning. - -It was a night in the summer of 1904 in my dear and fascinating old -San Francisco, before the life we all knew and loved had been broken -in two, never to be mended, by the disaster of the great fire and -earthquake. At the old Alcazar Theatre the now historic stock company -was producing Mr. Hall Caine’s drama “The Christian.” - -In the first act the fishermaidens made merry in the village square. - -Unknown to family or friends, and with little pride in my humble -beginning, I mingled as one of the fishergirls. Three dollars and fifty -cents a week was the salary Fred Belasco (David’s brother) paid me for -my bit of Hall Caine interpretation, so I, for one, had no need to be -horrified some four years later when I was paid three dollars a day for -playing the same fishermaiden in support of Mary Pickford, who, under -Mr. Griffith’s direction, was making Glory Quayle into a screen heroine. - -Here at the old Alcazar were wonderful people I could worship. There -was Oza Waldrop, and John Craig, and Mary Young, Eleanor Gordon, -Frances Starr, and Frank Bacon. Kindly, sweet Frank Bacon whose big -success, years later, as _Lightnin’ Bill Jones_, in his own play -“Lightnin’,” made not the slightest change in his simple, unpretentious -soul. Mr. Bacon had written a play called “In the Hills of California.” -It was to be produced for a week’s run at Ye Liberty Theatre, Oakland, -California, and I was to play the ingénue. - -One little experience added to another little experience fortified me -with sufficient courage to call on managers of visiting Eastern road -companies who traveled short of “maids,” “special guests at the ball,” -and “spectators at the races.” New York was already beckoning, and -without funds for a railroad ticket the only way to get there was to -join a company traveling that way. - -A summing up of previous experiences showed a recital at Sherman and -Clay Hall and two weeks on tour in Richard Walton Tully’s University of -California’s Junior farce “James Wobberts, Freshman.” - -In the company were Mr. Tully and his then wife, Eleanor Gates, the -author; Emil Kreuske, for some years now “Bill Nigh,” the motion -picture director; Milton Schwartz, who took to law and now practices -in Hollywood; Dick Tully and his wife Olive Vail. Elmer Harris of the -original college company did not go. Elmer is now partner to Frank E. -Woods along with Thompson Buchanan in Mr. Wood’s new producing company. - -The recital at Sherman and Clay Hall on Sutter Street was a most -ambitious effort. My job-hunting pal, Harriet Quimby, a girl I had met -prowling about the theatres, concluded we were getting nowhere and time -was fleeting. So we hit on a plan to give a recital in San Francisco’s -Carnegie Hall, and invite the dramatic critics hoping they would come -and give us good notices. - -The Homer Henley Quartette which we engaged would charge twenty -dollars. The rent of the hall was twenty. We should have had in hand -forty dollars, and between us we didn’t own forty cents. - -Harriet Quimby knew Arnold Genthe, and, appreciating her rare beauty, -Mr. Genthe said he would make her photos for window display for -nothing. Oscar Mauer did the same for me, gratis. Rugs and furniture -we borrowed, and the costumes by advertising in the program, we rented -cheaply. - -We understood only this much of politics: Jimmy Phelan, our Mayor -(afterwards Senator James H. Phelan) was a very wealthy man, charitably -disposed, and one day we summoned up sufficient courage to tell him our -trouble. Most attentively and respectfully he heard us, and without a -moment’s hesitation gave us the twenty. - -So we gave the recital. We sold enough tickets to pay the Homer -Henleys, but not enough to pay the debt to Mr. Phelan. He’s never been -paid these many years though I’ve thought of doing it often, and will -do it some day. - -However, the critics came and they gave us good notices, but the -recital didn’t seem to put much of a dent in our careers. Harriet -Quimby soon achieved New York via _The Sunset Magazine_. In New York -she “caught on,” and became dramatic critic on _Leslie’s Weekly_. - -The honor of being the first woman in America to receive an aviator’s -license became hers, as also that of being the first woman to pilot a -monoplane across the English Channel. That was in the spring of 1912, a -few months before her death while flying over Boston Harbor. - - * * * * * - -Mission Street, near Third, was in that unique section called -South-of-the-Slot. The character of the community was such, that -to reside there, or even to admit of knowing residents there meant -complete loss of social prestige. Mission Street, which was once the -old road that led over blue and yellow lupin-covered hills out to -the Mission Dolores of the Spanish Fathers, and was later the place -where the elegantly costumed descendants of the forty-niners who had -struck pay dirt (and kept it) strolled, held, at the time of which I -speak, no reminder of its departed glory except the great romantic old -Grand Opera House, which, amid second-hand stores, pawn-shops, cheap -restaurants, and saloons, languished in lonely grandeur. - -Once in my young life Richard Mansfield played there; Henry Irving and -Ellen Terry gave a week of Shakespearean repertoire; Weber and Fields -came from New York for the first time and gave their show, but failed. -San Franciscans thought that Kolb and Dill, Barney Bernard, and Georgie -O’Ramey, who held forth nightly at Fischer’s Music Hall, were just as -good. - -At the time of the earthquake a grand opera company headed by Caruso -was singing there. Between traveling luminaries, lesser lights -glimmered on the historic old stage. And for a long time, when the -theatre was called Morosco’s Grand Opera House, ten, twenty, and thirty -blood-and-thunder melodrama held the boards. - -At this stage in its career, and hardly one year before the great -disaster, a young actor who called himself Lawrence Griffith was -heading toward the Coast in a show called “Miss Petticoats.” Katherine -Osterman was the star. The company stranded in San Francisco. - -Melbourne MacDowell, in the last remnants of the faded glory cast upon -him by Fanny Davenport, was about to tread the sacred stage of the old -Grand Opera House, putting on a repertoire of the Sudermann and Sardou -dramas. - -Frank Bacon, always my kind adviser, suggested I should try my luck -with this aggregation. So I trotted merrily down, wandered through dark -alleyways, terribly thrilled, for Henry Irving had come this same way -and I was walking where once he had walked. - -I was to appear as a boy servant in “Fedora.” I remember only one -scene. It was in a sort of court room with a civil officer sitting high -and mighty and calm and unperturbed on a high stool behind a high desk. -I entered the room and timidly approached the desk. A deep stern voice -that seemed to rise from some dark depths shouted at me, “At what hour -did your master leave _Blu Bla_?” - -I shivered and shook and finally stammered out the answer, and was -mighty glad when the scene was over. - -Heavens! Who was this person, anyhow? - -His name, I soon learned, was Griffith--Lawrence Griffith--I never -could abide that “Lawrence”! Though, as it turned out afterward, our -married life might have been dull without that Christian name as a -perpetual resource for argument. - -Afterward, to my great joy, Mr. Griffith confided to me that he had -taken the name “Lawrence” only for the stage. His real name was -“David,” “David Wark,” but he was going to keep that name dark until he -was a big success in the world, and famous. And as yet he didn’t know, -although he seemed very lackadaisical about it, I thought, whether -he’d be great as an actor, stage director, grand opera star, poet, -playwright, or novelist. - -I wasn’t the only one who thought he might have become a great singer. -Once a New York critic reviewing a première of one of David Griffith’s -motion pictures, said: “The most interesting feature of Mr. Griffith’s -openings is to hear his wonderful voice.” - -“Lawrence” condescended to a little conversation now and then. He was -quite encouraging at times. Said I had wonderful eyes for the stage and -if I ever went to New York and got in right, I’d get jobs “on my eyes.” -(Sounded very funny--getting a job “on one’s eyes.”) Advised me never -to get married if I expected to stay on the stage. Told me about the -big New York actors: Leslie Carter, who had just been doing DuBarry; -and David Belasco, and what a wonderful producer he was; and dainty -Maude Adams; and brilliant Mrs. Fiske; and Charles Frohman; and Richard -Mansfield in “Monsieur Beaucaire”; and Broadway; and Mrs. Fernandez’s -wonderful agency; and how John Drew got his first wonderful job through -her agency at one hundred and twenty-five dollars a week! - -I was eager to learn more of the big theatrical world three thousand -miles away. I invited Mr. Griffith out home to lunch one day. A new -world soon opened up for me--the South. The first Southerner I’d ever -met was Mr. Griffith. I had known of the South only from my school -history; but the one I had studied didn’t tell of Colonel Jacob Wark -Griffith, David’s father, who fought under Stonewall Jackson in the -Civil War, and was called “Thunder Jake” because of his roaring voice. -He owned lots of negroes, gambled, and loved Shakespeare. There was big -“Sister Mattie” who taught her little brother his lessons and who, out -on the little front stoop, just before bedtime, did her best to answer -all the questions the inquisitive boy would ask about the stars and -other wonders. - -This was all very different from being daughter to a Norseman who had -settled out on San Francisco’s seven hills in the winds and fogs. - -The South began to loom up as a land of romance. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -CLIMACTERIC--AN EARTHQUAKE AND A MARRIAGE - - -When the Melbourne MacDowell repertory season closed, the stranded -actors of the “Miss Petticoats” Company were again on the loose. -While San Francisco supported two good stock companies, the Alcazar -presenting high-class drama and the Central given over to melodrama, -their rosters had been completed for the season and they offered rather -lean pickings. But Lawrence Griffith worked them both to the best of -his persuasive powers. - -Early fall came with workless weeks, and finally, to conserve his -shrinking treasury, our young actor who had been domiciled in the old -Windsor Hotel, a most moderately priced place on Market and Fourth -Streets, had to bunk in with Carlton, the stage carpenter of the -MacDowell show, in a single-bedded single room. Mr. Carlton was on a -social and mental plane with the actor, but his financial status was -decidedly superior. - -The doubling-up arrangement soon grew rather irksome. What with idle -days, a flattened purse, and isolation from theatrical activities, -gloom and discouragement enveloped young Griffith, although he never -seemed to worry. - -He had a trunk full of manuscripts--one-act plays, long plays, and -short stories and poems! To my unsophisticated soul it was all very -wonderful. What a cruel, unappreciative world, to permit works of -genius to languish lonely amid stage wardrobe and wigs and greasy -make-up! - -On pleasant days when the winds were quiet and the fogs hung no nearer -than Tamalpais across the Gate, we would hie ourselves to the Ocean -Beach, where, fortified with note-book and pencil the actor-poet would -dictate new poems and stories. - -One day young Lawrence brought along a one-act play called “In -Washington’s Time.” The act had been headlined over the Keith Circuit. -It had never played in San Francisco. He wondered if he could do -anything with it. - - * * * * * - -It was approaching the hop-picking season. The stranded young actor’s -funds were reaching bottom. Something must be done. - -In California, in those days, quite nice people picked hops. Mother -and father, young folks, and the children, went. Being the dry season, -they’d live in the open; pick hops by day, and at night dance and sing. - -Lawrence Griffith decided it would be a healthful, a colorful, and a -more remunerative experience than picking up theatrical odd jobs, to -join the hop pickers up Ukiah way. So for a few weeks he picked hops -and mingled with thrifty, plain people and operatic Italians who drank -“dago red” and sang the sextette from “Lucia” while they picked their -portion. Here he saved money and got atmosphere for a play. Sent me a -box of sweet-smelling hops from the fields, too! - -A brief engagement as leading ingénue with Florence Roberts had cheered -me in the interval, even though Fred Belasco made me feel utterly -unworthy of my thirty-five dollar salary. “My God,” said he when I -presented my first week’s voucher, “they don’t give a damn what they do -with my money.” - -However, Mr. Griffith soon returned to San Francisco. He hoped to -do something with his playlet. Martin Beck, the vaudeville magnate, -who was then manager of the Orpheum Theatre and booked acts over the -Orpheum Circuit, said to let him see a rehearsal. - -Such excitement! I was to play a little Colonial girl and appear at -our own Orpheum Theatre in an act that had played New York, Boston, -Philadelphia, Chicago, and other awesome cities. Mr. Beck booked -for the week and gave us a good salary, but could not offer enough -consecutive bookings to make a road tour pay, so that was that. - -In the meantime Oliver Morosco had opened his beautiful Majestic -Theatre in upper Market Street, with “In the Palace of the King.” -The New York company lacking a blind Inez, I got the part, and the -dramatic critic, Ashton Stevens, gave me a great notice. In the next -week’s bill, “Captain Barrington,” I played a scene which brought me a -paragraph from Mr. Stevens captioned “An Actress with more than Looks.” -On the strength of this notice Mr. Morosco sent me to play ingénues at -his Burbank Theatre in Los Angeles, at twenty-five dollars per week. - -Barney Bernard was stepping out just now. He wanted to see what he -could do away from the musical skits of Kolb and Dill. So he found a -play called “The Financier.” “Lawrence” Griffith had a little job in -it. The hardest part of the job was to smoke a cigar in a scene--it -nearly made him ill. But he had a good season, six weeks with salary -paid. - -That over, came a call to Los Angeles to portray the Indian, -Alessandro, in a dramatization of Helen Hunt Jackson’s famous novel -“Ramona.” - -It was pleasant for us to see each other. We went out to San Gabriel -Mission together. Mr. Griffith afterwards used the Mission as the -setting for a short story--a romantic satire which he called “From -Morning Until Night.” His brief engagement over, “Lawrence” went back -to San Francisco, and my Morosco season ending shortly afterward, I -followed suit. - -In San Francisco, Nance O’Neill was being billed. She was returning -from her Australian triumphs in Ibsen, Sardou, and Sudermann. The -company, with McKee Rankin as manager and leading man, included John -Glendenning, father of Ernest; Clara T. Bracy, sister of Lydia Thompson -of British Blonde Burlesque and Black Crook fame; Paul Scardon from the -Australian Varieties and now husband of a famous cinema star, Betty -Blythe; and Jane Marbury. - -Mr. Griffith, hoping for a chance to return East with the company, -applied for a job and was offered “bits” which he accepted. Then one -day, Mr. Rankin being ill, Lawrence Griffith stepped into the part of -the Father in “Magda.” Miss O’Neill thought so well of his performance -and the notices he received that she offered him leading parts for the -balance of the season. - -When in the early spring of 1906, the company departed from -San Francisco, it left me with my interest in life decidedly -diminished--but Lawrence Griffith had promised to return, and when he -came back things would be different. - -So, while the O’Neill company was working close to Minneapolis, I was -“resting.” I “rested” until eighteen minutes to five on the morning of -April 18th, when something happened. - -“Earthquake?” - -“I don’t know, but I think we had better get up,” suggested my sister. - - * * * * * - -I sent Lawrence a long telegram about what had happened to us, but he -received it by post. And then about a week later I received a letter -from Milwaukee telling me that Miss O’Neill and the company were giving -a benefit for desolate San Francisco, and that I had better come on -and meet him in Boston where the company was booked for a six weeks’ -engagement. - -So to Fillmore Street I went to beg for a railroad ticket to Boston, -gratis. There was a long line of people waiting. I took my place at the -end of the line. In time I reached the man at the desk. - -“Where to?” - -“Boston.” - -“What is your occupation?” - -“Actress.” - -I thought it unwise to confide my matrimonial objective. No further -questions, however. I was given a yard of ticket and on May 9th I -boarded a refugee train at the Oakland mole, all dressed up in Red -Cross clothes that fitted me nowhere. - -But I had a lovely lunch, put up by neighbors, some fried chicken, and -two small bottles of California claret. In another box, their stems -stuck in raw potatoes, some orange blossoms off a tree that stood close -to our tent. - -Ah, dear old town, good-bye! - -Every night I cried myself to sleep. - -Thus I went to meet my bridegroom. - - * * * * * - -Boston! - -Everything a bustle! People, and people, and people! Laughing, happy, -chattering people who didn’t seem to know and apparently didn’t care -what had happened to us out there by the bleak Pacific. I was so -annoyed at them. Their life was still normal. Though I knew they had -helped bounteously, I was annoyed. - -But here HE comes! And we jumped into a cab--with a license, but no -ring. In the unusual excitement that had been forgotten, so we had to -turn back in the narrow street and find a jeweler. Then we drove to Old -North Church, where Paul Revere had hung out his lantern on his famous -ride (which Mr. Griffith has since filmed in “America”), and our names -were soon written in the register. - - * * * * * - -The end of June, and New York! Just blowing up for a thunderstorm. -I had never heard real thunder, nor seen lightning, nor been wet by -a summer rain. What horrible weather! The wind blew a gale, driving -papers and dust in thick swirling clouds. Of all the miserable -introductions to the city of my dreams and ambitions, New York City -could hardly have offered me a more miserable one! - -We lived in style for a few days at the Hotel Navarre on Seventh Avenue -and Thirty-ninth Street, and then looked for a “sublet” for the summer. -I’d never heard of a “sublet” before. - -We ferreted around and found a ducky little place, so -cheap--twenty-five dollars a month--on West Fifty-sixth Street, -overlooking the athletic grounds of the Y. M. C. A., where I was -tremendously amused watching the fat men all wrapped up in sweaters -doing their ten times around without stopping--for reducing purposes. - -But we had little time to waste in such observations. A job must be -had for the fall. In a few weeks we signed with the Rev. Thomas Dixon -(fresh from his successful “Clansman”); my husband as leading man and I -as general understudy, in “The One Woman.” Rehearsals were to be called -in about two months. - -To honeymoon, or not to honeymoon--to work or not to work. Work it was, -and David started on a play. - -And he worked. He walked the floor while dictating and I took it down -on the second-hand typewriter I had purchased somewhere on Amsterdam -Avenue for twenty dollars. The only other investment of the summer -had been at Filene’s in Boston where I left my Red Cross sartorial -contributions and emerged in clothes that had a more personal relation -to me. - -They were happy days. The burdens were shared equally. My husband was -a splendid cook; modestly said, so was I. He loved to cook, singing -negro songs the while, and whatever he did, whether cooking or writing -or washing the dishes, he did it with the same earnestness and -cheerfulness. Felt his responsibilities too, and had a sort of mournful -envy of those who had established themselves. - -Harriet Quimby was now writing a weekly article for _Leslie’s_, and -summering gratis at the old Oriental Hotel at Manhattan Beach as -payment for publicizing the social activities of the place. Beach-bound -one day, she called at our modest ménage, beautifully dressed, with -wealthy guests in their expensive car. As the car drove off, Mr. -Griffith gazing sadly below from our window five flights up, as sadly -said “She’s a success.” - -The play came along fine, owing much to our experiences in California. -One act was located in the hop fields, and there were Mexican songs -that Mr. Griffith had first heard rendered by native Mexicans who sang -in “Ramona.” Another act was in a famous old café in San Francisco, -The Poodle Dog. It was christened “A Fool and a Girl.” The fool was an -innocent youth from Kentucky, but the girl, being from San Francisco, -was more piquant. - -We’d been signed for the fall, and we felt we’d done pretty well by the -first summer. I’d learned to relish the funny little black raspberries -and not to be afraid of thunderstorms--they were not so uncertain as -earthquakes. - -And now rehearsals are called for Mr. Dixon’s “The One Woman.” They -lasted some weeks before we took to the road and opened in Norfolk, -Virginia, where we drew our first salaries, seventy-five for him and -thirty-five for her. Nice, it was, and we hoped it would be a long -season. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -YOUNG AMBITIONS AND A FEW JOLTS - - -But it wasn’t. - -After two months on the road we received our two weeks’ notice. For -half Mr. Griffith’s salary, Mr. Dixon had engaged another leading man, -who, he felt, would adequately serve the cause. So, sad at heart and -not so wealthy, we returned to the merry little whirl of life in the -theatrical metropolis of the U. S. A. We had one asset--the play. Good -thing we had not frivoled away those precious summer weeks in seeking -cooling breezes by Coney’s coral strand! - -Late that fall my husband played a small part in a production of -“Salome” at the Astor Theatre under Edward Ellsner’s direction. Mr. -Ellsner was looking for a play for Pauline Frederick. Mr. Griffith -suggested his play and Mr. Ellsner was sufficiently interested to -arrange for a reading for Miss Frederick and her mother. They liked -it; so did Mr. Ellsner; and so the play was sent on to Mr. James K. -Hackett, Miss Frederick’s manager at that time. - - * * * * * - -[Illustration: Linda Arvidson (Mrs. Griffith), David W. Griffith and -Harry Salter, in “When Knights were Bold,” Biograph’s version of “When -Knighthood was in Flower.” - - (_See p. 34_) -] - -[Illustration: Marion Davies, Forrest Stanley, Ruth Shepley and Ernest -Glendenning, in Cosmopolitan’s production of “When Knighthood was in -Flower.” - - (_See p. 34_) -] - -[Illustration: Advertising Bulletin for “Balked at the Altar,” with -Harry Salter, Mabel Stoughton, Mack Sennett, George Gebhardt and Linda -Griffith. The release of all Biograph movies was similarly announced. - - (_See p. 40_) -] - -It was Christmas eve--our first. Three thousand miles from home, -lonesome, broke. - -In the busy marts of dramatic commerce poor little “D” was dashing -hither and yon with his first-born. Even on this day before Christmas -he was on the job. The festive holiday meal I had prepared was -quite ready. There were some things to be grateful for: each other, -the comfortable two rooms, and the typewriter. The hamburger steak was -all set, the gravy made, and the potatoes with their jackets on, à la -California camp style, were a-steaming. The little five-cent baker’s -pie was warming in the oven and the pint bottle of beer was cooling in -the snow on the window ledge. And some one all mine was coming. - -We sat down to dinner. Couldn’t put the plates on the table right side -up these days, it seemed. Had no recollection of having turned my plate -over. Turned it right side up again. - -I wished people wouldn’t be silly. I supposed this was a verse about -Christmas. But why the mystery? Wonderingly, I opened the folded slip -of paper. Funny looking poetry. Funny look on D’s face. What was this -anyhow? Looked like an old-fashioned rent receipt. But it didn’t say -“Received from ----.” It said “Pay to ----,” “Pay to the order of -David W. Griffith seven hundred dollars,” and it was signed “James K. -Hackett.” - -“Oh no, you haven’t _sold the play_!” - -Yes, it was sold; the check represented a little advance royalty. And -were the play a success we would receive a stipulated percentage of the -weekly gross. (I’ve forgotten the scale.) - -Oh, kind and generous Mr. Hackett! - -Isn’t it funny how calm one can be in the big moments of life? But I -couldn’t grasp it. Christmas eve and all! An honest-to-God check on an -honest-to-God bank for seven hundred whole dollars. Was there that much -money in the whole world? - -Now came wonderful days--no financial worry and no job-hunting. True, -we realized the seven hundred would not last indefinitely. But to -accept a job and not be in New York when rehearsals for the play were -called, was an idea not to be entertained. So, to feel right about the -interim of inactivity, David wrote yards of poetry and several short -stories. And John A. Sleicher of _Leslie’s Weekly_ paid the princely -sum of six dollars for a poem called “The Wild Duck.” - -A bunch of stuff was sent off to _McClure’s_, which Mr. McClure said -appealed to him very much--though not enough for publication. He’d like -to see more of Mr. Griffith’s work. - -And the _Cosmopolitan_, then under Perriton Maxwell’s editorship, -bought “From Morning Until Night” for seventy-five dollars. Things were -looking up. - - * * * * * - -In Norfolk, Va., a Centennial was to be held in celebration of the -landing on Southern soil of the first of the F. F. V.’s, and a play -commemorating the event had been written around Captain John Smith -and Pocahontas. Mr. Griffith accepted a part in it. The six weeks’ -engagement would help out until the rehearsals of his own play were -called. But Pocahontas’s financial aid must have been somewhat stingy -according to the letter my husband wrote me in New York. We had felt we -couldn’t afford my railroad fare to Norfolk and my maintenance there. -It was our first separation. - -And this the letter: - - DEAR LINDA, - - I am sending you a little $3 for carfare. I would send more but - I couldn’t get anything advanced, so I only send you this much. - I’ll get my salary, or part of it, rather, Monday, so I’ll send - you more then and also tell you what I think we should do. I would - like to go to Miss ---- if we could get it for $6 a week, or $25 a - month but I don’t like to pay $7.50, that’s too strong if we can do - cheaper. Of course, if we can’t we can’t and that’s all there is to - it. Let me know as soon as you get this money as I am only sending - it wrapped up as I don’t want you to have to cash so small a check - as $3, so that’s why I am sending it this way. - - I bet you I get some good things out of this world for her yet, - just watch me and see.... - - Her husband, - DAVID - -Pocahontas flivvered out in three weeks. But as Shakespeare says, -“Sweet are the uses of adversity.” While Mr. Griffith was away, I found -time to make myself a new dress. In a reckless moment I had paid a -dollar deposit on some green silk dress material at Macy’s, which at -a later and wealthier moment I had redeemed. So now I rented a sewing -machine and sewed like mad to get the dress done, for I could afford -only one dollar-and-a-half weekly rental on the old Wheeler and Wilson. - -By the time “A Fool and A Girl” was to open in Washington, D. C., -there was just enough cold cash left for railroad fare there. Klaw and -Erlanger produced the play under Mr. Duane’s direction, and Mr. Hackett -came on to rehearsals in Washington. Fannie Ward and Jack Deane played -the leading parts. Here they met and their romance began, and according -to latest accounts it is still thriving. Alison Skipworth of “The Torch -Bearers” and other successes, was a member of the cast. - -The notices were not the best nor the worst. They are interesting -to-day, for they show how time has ambled apace since October, 1907. -Said Hector Fuller, the critic: - - It may be said that the dramatist wanted to show where his hero’s - feet strayed; and where he found the girl he was afterwards to - make his wife, but if one wants to tell the old, old and beautiful - story of redemption of either man or woman through love, it is not - necessary to portray the gutters from which they are redeemed.... - -One week in Washington and one in Baltimore saw on its jolly way to the -storehouse the wicked Bull Pup Café and the Hop Fields, etc. - -And so back to New York. - -In the Sixth Avenue “L” with our little suitcases, we sat, a picture -of woe and misery. In the Sixth Avenue “L,” for not even a dollar was -to be wasted on a taxi. But when the door to our own two rooms was -closed, and, alone together, we faced our wrecked hopes, it wasn’t -so awful. Familiar objects seemed to try and comfort us. After all, -it was a little home, and better than a park bench; and the _Century -Dictionary_--of which some day we would be complete owners, maybe--and -the Underwood, all our own--spoke to us reassuringly. - -I do not recall that any job materialized that winter, but something -must have happened to sustain us. Perhaps the belated receipt of those -few hundred dollars of mine that were on deposit at the German Savings -Bank at the time of the Disaster in San Francisco. - -To offset what might have been a non-productive winter, Mr. Griffith -wrote “War,” a pretentious affair of the American Revolution, which -Henry Miller would have produced had it been less expensive. “War” -had meant a lot of work. For weeks previous to the writing, we had -repaired daily to the Astor Library where we copied soldiers’ diaries -and letters and read histories of the period until sufficiently imbued -with the spirit of 1776. “War” is still in the manuscript stage with -the exception of the Valley Forge bits which came to life in Mr. -Griffith’s film “America”; for Mr. Griffith turned to the spectacle -very early in his career, though he little dreamed then of the medium -in which he was to record the great drama of the American Revolution. - - * * * * * - -We met Perriton Maxwell again. Extended and accepted dinner -invitations. Our dinner was a near-tragedy. Before the banquet had -advanced to the salad stage, I had to take my little gold bracelet to a -neighboring “Uncle.” The antique furniture necessitated placards which -my husband posted conspicuously. For instance, on the sofa--“Do not sit -here; the springs are weak.” On a decrepit gate-legged table--“Don’t -lean; the legs are loose.” - -At the Maxwells’ dinner our host gathered several young literati who -he thought might become interested in Mr. Griffith and his literary -efforts. Vivian M. Moses, then editor of _Good Housekeeping_ and -now Publicity Manager for The Fox Films, was one, as was Jules E. -Goodman, the playwright. But a “litry” career for Mr. Griffith seemed -foredoomed. A poem now and then, and an occasional story sold, was too -fragile sustenance for permanency. Some sort of steady job would have -to be found, and the “litry” come in as a side-line. - -David Griffith was ready for any line of activity that would bring in -money, so that he could write plays. He always had some idea in his -inventive mind, such as non-puncturable tires, or harnessing the ocean -waves. In the mornings, on waking, he would lie in bed and work out -plots for dramas, scene bits, or even mechanical ideas. After an hour -of apparent semi-consciousness, his head motionless on the pillow, he -would greet the day with “I hate to see her die in the third act”; -or, “I wonder if that meat dish could be canned!” meaning, could a -dish he had invented and cooked--a triumph of culinary art--be made a -commercial proposition as a tinned food, like Armour’s or Van Camp’s -beans and corned beef. - -Pretty good field of activity, canned eats, and might have made David -W. Griffith more money than canned drama! - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE MOVIES TEMPT - - -Winter passed. Spring came. - -On the Rialto’s hard pavements, day in and day out, Mr. Griffith, his -ear to the ground, was wearing out good shoe leather. But nothing -like a job materialized, until, meeting up with an old acquaintance, -Max Davidson, he heard about moving pictures. Since youthful days -in a Louisville stock company these two had not met. And the simple -confidences they exchanged this day brought results that were -most significant, not only to David Griffith, but to millions of -unsuspecting people the world over. - -Mr. Davidson had been going down to a place on 11 East Fourteenth -Street and doing some kind of weird acting before a camera--little -plays, he explained, of which a camera took pictures. - -“You’ve heard of moving pictures, haven’t you?” - -“Why, I don’t know; suppose I have, but I’ve never seen one. Why?” - -“I work in them during the summer; make five dollars some days when -I play a leading part, but usually it’s three. Keeps you going, and -you get time to call on managers too. Now you could write the little -stories for the pictures. They pay fifteen dollars sometimes for good -ones. Don’t feel offended at the suggestion. It’s not half bad, really. -We spend lots of days working out in the country. Lately we’ve been -doing pictures where they use horses, and it’s just like getting paid -for enjoying a nice horseback ride. Anybody can ride well enough for -the pictures. Just manage to stay on the horse, that’s all.” - -“Ye gods,” said the tempted one, “some of my friends might see me. Then -I would be done for. Where do they show these pictures? I’ll go see one -first.” - -“Oh, nobody’ll ever see you--don’t worry about that.” - -“Well, that does make it different. I’ll think it over. Where’s the -place, you said?” - -“Eleven East Fourteenth Street.” - -“Thanks awfully. I’ll look in--so long.” - - * * * * * - -The elder Mr. McCutcheon was the director when David applied for a job -at the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company and got it. - -There were no preliminaries. He was told to go “below” and put on a -little make-up. So he went “below”--to the dressing-room, but he didn’t -put on a “little make-up.” He took a great deal of trouble with it -although it was largely experimental, being very different from the -conventional stage make-up. The only instruction he was given was to -leave off the “red” which would photograph black, thus putting hollows -in his cheeks. And he didn’t need hollows in his cheeks. - -When he came up to the studio floor--his dressing and make-up -finished--the director, and the actors especially, looked at him as -though he were not quite in his right mind. “Poor boob,” they thought, -to take such trouble with a “make-up” for a moving picture, a moving -picture that no one who counted for anything would ever see. - -After a short rehearsal, an explanation of “foreground” and -instructions about keeping “inside the lines” and “outside the lines,” -the camera opened up, ground away for about twenty feet, and the ordeal -was over. - -When work was finished for the day, Mr. McCutcheon paid his new actor -five dollars and told him to call on the morrow. So the next morning -there was an early start to the studio. They were to work outside, and -there were to be horses! - -I shall never forget the sadly amused expression my husband brought -home with him, the evening of that second day. Nor his comments: “It’s -not so bad, you know, five dollars for simply riding a horse in the -wilds of Fort Lee on a cool spring day. I think it wouldn’t be a bad -idea for you to go down and see what you can do. Don’t tell them who -you are, I mean, don’t tell them you’re my wife. I think it is better -business not to.” - -So a few days later, I dolled up for a visit to the studio. After I had -waited an hour or so, Mr. McCutcheon turned to me and said, “All right, -just put a little make-up on; this isn’t very important.” There was no -coaching for the acting; only one thing mattered, and that was, not to -appear as though hunting frantically for the lines on the floor that -marked your stage, while the scenes were being taken. - -Mr. Griffith and I “listened in” on all the stories and experiences the -actors at the studio had to tell. We would have all the information we -could get on the subject of moving pictures, those tawdry and cheap -moving pictures, the existence of which we had hitherto been aware -of only through the lurid posters in front of the motion picture -places--those terrible moving picture places where we wouldn’t be -caught dead. But we could find use for as many of those little “fives” -as might come our way. - -Humiliating as the work was, no one took the interest in it that David -Griffith did, or worked as hard. This Mr. McCutcheon must have divined -right off, for he used him quite regularly and bought whatever stories -he wrote. - -Only a few days were needed to get a line on the place. It was a -conglomerate mess of people that hung about the studio. Among the -flotsam and jetsam appeared occasionally a few real actors and -actresses. They would work a few days and disappear. They had found a -job on the stage again. The better they were, the quicker they got out. -A motion picture surely was something not to be taken seriously. - -Those running the place were not a bit annoyed by this attitude. The -thing to do was to drop in at about nine in the morning, hang around -a while, see if there was anything for you, and if not, to beat it up -town quick, to the agents. If you were engaged for a part in a picture -and had to see a theatrical agent at eleven and told Mr. McCutcheon -so, he would genially say, “That’s O. K. I’ll fix it so you can get -off.” You were much more desirable if you made such requests. It meant -theatrical agents were seeking you for the legitimate drama, so you -must be _good_! - -Would it be better to affiliate with only one studio or take them all -in? There was Edison, way out in the Bronx; Vitagraph in the wilds of -Flatbush; Kalem, like Biograph, was conveniently in town; Lubin was in -Philadelphia, and Essanay in Chicago. Melies was out West. It would be -much nicer, of course, if one could get in “right” at the Biograph. - -Some of the actors did the rounds. Ambitious Florence Auer did and -so became identified with a different line of parts at each studio. -At Biograph, character comedy; at Vitagraph, Shakespeare--for “King -Lear” and “Richard the Third” with Thomas H. Ince in attendance, were -screened as long ago as this; at Edison, religious drama. There she -rode the biblical jackass. - -The Kalem studio was in the loft of a building on West Twenty-third -Street. You took the elevator to where it didn’t run any further and -then you climbed a ladder up to a place where furniture and household -goods were stored. - -Bob Vignola could be seen here dusting off a clear place for the camera -and another place where the actors could be seated the while they -waited until Sidney Olcott, the director, got on the day’s job. - -Sidney Olcott was an experienced man in the movies even in those early -days, for had he not played a star part in the old Biograph in the -spring of 1904? As the _Village Cut-up_ in the movie of the same name -we read this about him in the old Biograph bulletin: - - Every country cross-corners has its “Cut-up,” the real devilish - young man who has been to the “city” at some stage of his career, - and having spent thirty cents looking at the Mutoscope, or a dollar - on the Bowery at Coney, thinks he is the real thing. The most - common evidence of his mental unbalance is the playing of practical - jokes, which are usually very disagreeable to the victim.... - -In a few years Mr. Olcott had evolved from the “village cut-up” at -Biograph to director at Kalem. - -Here he engaged Miss Auer for society parts and adventuresses. -Stopped her on the Rialto one day. “I know you are an actress,” said -Mr. Olcott, “and that beautiful gray silk dress you have on would -photograph so wonderfully, I’ll give you ten dollars if you’ll wear -it in a scene--it’s a society part.” For a dress that was _gray_, -and _silk_ too, was a most valuable property and a rare specimen of -wardrobe in the movies in those days. - -It came as pleasant news that a tabloid version of “When Knighthood Was -in Flower” to be called “When Knights Were Bold” was to be screened -at Biograph. There were four, or perhaps five, persons in the cast of -this première “Knighthood” picture. My husband was one; so was I. The -picture commemorates our only joint movie appearance. - -I recall only one scene in this movie, a back-drop picturing landscape, -with a prop tree, a wooden bench, and a few mangy grass mats, but there -was one other set representing an inn. I never saw the picture and -couldn’t tell much about it from the few scenes in which I played. - -A one-reeler, of course--nine hundred and five feet. Now whether the -cost of Biograph pictures was then being figured at a dollar a foot, I -do not know. But that was the dizzy average a very short time later. -Anyhow, our “Flowering Knighthood” was cheap enough compared with what -Mr. Hearst spent thirteen years later on his Cosmopolitan production, -which cost him $1,221,491.20, and was completed in the remarkably short -time of one hundred sixty working days. - -Mr. Hearst’s “Knighthood” had a remarkable cast of eighteen principal -characters representing the biggest names in the theatrical and motion -picture world, and the supporting company counted three thousand extra -persons and thirty-three horses. - -Miss Marion Davies as Princess Mary Tudor was assisted by Lyn Harding, -the English actor-manager; Pedro De Cordoba, Arthur Forrest (the -original Petronius of “Quo Vadis”), Theresa Maxwell Conover, Ernest -Glendenning, (of “Little Old New York”), Ruth Shepley (star of “Adam -and Eva”), Johnny Dooley, (celebrated eccentric dancer), George Nash, -Gustav von Seyfertitz (for years director and star of the old Irving -Place Theatre), Macy Harlam, Arthur Donaldson, Mortimer Snow, William -Morris (of “Maytime” fame). - -A few other names of world-famous people must be mentioned in -connection with this picture, for Joseph Urban was the man of the -“sets”; Gidding & Company made the gowns; Sir Joseph Duveen and P. W. -French & Company supplied Gothic draperies; and Cartier, antique -jewelry. - -There were only two old movie pioneers connected with the production: -Flora Finch, who back in old Vitagraph days co-starred with John -Bunny and after his death held her place alone as an eccentric -comedienne; and the director, Robert G. Vignola, who back in the days -of our “Knighthood” was the young chap who dusted off the benches and -furniture in the old Kalem loft. - -But Robert Vignola, who came of humble Italian parentage, had a brain -in his young head, and was ambitious. Realizing the limitations of -Albany, his home town, he had set out for New York and landed a job -in a motion picture studio. Young Vignola represented at the Kalem -organization, in the early days, what Bobbie Harron did at Biograph. -But the Biograph, from ranking the last in quality of picture -production, grew to occupy first place, while Kalem continued on a -rather more even way. But Bob Vignola didn’t, as the years have shown. - -Indeed, many big names have appeared in movies called “When Knighthood -Was in Flower,” but David Griffith’s is not the biggest, nor was it -the first, for before the end of the year 1902, in Marienbad, Germany, -a film thirty-one feet long was produced and given the title “When -Knighthood Was in Flower.” The descriptive line in the Biograph -catalogue of 1902 (for it was a Biograph production) reads: - - Emperor William of Germany and noblemen of the Order of St. John. - The Emperor is the last in the procession. - -So you see the Ex-Kaiser beat them all to it, even D. W. Griffith and -W. R. Hearst, though I’ll say that Mr. Hearst’s is the best of the -“Flowering Knighthoods” to date, and will probably continue so. The -story has now been done often enough to be allowed a rest. - -But it was Mr. Griffith’s big dream, very early in his movie career, -along in 1911, to screen some day a great and wonderful movie of the -Charles Major play that launched Julia Marlowe on her brilliant career. -And in this play which he had decided could be produced nowhere but in -England, no less a person than E. H. Sothern was to appear as Charles -Brandon, and she who is writing this was to be Mary Tudor. - -Dreams and dreams we had long ago, but this was one of the best dreams -that did not come true. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -MOVIE ACTING DAYS--AND AN “IF” - - -We called him “Old Man McCutcheon,” the genial, generous person -who at this time directed the movies at the American Mutoscope and -Biograph Company. Why “Old Man” I do not know, unless it was because -he was slightly portly and the father of about eight children, the -oldest being Wallace--“Wally” to his intimates. Wally was quite “some -pumpkins” around the studio--father’s right-hand-man--and then, too, he -was a Broadway actor. - -It was then the general idea of movie directors to use their families -in the pictures. As money was the only thing to be had out of the -movies those days, why not get as much as possible while the getting -was good? The McCutcheon kids had just finished working in a Christmas -picture, receiving, besides pay checks, the tree and the toys when the -picture was finished. So the first bit of gossip wafted about was that -the McCutcheons had a pretty good thing of it altogether. - -In February, 1908, Wallace McCutcheon was closing an engagement in -Augustus Thomas’s play, “The Ranger.” Appearing in “The Ranger” with -young Mr. McCutcheon, were Robert Vignola, John Adolfi, Eddie Dillon, -and Florence Auer. - -A school picture called “The Snow-man” was to be made which called -for eight children--another job for the little McCutcheons. Grown-up -Wally, and mother, were to work too, mother to see that the youngsters -were properly dressed and made up. - -A tall, slight young woman was needed for the schoolmistress and Eddie -Dillon, whom Wally had inveigled to the studio, suggested Florence Auer. - -The story takes place outside the schoolhouse and a “furious blizzard” -is raging, although I would say there was nothing prophetic of the -blizzard that raged in D. W. Griffith’s famous movie “Way Down East,” -even though events were so shaping themselves that had Mr. McCutcheon -held off a few weeks with his snow story, Mr. Griffith would have -arrived in time to offer suggestions. And he would have had something -to say, had he been so privileged, for “The Snow-man’s” raging -“blizzard” was made up of generous quantities of _sawdust_! - -The legs, arms, torso, and head of the _Snow-man_ were fashioned of -fluffy, white cotton, each a separate part, and were hidden under the -drifts of sawdust, to be found later by the children who came to romp -in the snow and make a snow-man. The places where the _Snow-man’s_ -fragments were buried were marked so that the children could easily -find them. One youngster pretends to mold of sawdust an imaginary leg, -but in reality is hunting the buried finished one, on locating which, -she surreptitiously pulls it from beneath the sawdust. In this way, -finally, all the parts of the Snow-man are dug out of the sawdust snow, -and put together, revealing a beautiful Snow-man. - -[Illustration: Biograph Mutoscope of the murder of Stanford White -by Harry Thaw on Madison Square Garden roof, made shortly after the -tragedy. - - (_See p. 69_) -] - -[Illustration: The first Biograph Girl, Florence Lawrence, in “The -Barbarian,” otherwise known as “Ingomar, the Barbarian.” Filmed at the -home of Ernest Thompson Seton at Cos Cob, Conn. - - (_See p. 59_) -] - -[Illustration: From “The Politician’s Love Story.” Left to right: -Linda A. Griffith, Arthur Johnson, Mack Sennett. A beautiful sleet had -covered the trees and foliage of Central Park and this scenario was -hurriedly gotten up so as to photograph a wonderful winter fairyland. - - (_See p. 80_) -] - -Then the Good Fairy of the Snows who all this time has been dreaming -in the silver crescent of the moon, looking for all the world like the -charming lady of the _Cascarets_ ads, is given a tip that the children -have finished their _Snow-man_. So it is time for her to wake up and -come out of the moon. From her stellar heights, by means of a clumsy -iron apparatus, she is lowered to earth. Sadly crude it all was, but -it thrilled the fans of the day, nevertheless. With her magic wand the -Good Fairy touches the _Snow-man_ and he comes to life. Predatory Pete -now comes along, sees Mr. _Snow-man_, and feeling rather jolly from -the consumption of bottled goods, he puts his pipe in the _Snow-man’s_ -mouth, and when he sees the _Snow-man_ calmly puff it, in great fright -he rushes off the scene, dropping his bottle, the contents of which the -_Snow-man_ drains. In the resultant intoxication the _Snow-man_ finds -his way into the schoolhouse. Finding the schoolhouse too warm, he -throws the stove out of the window. Then he throws himself out of the -window and lies down in the snow to “sleep it off.” - -When the children return the following morning, the _Snow-man_, who -is still sleeping, frightens them almost into convulsions. Then the -picture really got started--the “chase” began. Sufficiently primitive -it was, to have been the first “chase”; but it wasn’t--for almost at -the movie’s inception the chase was a part of them. This _Snow-man_ -chase takes place in front of a stationary back-drop, that pictures -a snowdrift. The actors standing off-stage ready for the excitement, -come on through the sawdust snow, kicking it up in clouds, eating it, -choking on it, hair, eyes, and throat getting full of it. Back and -forth against this one “drop,” the actors chase. On one run across, a -prop tree would be set up. Then as the actors were supposed to have run -some hundred yards at least, on the next time across, the prop tree -would be taken away and a big _papier maché_ rock put in its place. -That scene being photographed, the rock would give way to a telegraph -pole, and so on until half a dozen chases had been staged before the -one “drop.” - - * * * * * - -Thus far advanced, artistically and otherwise, was the motion picture -this spring of 1908 when “Lawrence” Griffith found himself astride a -horse, taking the air in the wide stretches of Coytesville, New Jersey, -and getting five dollars to boot. Also found himself so exhilarated, -mentally and otherwise, that in the evening he turned author, not of -poorly paid poems, but of the more profitable movies. Wrote a number -which he sold for fifteen dollars each, a very decent price considering -that this sort of authorship meant a spot-cash transaction. - -The first little cinema drama of which he was the author and which was -immediately put into the works was “Old Isaacs, the Pawnbroker.” Very -bitter in feeling against the Amalgamated Association of Charities was -this story of a kind-hearted Hebraic money-lender. - -On May 6th, with “Lawrence” Griffith the star, was released “The Music -Master,” but not David Belasco’s. Then came “Ostler Joe” of Mrs. James -Brown Potter fame, scenario-ized by Mr. Griffith. He also played the -part of the priest in the scene where the child dies. In early July -came “At The Crossroads of Life” and “The Stage Rustler.” - -Biograph’s sole advertising campaign at this time consisted of -illustrated bulletins--single sheets six to ten inches, carrying a two -by three inch “cut” from the film and descriptive matter averaging -about three hundred and fifty words. They were gotten up in florid -style by a doughty Irishman by the name of Lee Dougherty who was the -“man in the front office.” He was what is now known as “advertising -manager,” but the publicity part of his job not taking all his time, he -also gave scripts the “once over” and still had moments for a friendly -chat with the waiting actor. - -Although every day was not a busy day at the Biograph for David -Griffith, he felt the best policy would be to keep in close touch with -whatever was going on there. So he did that, but he also looked in at -other studios during any lull in activities. Looked in up at Edison -and was engaged for a leading part in quite a thriller, “The Eagle’s -Nest.” Lovely studio, the Edison, but not so much chance to get in -right, David felt--it was too well organized. Looked in at Kalem too, -but Frank J. Marion, who was the presiding chief there, could not be -bothered. Entirely too many of these down-on-their-luck actors taking -up his time. - -There were whispers about that Lubin in Philadelphia needed a director. -So David wrote them a letter telling of all his varied experiences, -which brought an answer with an offer of sixty dollars a week for -directing and a request that he run over to Philadelphia for an -interview. - -Now one had to look like something when on that sort of errand bent. I -had to get our little man all dressed up. Could afford only a new shirt -and tie. This, with polished boots and suit freshly pressed, would have -to do. But, even so, he looked quite radiant as he set forth for the -Pennsylvania Station to catch his Every-hour-on-the-hour. - -But nothing came of it. Lubin decided not to put on another director -or make a change--whichever it was. The husband of Mrs. Mary Carr, -the Mrs. Carr of William Fox’s “Over the Hill” fame, continued there, -directing the movies which he himself wrote. After dinner each night -he would roll back the table-cloth, reach for pad and pencil, and work -out a story for his next movie. - -Back to the dingy “A. B.” for us. Strange, even from the beginning we -felt a sort of at-home feeling there. The casualness of the place made -a strong appeal. What would happen if some one really got on the job -down there some day? - -And so it came about shortly after “The Snow-man” that the elder Mr. -McCutcheon fell ill, and his son Wallace took over his job. He directed -“When Knights Were Bold”; directed Mr. Griffith in several pictures. -But Wally was not ambitious to make the movies his life job. He soon -made a successful début in musical comedy. Some years later he married -Pearl White, the popular movie star. - -It began to look as though there soon might be a new director about the -place. And there was. There were several. - -No offer of theatrical jobs came to disrupt the even tenor of the first -two months at Biograph. It was too late for winter productions and too -early for summer stock, so there was nothing to worry about, until with -the first hint of summer in the air, my husband received an offer to go -to Peake’s Island, Maine, and play villains in a summer stock company -there. - -Forty per, the salary would be, sometimes more and sometimes less than -our combined earnings at the studio. To go or not to go? Summer stock -might last the summer and might not. Three months was the most to -expect. The Biograph might do as much for us. - -How trivial it all sounds now! Ah, but believe me, it was nothing to be -taken lightly then. For a decision that affects one’s very bread and -butter, when bread and butter has been so uncertain, one doesn’t make -without heart searchings and long councils of war. - -So we argued, in a friendly way. Said he: “If I turn this job down, and -appear to be so busy, they soon won’t send for me at all. Of course, if -this movie thing is going to last and amount to anything, if anybody -could tell you anything about it, we could afford to take chances. In -one way it is very nice. You can stay in New York, and _if_ I can find -time to write too--fine! But you know you can’t go on forever and not -tell your friends and relatives how you are earning your living.” - -Then said she: “How long is Peake’s Island going to last? What’s sure -about summer stock? What does Peake’s Island mean to David Belasco -or Charles Frohman? We’ve got this little flat here, with our very -own twenty dollars’ worth of second-hand furniture, and the rent’s -so low--twenty. You don’t know what’s going to happen down at the -Biograph, you might get to direct some day. Let’s stick the summer out -anyhow, and when fall comes and productions open up again, we’ll see, -huh?” - -So we put Peake’s Island behind us. - -Now it is as sure as shooting, _if_ “Lawrence” Griffith had accepted -the offer to play stock that summer he never would have become the -David W. Griffith of the movies. Had he stepped out then, some one -else surely would have stepped in and filled his little place; and the -chances are he would never have gone back to those queer movies. - -Of course, now we know that even in so short a time this movie business -had gotten under his skin. David Griffith had tasted blood--cinema -blood. And the call to stay, that was heard and obeyed when Peake’s -Island threatened to disrupt the scheme of things, was the same sort -of call that made those other pioneers trek across the plains with -their prairie schooners in the days of forty-nine. With Peake’s Island -settled, we hoped there would be no more theatrical temptations, for we -wanted to take further chances with the movies. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -D. W. GRIFFITH DIRECTS HIS FIRST MOVIE - - -Considering the chaotic condition of things in the studio as a result -of Mr. McCutcheon’s illness, it was a propitious time to take heed and -get on to the tricks of this movie business. To David Griffith the -direction was insufferably careless, the acting the same, and in the -lingering bitterness over his play’s failure he gritted his teeth and -decided that if he ever got a chance he certainly could direct these -dinky movies. - -The studio was so without a head these days that even Henry Norton -Marvin, our vice-president and general manager, occasionally helped out -in the directing. He had directed a mutoscope called “A Studio Party” -in which my husband and I had made a joint appearance. - -With the place now “runnin’ wild,” Mr. Marvin wondered whom he’d better -take a chance on next. - -He put the odds on Mr. Stanner E. V. Taylor. - -In the studio, one day shortly after my initiation, Mr. Taylor -approached me and asked if I could play a lead in a melodrama he was to -direct. A lead in a melodrama--with a brief stage career that had been -confined to winsome ingénues! But I bravely said, “Oh, yes, yes, indeed -I can.” - -What I suffered! I had a husband who beat and deserted me; I had to -appear against him in court, and I fainted and did a beautiful fall -on the court-room floor. After my acquittal I took my two babies and -deposited them on a wealthy doorstep; wandered off to the New Jersey -Palisades; took a flying leap and landed a mass of broken bones at the -bottom of the cliff. - -Selected for the fall was a beautiful smooth boulder which had a sheer -drop on the side the camera did not get of possibly some fifteen feet -to a ledge about six feet wide, from which ledge, to the bottom of the -Palisades, was a precipitous descent of some hundred feet. - -There were so many rehearsals of this scene of self-destruction that -the rock acquired a fine polish as “mother” slipped and slid about. -That the camera man’s assistant might try the stunt for at least the -initial attempts at getting the focus, never occurred to a soul. But a -suggestion was made that if “mother” removed her shoes she might not -slide off so easily. Which she did for the remaining rehearsals. Then -finally as the sun sank behind the Palisades, “mother” in her last -emotional moments, sank behind the boulder. - -On that picture I made twenty-eight dollars; oh, what a lot of money! -The most to date. If pictures kept up like that! And the whole -twenty-eight was mine, all mine, and I invested it at Hackett, Carhart -on Broadway and Thirteenth in a spring outfit--suit, shoes, hat, oh, -everything. - -The picture--the only one Mr. Taylor directed--lacked continuity. -Upstairs in his executive office, Mr. Henry Norton Marvin was walking -the floor and wondering what about it. Why couldn’t they get somewhere -with these movies? Another man fallen down on the job. Genial Arthur -Marvin, H. N.’s brother, and Billy Bitzer’s assistant at the camera, -was being catechized as to whether he had noticed any promising -material about the studio. - -“Well,” drawled the genial Arthur, “I don’t know. They’re a funny lot, -these actors, but there’s one young man, there’s one actor seems to -have ideas. You might try him.” - -“You think he might get by, eh?” - -“Well, I don’t think you’d lose much by trying him.” - -“What’s his name? I’ll send for him.” - -“Griffith. Lawrence Griffith.” - - * * * * * - -Later that day a cadaverous-looking young man was closeted with the -vice-president in the vice-president’s dignified quarters. - -“My brother tells me you appear to be rather interested in the -pictures, Mr. Griffith; how would you like to direct one?” - -Mr. Griffith rose from his chair, took three steps to the window, and -gazed out into space. - -“Think you’d like to try it, Mr. Griffith?” - -No response--only more gazing into space. - -“We’ll make it as easy as we can for you, Mr. Griffith, if you decide -you’d like to try.” - -More gazing into space. And finally this: “I appreciate your -confidence in me, Mr. Marvin, but there is just this to it. I’ve had -rather rough sledding the last few years and you see I’m married; I -have responsibilities and I cannot afford to take chances; I think -they rather like me around here as an actor. Now if I take this -picture-directing over and fall down, then you see I’ll be out my -acting job, and you know I wouldn’t like that; I don’t want to lose my -job as an actor down here.” - -“Otherwise you’d be willing to direct a picture for us?” - -“Oh, yes, indeed I would.” - -“Then if I promise that if you fall down as a director, you can have -your acting job back, you will put on a moving picture for us?” - -“Yes, then I’d be willing.” - - * * * * * - -It was called “The Adventures of Dolly.” - -Gossip around the studio had it that the story was a “lemon.” Preceding -directors at the studio had sidestepped it. _Dolly_, in the course of -the story, is nailed into a barrel by the gypsies who steal her; the -barrel secreted in the gypsy wagon; the horses start off at breakneck -speed; the barrel falls off the wagon, rolls into the stream, floats -over a waterfall, shoots the rapids, and finally emerges into a quiet -pool where some boys, fishing, haul it ashore, hear the child’s cries, -open the barrel, and rescue _Dolly_. - -Not a very simple job for an amateur. But David Griffith wasn’t -worried. He could go back to acting were the picture no good. Mr. -Arthur Marvin was assigned as camera man. There were needed for the -cast: _Dolly_, her mother and father, the gypsy man, the gypsy man’s -wife, and two small boys. - -Upstairs in the tiny projection room pictures were being run for Mr. -Griffith’s enlightenment. He was seeing what Biograph movies looked -like. Saw some of old man McCutcheon’s, and some of Wally McCutcheon’s, -and Stanner E. V. Taylor’s one and only. - -That evening he said to me: “You’ll play the lead in my first -picture--not because you’re my wife--but because you’re a good actress.” - -“Oh, did you see Mr. Taylor’s picture?” - -“Yes.” - -“How was it?” - -“Not bad, but it don’t hang together. Good acting; you’re good, quite -surprised me. No one I can use for a husband though. I must have some -one who _looks_ like a ‘husband’--who looks as though he owned more -than a cigarette. I heard around the studio that they were going to -hand me a bunch of lemons for actors.” - -So, dashing madly here and there for a father for little _Dolly_, -Mr. Griffith saw coming down Broadway a young man of smiling -countenance--just the man--his very ideal. Of course, he must be an -actor. There was no time for hesitation. - -“Pardon me, but would you care to act in a moving picture? I am going -to direct a moving picture, and I have a part that suits you exactly.” - -“Moving pictures, did you say? Picture acting? I am sure I don’t know -what you are talking about. I don’t know anything about picture acting.” - -“You don’t need to know--just meet me at the Grand Central Depot at -nine o’clock to-morrow morning.” - -And so Arthur Johnson became a movie actor. - -To my mind no personality has since flickered upon the screen with -quite the charm, lovableness, and magnetic humor that were his. He -never acquired affectations, which made him a rare person indeed, -considering the tremendous popularity that became his and the world of -affectation in which he lived. - -For the gypsy man Mr. Griffith selected Charles Inslee, an excellent -actor whom he had known on the Coast. Mr. Inslee was a temperamental -sort, but Mr. Griffith knew how to handle him. So with Mrs. Gebhardt -for the gypsy wife, Mr. Griffith completed his cast without using a -single one of the “lemons” that were to have been wished upon him; and -as there were only outdoor sets in “The Adventures” he did not have any -of the “lemons” around to make comments. - -Even the business of the barrel proved to be no insurmountable -difficulty. Yards and yards of piano-wire were attached, which, -manipulated from the shore, kept the barrel somewhat in focus. The one -perturbed person was our camera man, who even though middle-aged and -heavy, time and time again had to jump about, in and out of the stream, -grabbing tripod and clumsy camera, trying to keep up with the floating -barrel. - -We went to Sound Beach, Connecticut, to take “The Adventures.” - -It was a lovely place, I thought. The Black-eyed Susans were all -a-bloom, and everywhere was green grass although it was nearly -midsummer. We spent almost a week working on “The Adventures,” for the -mechanical scenes took time, and--joy!--between us we were making ten -dollars a day as long as the picture lasted. - -And then who could tell! - - * * * * * - -“If the photography is there, the picture will be all right; if it -looks as good on the negative as it looked while we were taking it, it -ought to get by,” opined the director. - -From out of the secrecy of the dark room came Arthur Marvin, -nonchalantly swinging a short strip of film. - -“How is it?” - -“Looks pretty good, nice and sharp.” - -“Think it’s all right?” - -“Yeh, think it is.” - -Hopeful hours interspersed with anxious moments crowded the succeeding -days. By the time the picture was developed, printed, and titled, we -were well-nigh emotionally exhausted. What would they say upstairs? -What _would_ they say? - - * * * * * - -In the darkened little projection room they sat. - -On the screen was being shown “The Adventures of Dolly.” - -No sound but the buzz and whir of the projection machine. The seven -hundred and thirteen feet of the “Adventures” were reeled off. Silence. -Then Mr. Marvin spoke: - -“That’s it--that’s something like it--at last!” - -Afterwards, upstairs in the executive offices, Mr. Marvin and Mr. -Dougherty talked it over, and they concluded that if the next picture -were half as good, Lawrence Griffith was the man they wanted. - -The next picture really turned out better. - -The world’s première of “The Adventures of Dolly” was held at Keith and -Proctor’s Theatre, Union Square, July 14, 1908. - -What a day it was at the studio! However did we work, thinking of what -the night held. But as the longest day ends, so did this one. No time -to get home and pretty-up for the party. With what meager facilities -the porcelain basin and make-up shelf in the dressing-room offered, we -managed; rubbed off the grease paint and slapped on some powder; gave -the hair a pat and a twist; at Silsbee’s on Sixth Avenue and Fourteenth -Street, we picked up nourishment; and then we beat it to Union Square. - -A world’s première indeed--a tremendously important night to so many -people who didn’t know it. No taxis--not one private car drew up at -the curb. The house filled up from passers-by--frequenters of Union -Square--lured by a ten-cent entertainment. These were the people to -be pleased--they who had paid out their little nickels and dimes. So -when they sat through Dolly’s seven hundred feet, interested, and not a -snore was to be heard, we concluded we’d had a successful opening night. - -The contract was drawn for one year. It called for forty-five dollars -per week with a royalty of a mill a foot on all film sold. Mr. Marvin -thought it rather foolish to accept so small a salary and assured my -husband the percentage would amount to nothing whatever right off. But -David was willing--rather more than willing--to gamble on himself. -And he gambled rather well this time. For, the first year his royalty -check went from practically nothing to four and five hundred dollars a -month--before the end of the year. - -Wonderful it was--too good to be true. Although, had he known then that -for evermore, through weeks and months and years, it was to be movies, -movies, nothing but movies, David Griffith would probably then and -there have chucked the job, or, keeping it, would have wept bitter, -bitter tears. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -DIGGING IN - - -“Well, we’re in the movies--we’re working in the moving pictures.” - -“Moving pictures? You’re working in moving pictures? What do you mean, -you’re working in moving pictures?” - -“We’re working at a place--they call it a studio--acting in little -plays--dramas, and comedies--a camera takes pictures while we act, and -the pictures are shown in those five- and ten-cent theatres that are -all around the town, mostly on Third and Ninth Avenues and Fourteenth -Street--such high-class neighborhoods.” - -“Those dreadful places? I wouldn’t be seen going into one of them.” - -Yes, that was the attitude in those dark and dismal days when David -signed that contract with the Biograph Company. For one year now, those -movies so covered with slime and so degraded would have to come first -in his thoughts and affections. That was only fair to the job. But only -one who had loved the theatre as he had, and had dreamed as he had of -achieving success therein, could know what heartaches this strange new -affiliation was to bring to him. Times came, agonizing days, when he -would have given his life to be able to chuck the job. Mornings when on -arising he would gaze long, long moments out the window, apparently -seeing nothing--then the barely audible remark, “I think I’ll ’phone -and say I cannot come.” On such days he dragged heavy, leaden feet to -11 East Fourteenth Street. - -And there was an evening when, returning home after a drab day at the -studio, and finding his modest ménage festive with ferns and wild -flowers, he became so annoyed that with one swoop he gathered up nature -and roughly jammed her into the waste paper basket. A visiting relative -who’d helped gather the flowers worried so over the strange procedure -that I had to explain--“It’s those pictures; you know they’re just the -fringe of acting.” - -The emotions that would sweep over us at times! How our pride was -hurt! How lacking in delicacy people could be! With what a patronizing -air the successful and prosperous actor-friend would burst into the -studio! Mr. Griffith would say, “Well, how about it? If you’re hanging -around this summer, how would you like to work with me a bit?” Polite -and evasive the reply, “Well, you see, I’m awfully busy just now, have -several offers and--well--when I’m signed up I’ll drop around again.” -But we, in the know, understood that all the King’s horses and all -the King’s men could not induce such to join our little band of movie -actors. We were always conscious of the fact that we were in this messy -business because everything else had failed--because nobody had seemed -to want us, and we just hadn’t been able to hang on any longer. - -[Illustration: Jeanie Macpherson, Marion Sunshine, Edwin August, Alfred -Paget, Blanche Sweet and Charles West in a scene from “From Out the -Shadow.” The brilliant social world of early movie days. - - (_See p. 71_) -] - -[Illustration: “Murphy’s,” where members of Biograph’s original stock -company consumed hearty breakfasts when Jersey bound. - - (_See p. 83_) -] - -But David buckled to the job like a true sport. It was _his job_ and he -would dignify it. The leaden mornings came to be quite the exception to -the rule. Many days were greeted with bright and merry song. And so, -firm and unshakeable in our determination to do the most with what -we had, we dismissed the silly sensitive business and set to work. - -What we had to work with was this: a little studio where interior -scenes were taken, and exteriors also, for there was little money for -traveling expenses--Fort Lee, Greenwich, and the Atlantic Highlands -comprised our early geographical horizon. A few actors, a willing and -clever camera man, a stage carpenter, and a scenic artist, comprised -the working force. Funny studio! Interesting old workshop! “The Last -Leaf’s” ballroom! - -The outer doors of the building opened into a broad hall from which on -the left as one entered, a door gave into Mr. Dougherty’s office; on -the right was another door--the entrance to the bookkeeping department. -An old colonial stairway on this same side led up to the projection -room and other offices. The spacious hall of the main floor ended with -double doors opening into the studio. - -There, first to meet the eye--unless one stumbled on it before seeing -it--for it completely blocked the entrance--was a heavy rolling -platform on which the camera, poised atop of its tripod, was set. -So if the studio doors chanced to invite you during the taking of a -scene, you would have to remain put in the few feet of space between -the platform and the doors until the scene was finished. Usually there -would be some one to keep you company in your little niche. - -It was an easy matter in those days to get into the studio. No cards of -announcement were needed--no office boy insulted you, no humiliation -of waiting, as to-day. A ring of the bell and in you’d go, and Bobbie -Harron would greet you if he chanced to be near by. Otherwise, any one -of the actors would pass you the glad word. - -On an ordinary kitchen chair a bit to one side of the camera, Mr. -Griffith usually sat when directing. The actors when not working -lingered about, either standing or enjoying the few other kitchen -chairs. During rehearsals actors sat all over the camera stand--it was -at least six feet square--and as the actors were a rather chummy lot, -the close and informal intimacy disturbed them not the least. - -A “scene” was set back center, just allowing passage room. What little -light came through the few windows was soon blocked by dusty old -scenery. On the side spaces of the room and on the small gallery above, -the carpenters made scenery and the scene painters painted it--scenery, -paint pots, and actors were all huddled together in one friendly chaos. -We always had to be mindful of our costumes. To the smell of fresh -paint and the noise of the carpenters’ hammers, we rehearsed our first -crude little movies and in due time many an old literary classic. - -Rolls of old carpet and bundles of canvas had to be climbed over in -wending one’s way about. To the right of the camera a stairway led to -the basement where there were three small dressing-rooms; and no matter -how many actors were working in a picture those three dark little -closets had to take care of them all. The developing or “dark” room -adjoined the last dressing-room, and all opened into a cavernous cellar -where the stage properties were kept. Here at the foot of the stairs -and always in every one’s way, the large wardrobe baskets would be -deposited. And what a scramble for something that would half-way fit us -when the costumes arrived! - -We ate our lunches in the dingy basement, usually seated on the -wardrobe baskets. Squatted there, tailor-fashion, on their strong -covers, we made out pretty well. On days when we had numbers of extra -people, our lunch boy, little Bobbie Harron, would arrange boards on -wooden horses, and spread a white cloth, banquet fashion. Especially -effective this, when doing society drama, and there would be grand -dames, financiers, and magnates, to grace the festive board. - -In a back corner of the studio reposed a small, oak, roll-top desk, -which the new director graced in the early morning hours when getting -things in shape, and again in the evening when he made out the actors’ -pay checks. When the welcome words came from the dark room, “All right, -everybody; strike!” the actors rushed to the roll-top, and clamored -for vouchers--we received our “pay” daily. Then the actor rushed his -“make-up” off, dressed, passed to the bookkeeper’s window in the outer -office, presented his voucher, and Herman Bruenner gave him his money. -And then to eat, and put away a dollar towards the week’s rent, and to -see a movie for ten cents! - -A little group of serious actors soon began to report daily for work. -As yet no one had a regular salary except the director and camera man. -“Principal part” actors received five and “extras” three dollars. - -In August this first year Mr. Griffith began turning out two releases -a week, usually one long picture, eight to eleven hundred feet, and -one short picture, four to five hundred feet. The actors who played -the principal parts in these pictures were Eddie Dillon, Harry Salter, -Charles Inslee, Frank Gebhardt, Arthur Johnson, Wilfred Lucas, George -Nichols, John Compson, Owen Moore, Mack Sennett, Herbert Pryor, David -Miles, Herbert Yost, Tony O’Sullivan, and Daddy Butler. Of the women -Marion Leonard, Florence Lawrence, and myself played most of the -leading parts, while Mabel Stoughton, Florence Auer, Ruth Hart, Jeanie -Macpherson, Flora Finch, Anita Hendry, Dorothy West, Eleanor Kershaw -(Mrs. Tom Ince), and Violet Mersereau helped out occasionally. Gladys -Egan, Adele DeGarde, and Johnny Tansy played the important child parts. - -Though I speak of playing “principal parts,” no one had much chance to -get puffed up, for an actor having finished three days of importance -usually found himself on the fourth day playing “atmosphere,” the while -he decorated the back drop. But no one minded. They were a good-natured -lot of troupers and most of them were sincerely concerned in what they -were doing. David had a happy way of working. He invited confidence and -asked and took suggestions from any one sufficiently interested to make -them. His enthusiasm became quite infectious. - -In the beginning Marion Leonard and I alternated playing “leads.” She -played the worldly woman, the adventuress, and the melodramatic parts, -while I did the sympathetic, the wronged wife, the too-trusting maid, -waiting, always waiting, for the lover who never came back. But mostly -I died. - -Our director, already on the lookout for a new type, heard of a clever -girl out at the Vitagraph, who rode a horse like a western cowboy and -who had had good movie training under Mr. Rainous. He wanted to see -her on the screen before an audience. Set up in a store on Amsterdam -Avenue and 160th Street was a little motion picture place. It had a -rough wooden floor, common kitchen chairs, and the reels unwound to the -tin-panny shriek of a pianola. After some watchful waiting, the stand -outside the theatre--the sort of thing sandwich men carry--finally -announced “The Dispatch Bearer,” a Vitagraph with Florence Lawrence. -So, living near by, after dinner one night we rushed over to see it. - -It was a good picture. Mr. Griffith concluded he would like to work -with Mr. Rainous for a while and learn about the movies. For one could -easily see that besides having ability Florence Lawrence had had -excellent direction. - -Well, David stole little Florrie, he did. With Harry Salter as support -in his nefarious errand, he called on Miss Lawrence and her mother, -and offered the Vitagraph girl twenty-five dollars a week, regular. -She had been receiving fifteen at Vitagraph playing leading parts, -sewing costumes, and mending scenery canvas. She was quite overcome -with Mr. Griffith’s spectacular offer, readily accepted, and by way of -celebrating her new prosperity, she drew forth from under the bed in -the little boarding-house room, her trombone--or was it a violin?--and -played several selections. As a child, Miss Lawrence, managed by her -mother, and starred as “Baby Flo, the child wonder-whistler” had toured -the country, playing even the “tanks.” - -Immediately she joined the Biograph, Florence Lawrence was given a -grand rush. But she never minded work. The movies were as the breath -of life to her. When she wasn’t working in a picture, she was in some -movie theatre seeing a picture. After the hardest day, she was never -too tired to see the new release and if work ran into the night hours, -between scenes she’d wipe off the make-up and slip out to a movie show. - -Her pictures became tremendously popular, and soon all over the country -Miss Lawrence was known as “The Biograph Girl.” It was some years -before the company allowed the names of actors to be given out, hence -“Biograph Girl” was the only intelligent appellation. After Miss -Lawrence left Biograph, Mary Pickford fell heir to the title. - -Miss Lawrence’s early releases show her versatility. Two every week for -a time: “Betrayed by a Handprint,” “The Girl and the Outlaw,” “Behind -the Scenes,” “The Heart of Oyama,” “Concealing a Burglar,” “Romance -of a Jewess,” “The Planter’s Wife,” “The Vaquero’s Vow,” “The Call of -the Wild,” “The Zulu’s Heart,” “The Song of the Shirt,” “Taming of the -Shrew,” “The Ingrate,” “A Woman’s Way.” - -Like Mary Pickford, Miss Lawrence was an awfully good sport about doing -stunts. One day a scene was being filmed with Miss Lawrence thrown -tummy-wise across a horse’s saddled back. As the horse dashed down -the roadway he came so close to the camera that we who were watching -breathlessly, for one moment closed our eyes, for Miss Lawrence’s blond -head just missed the camera by a few inches. - -Rainy August days forced us to work in the studio. Mr. Griffith had -read a story by Jack London called “Just Meat.” He changed the name to -“For Love of Gold” and let it go at that. We had no fear of lawsuits -from fractious authors those days. - -The story was about two thieves, who returned home with the latest -spoils, get suspicious of each other and each, unknown to the other, -poisons the other’s coffee and both die. The big scenes which were at -the table when the men become distrustful of each other could be told -only through facial expression. “Ah,” puzzled Mr. Director, “how can I -show what these two men are thinking? I must have the camera closer to -the actors--that’s what I must do--and having only two actors in these -scenes, I can.” - -Up to this time, every scene had been a long shot--that is, the -floor--the carpet--the greensward--showed yards in front of the actors’ -feet. But Mr. Griffith knew he couldn’t show nine feet of floor and -at the same time register expression. So to his camera man he said: -“Now don’t get excited, but listen. I’m going to move the camera up, -I’m going to show very little floor, but I’m going to show a large, -full-length figure; just get in the actors’ feet--get the toes--one -foot of foreground will do. - -“Well, we’ve never done anything like that--how do you think that’s -going to look?--a table with a man on each side filling up the whole -screen, nearly.” - -“We’ll do it--we’ll never get anywhere if we don’t begin to try new -things.” - -The burglars were screened so big that every wicked thought each -entertained was plainly revealed. Everybody came to like the idea -afterwards, especially the actors. - -Along in November, Mr. Griffith began work on a series of domestic -comedies--the “Jones Pictures.” Florence Lawrence played Mrs. Jones, -and John Compson, Mr. Jones. Their movie marital début was in “A Smoked -Husband.” The Jones movies were probably the first to achieve success -as a series. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -FIRST PUBLICITY AND EARLY SCENARIOS - - -In Biograph’s story, quite a few who stuck to the ship in these first -days are big names in the movies to-day. - -In the town of Erie, Pa., in the early nineteen hundreds flourished -a little newspaper, on the staff of which was Frank Woods. Besides -reporting “news,” Frank Woods sold advertising. Erie, Pa., not long -satisfying his ambitions, Mr. Woods set out for the journalistic marts -of New York City, and shortly after found himself selling advertising -for the _New York Dramatic Mirror_. The idea of getting ads from the -picture people came to him when he noticed that pictures were not -mentioned in the _Dramatic Mirror_. Writers on the paper were told that -any reference to the movies would be promptly blue-penciled. - -Mr. Woods figured that if he could interest the movie people he might -get ads from them and the _Dramatic Mirror_ wouldn’t mind that. But the -picture people turned deaf ears. Why pay money for an ad in a paper -that was all too ready to crush them? Besides, the _Mirror_ didn’t -circulate among the exhibitors and those interested in the movies. The -movie people would stick to the more friendly _Billboard_--thank you -kindly--it could have their ads. - -Another idea came to Frank Woods. How about pictures being reviewed? He -put the plan before Lee Dougherty, for Lee was always genial and had -time to listen. Lee said: “Fine, give us real serious reviews--tell us -where we are wrong--but don’t expect an ad for your effort.” - -The result of this conversation was that three reviews appeared in the -_New York Dramatic Mirror_, June, 1908. On a rear end page captioned -“The Spectator,” Frank E. Woods dissertated through some columns on -the merits and demerits of the movies, and thus became their first -real critic. We were very grateful for the few paragraphs. It meant -recognition--the beginning. How gladly we parted with our ten cents -weekly to see what “Spec” had to say about us. - -But Mr. Woods didn’t get an ad from the Biograph. So he had another -heart-to-heart talk with Mr. Dougherty, and Doc said: “Never mind, keep -it up--but as I told you, the reviews aren’t going to influence us -about ads.” - -But in August the Company came across and bought a quarter-page ad for -the Biograph movies. - -The active mind of Frank Woods was not going to stop with critical -comments on moving pictures. His new duties necessitated his seeing -pictures; and, looking them over and analyzing them for his reviews, he -said to himself; “Oh, they’re terrible--I could do better myself--such -stories!” So he wrote three “suggestions”--that’s all they were--and -that’s what they were then called. With great aplomb, he took them to -Mr. Dougherty, and to his amazement Mr. Dougherty turned the whole -three down. Sorry, but he didn’t think them up to scratch. But Mr. -Woods would not be fazed by a turn-down like that. He wrote three more -“suggestions.” - -The studio had a sort of nominal supervisor, a Mr. Wake, whose job was -to O. K. little expenditures in the studio and to pass on the purchase -of scenarios. One day, not long after our A. B. affiliation, just as -I was entering the main foyer, Mr. Griffith coming from the projection -room seemed more than usually light-hearted. So I said, “You’re feeling -good--picture nice?” - -“Oh, yes, all right, but”--this in a whisper--“Wake’s been fired.” - -I wondered how I could wait all that day, until evening, to hear what -had happened. But I did, and learned that Mr. Wake with Biograph money -had purchased silk stockings for Mutoscope girls, and then had given -the girls the stockings for their own. - -However, during a temporary absence from the studio before Mr. Wake’s -dismissal, Frank Woods came down with three more suggestions which -were shown to Mr. Griffith direct. He bought the whole bunch, three at -fifteen dollars apiece, _nine five-dollar bills, forty-five dollars_. - -Around the _Dramatic Mirror_ offices Mr. Woods was already jocularly -being called “M. P. Woods.” And this day that he disposed of his three -“suggestions,” Moving Picture Woods with much bravado entered the -_Mirror’s_ office, went over to the desk, brushed aside some papers, -cleared a place on the counter, and in a row laid his nine five-dollar -bills. - -In the office at the time were George Terwilliger (how many scenarios -he afterwards wrote), Al Trahern (Al continued with his stock companies -and featuring his wife Jessie Mae Hall), and Jake Gerhardt, now in -the business end of the movies. The trio looked--and gasped--and -looked--and in unison spoke: - -“_Where_ did you get all that?” - -“Moving Pictures!” - -“Moving Pictures? For heaven’s sake, tell us about it.” - -“How did you do it?” queried George Terwilliger. “Forty-five dollars -for three stories, good Lord, and they gave you the money right off, -like that.” - -So Mr. Woods told his little story, and as the conversation ended, -George Terwilliger reached for paper and pencil, for five-dollar bills -were beckoning from every direction. Maybe he could put it over, too. -He did--he sold lots and lots of “suggestions.” Frank Woods wrote -thirty movies for Biograph. - -Frank Woods now set about to criticise the pictures with the same -seriousness with which he would have criticised the theatre. He bought -books about Indians and let the producers know there was a difference -between the Hopi and the Apache and the Navajo. With a critical eye, -he picked out errors and wrote of them frankly, and his influence in -the betterment of the movies has been a bigger one than is generally -known outside the movie world. Mr. Woods is really responsible for -research. And Mr. Dougherty gives him credit for turning in the -first “continuity.” The picture that has that honor is a version of -Tennyson’s “Enoch Arden,” called “After Many Years.” - -Scenarios that reached the Biograph offices, due to lack of -organization, were sometimes weeks in reaching the proper department, -but Mr. Griffith got first chance at “After Many Years.” Both he and -Mr. Dougherty thought it pretty good stuff, but the obvious emotional -acting that had prevailed somewhere in every picture so far, was here -entirely lacking. Quiet suppressed emotion only, this one had. But Doc -said he’d eat the positive if it wouldn’t make a good picture. So it -was purchased. - -But “After Many Years,” although it had no “action,” and some of us sat -in the projection room at its first showing with heavy hearts, proved -to write more history than any picture ever filmed and it brought an -entirely new technique to the making of films. - -It was the first movie without a chase. That was something, for those -days, a movie without a chase was not a movie. How could a movie -be made without a chase? How could there be suspense? How action? -“After Many Years” was also the first picture to have a _dramatic_ -close-up--the first picture to have a cut-back. When Mr. Griffith -suggested a scene showing Annie Lee waiting for her husband’s return to -be followed by a scene of Enoch cast away on a desert island, it was -altogether too distracting. “How can you tell a story jumping about -like that? The people won’t know what it’s about.” - -“Well,” said Mr. Griffith, “doesn’t Dickens write that way?” - -“Yes, but that’s Dickens; that’s novel writing; that’s different.” - -“Oh, not so much, these are picture stories: not so different.” - -So he went his lonely way and did it; did “After Many Years” contrary -to all the old established rules of the game. The Biograph Company was -very much worried--the picture was so unusual--how could it succeed? - -It was the first picture to be recognized by foreign markets. When one -recalls the high class of moving pictures that Pathé and Gaumont were -then putting out, such as “The Assassination of the Duc de Guise,” this -foreign recognition meant something. - -“After Many Years” made a change in the studio. All “suggestions” now -came directly to Mr. Dougherty’s office. He selected the doubtful ones -and the sure bets and with Mr. Griffith read them over the second -time. They threshed out their differences in friendly argument. So Lee -Dougherty became the first scenario editor. - -And of the sad letters and grateful ones his editing jobs brought him, -this letter from a newspaper man on a Dayton, Ohio, paper, now dead, he -prizes most highly: - - L. E. DOUGHERTY, EDITOR, - KINEMACOLOR COMPANY, - LOS ANGELES, CALIF. - - DEAR SIR: - - Excuse me, but I can’t help it. When I cashed the $25 check for - “Too Much Susette,” the scenario of mine which you accepted, I took - $5 of the money and put it on “Just Red” who won at Louisville at - the juicy price of 30 to 1. I hope the film will bring your company - as much luck as the script has brought me. - - Yours very truly, - GEORGE GROEBER. - -“Doc” was Mr. Griffith’s friendly appellation for “the man in the -front office,” Lee Dougherty. It was going some for Mr. Griffith to -give any one a nickname. He never was a “hail fellow well met.” It -was Mr. So-and-so from Mr. Griffith and to Mr. Griffith with very -few exceptions. Never once during all the Biograph years did he ever -publicly call even his own wife by any other name than “Miss Arvidson.” -Only in general conversation about the movies, and in his absence, was -he familiarly referred to as “Griff,” or “D. W.,” or the “Governor.” - -Mr. Dougherty was the one man at 11 East Fourteenth Street before -the Griffith régime who had more than a speaking acquaintance with -the movies. In the summer of 1896 as stage manager of the old Boston -Museum, he installed there the first projection machine of American -manufacture, the Eidoloscope. When the season at the Boston Museum was -over, Mr. Dougherty, who had become quite fascinated with this new idea -in entertainment, went to New York City. The Biograph Company along -about 1897 had just finished a moving picture of Pope Leo XIII taken -at the Vatican. Pictures of the late Pope Benedict XV were announced -as the first pictures made of a Pope, “approved by His Holiness.” -While they may be the first approved ones, Captain Varges of the -International News Reel, who claims the honor, brought the third motion -picture camera into the Vatican grounds. The second film--Pope Pius X -in the Vatican, and gardens, and the Eucharistic Congress, was released -in 1912. - -Well, anyhow, Mr. Dougherty took a set of Biograph’s Pope Leo XIII -pictures to exhibit in the towns and cities of New Jersey and -Pennsylvania on the old Biograph projection machine--one vastly -superior to the Eidoloscope. The company exhibiting the picture -consisted of an operator on the machine and Mr. Dougherty who lectured. -And when he began his little talk (there was no titling or printed -matter in the picture), the small boys in the gallery would yell -“spit it out, we want to see the picture.” Numbers of motion picture -directors to-day might well heed the sentiments of those small boys. - -From exhibiting Pope Leo XIII’s picture, Mr. Dougherty became stage -director of One Minute Comedies for the Biograph which at this time -had a stage on the roof of a building at 841 Broadway. And sometimes -in the midst of a scene the weather would pick up scenery and props -and deposit them in Broadway. So came about experiments with -electric lights, satisfactory results first being obtained with the -Jeffries-Sharkey prize fight. - -The One Minute Comedies finally were given up, but the Mutoscopes, -being Biograph’s biggest source of revenue, were continued. The -Mutoscopes were brief film playlets that were viewed in the -penny-in-the-slot machines. - -One day, before Mutoscopes ended, my husband asked me to run over -to Wanamaker’s with him and help choose some pretty undies for the -Mutoscope girls--photographically effective stuff--so we selected some -very elegant heavy black silk embroidered stockings and embroidered -pink Italian silk vests and knickers--last-word lingeries for that time. - -I felt rather ill about it. “Oh dear,” I thought, “this is _some_ -business, but I’ll be brave, I will, even though I die.” Well, the -parcel being wrapped, David took it and then handed it to me, and I -thought, “Why should I carry the bundle?” So we reached Fourteenth -Street. David started to the left without his parcel; I was continuing -up Broadway, so handed it to him. But the lingerie wasn’t for -Mutoscopes at all--but for me--just a little surprise. So then with -a light and happy heart, I took my way home to admire my beautiful -present. - -After the Biograph had engaged David, Mr. Dougherty did not want them -to make any more Mutoscopes. Mr. Griffith directed possibly six. In -order to influence Biograph to cut out the Mutoscopes, Doc got very -cocky, and he said to Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Marvin, “You wait, you’ll -see pictures on Broadway some day, like you do plays.” But they gave -him the laugh. “Yes,” Doc added, “and they will accord them the same -dignified attention that John Drew receives.” They laughed some more -at this, and said, “Pictures will always be a mountebank form of -amusement.” - -[Illustration: From “Edgar Allan Poe,” with Barry O’Moore (Herbert -Yost) and Linda Griffith. - - (_See p. 90_) -] - -[Illustration: Herbert Pryor, Linda Griffith, Violet Mersereau and Owen -Moore in “The Cricket on the Hearth.” - - (_See p. 92_) -] - -But Doc’s prophesy came true. - -And David did no more Mutoscopes. - -[Illustration: “Little Mary,” portraying the type of heroine that won -her a legion of admirers. - - (_See p. 104_) -] - -[Illustration: Register of Caudebec Inn at Cuddebackville. - - (_See p. 119_) -] - - - - -CHAPTER X - -WARDROBE--AND A FEW PERSONALITIES - - -The “Jones” pictures became very popular. Many persons well known in -the movies to-day, played “bits” in them. Jeanie Macpherson, author -of “The Ten Commandments” was “principal guest” in “Mr. Jones at the -Ball.” Miss Macpherson, who for many years has been and still is chief -scenario writer and assistant to Cecil B. DeMille, got her first movie -job on the strength of a pale blue crepe-de-chine evening gown. - -How funny we were when we moved in the world of brilliant men and -beautiful women only we, who represented them, knew. Dress suits of all -vintages appeared. Any one with “clothes” had a wonderful open sesame. -A young chap whom we dubbed “the shoe clerk”--who never played a thing -but “atmosphere”--got many a pay-check on the strength of his neat, -tan, covert cloth spring overcoat--the only spring overcoat that ever -honored the studio. (An actor could get along in the spring with his -winter suit and no overcoat!) - -Clothes soon became a desperate matter, so Biograph consented to spend -fifty dollars for wearing apparel for the women. Harry Salter and I -were entrusted with the funds and told to hunt bargains. We needed -negligees, dinner dresses, ball gowns, and semi-tailored effects. The -clothes were to be bought in sizes to fit, as well as could be, the -three principal women. - -In that day, on Sixth Avenue in the Twenties, were numbers of shops -dealing in second-hand clothing, and Mr. Salter and I wandered -among them and finally at a little place called “Simone,” we closed -a deal. We got a good batch of stuff for the fifty--at least a -dozen pieces--bizarre effects for the sophisticated lady, dignified -accoutrements for the conventional matron, and simple softness for -young innocence. - -How those garments worked! I have forgotten many, but one--a brown silk -and velvet affair--I never can forget. It was the first to be grabbed -off the hook--it was forever doing duty. For it was unfailing in its -effect. Arrayed in the brown silk and velvet, there could be no doubt -as to one’s moral status--the maiden lady it made obviously pure; the -wife, faithful; the mother, self-sacrificing. - -Deciding, impromptu, to elaborate on a social affair, Mr. Griffith -would call out: “I can use you in this scene, Miss Bierman, if you can -find a dress to fit you.” The tall, lean actresses, and the short ones -found that difficult, and thus, unfortunately, often lost a day’s work. -Spotting a new piece of millinery in the studio, our director would -thus approach the wearer: “I have no part for you, Miss Hart, but I can -use your hat. I’ll give you five dollars if you will let Miss Pickford -wear your hat for this picture.” Two days of work would pay for your -hat, so you were glad to sit around while the leading lady sported your -new headpiece. You received more on a loan of your clothes, sometimes, -than you did on a loan of yourself. Clothes got five dollars always, -but laughter and merry-making upstage went for three. - -Jeanie Macpherson had recently returned from Europe with clothes the -like of which had never been seen at Biograph. From the chorus of -“Hello People” at the Casino Theatre little Jeanie entered the movies -and even though she had a snub nose and did not photograph well, what -could Mr. Griffith do but use her? - -Jeanie proved to be a good trouper; she was conscientious and -ambitious. Though only extras and bits came her way, David encouraged -her. She was rather frail, and one time after remaining ill some days -when on a picture up in the country, Mr. Griffith thought he should -give her good advice. So he told her to live on a farm for some months, -and drink milk and get strong, there being no future without health; he -certainly could not use her in parts were she to faint on him thus. But -Jeanie confided she’d have to overcome fainting without “months on a -farm”--that luxury she couldn’t afford. - -Since Biograph Miss Macpherson has carried on in every department of -picture making except the acting. She early took stock of herself and -recognized that her future would not be in the ranks of the movie -stars. Just where it would be she did not then know--nor did any one -else. - -On a day in this slightly remote period Jesse Lasky and Cecil DeMille -were lunching at Rector’s in New York--music, luscious tidbits, and Mr. -Lasky casually remarking: “Let’s go into the moving picture business.” - -“All right, let’s,” answered Mr. DeMille with not the slightest -hesitation. - -Mr. Lasky, thus encouraged, suggested more “Let’s,” to each of which -Mr. DeMille as promptly agreed “Let’s.” - -Along came brother-in-law Sam Goldfish, married to Blanche Lasky, -sister to Jesse. Mr. Goldfish (now Goldwyn) was in the glove business -up in Gloversville, New York, and he was very grouchy this day because -the Government had taken the duty off gloves, and he was eager to -listen in on this new idea of Mr. Lasky’s. - -By the time that lunch was finished this is what had happened: Mr. -Goldfish had put up $5,000, Mr. Lasky $5,000, and Arthur Friend $5,000, -and with the $15,000 Cecil DeMille was to go out to California to make -movies. He begged his brother William to put up $5,000 and become a -partner but William said: “No, one of us had better be conservative -and keep the home fires burning.” So when William later went into the -movies, he went to work for his brother Cecil, and he has been doing so -up to this time. - -Mr. Cecil DeMille became Director General of the new Jesse Lasky -Pictures, and Mr. Oscar Apfel, General Manager. Out on Vine Street, -Hollywood, Mr. DeMille took over a stable, and began to make movies. -It was a crude equipment, but the company fell heir to some beer kegs -from which they viewed their first picture “The Squaw Man” released -sometime in 1913. The stable is still a part of the Hollywood Famous -Players-Lasky modern studio, but the beer kegs have vanished. - -Pictures kept on radiating from the stable with quite gratifying -success. In time along came Jeanie Macpherson intent on an interview -with Mr. C. B. DeMille. Jeanie now knew so much about the movies and -C. B. so little, he just naturally felt the Lord had sent her. Miss -Macpherson’s presentation of ideas always got over to Cecil. So Jeanie -signed up with the new firm on that rather long ago day and now she -gets one thousand a week, I understand, for writing Mr. DeMille’s big -pictures. - -We must go back now and rescue Jeanie from Mr. Jones’s Ball, for in -“Mrs. Jones Entertains,” she has duties to perform. In that picture -she was not “principal guest” but the “maid.” Flora Finch was a guest. -Miss Finch in another Jones movie becomes a book agent soliciting Mr. -Jones in his office. In “Mr. Jones has a Card Party,” Mack Sennett -appears as one of husband’s rummies, and in yet another “Jones,” -Owen Moore, first husband of Mary Pickford, is seen as “atmosphere” -escorting a lady from a smart café. So chameleon-like were our social -relations in the “Jones Comedy Series.” - -A Flora Finch tidbit here comes to light. Though fifteen years have -elapsed, they have not dimmed the memory of the one hundred and -eighty-five feet of “Those Awful Hats.” The exhibitor was told: “It -will make a splendid subject to start a show with instead of the -customary slides.” - -The “set” represented the interior of a moving picture theatre. The -company was audience. Miss Finch was also “audience,” only arriving -late she had a separate entrance. Miss Finch wore an enormous hat. When -she was seated, no one at the back or side of her could see a thing. -But out of the unseen ceiling, soon there dropped an enormous pair of -iron claws (supposedly iron) that closed tightly on the hat and head -of the shrieking Miss Finch, lifting her bodily out of her seat and -holding her suspended aloft in the studio heaven. - -How many times that scene was rehearsed and taken! It grew so late and -we were all so sleepy that we stopped counting. But pay for overtime -evolved from this picture. - -The members of the stock company that had grown up worked on a guaranty -of so many days a week. Now with so much night work our director felt -that the actors not on “guaranties” should be recompensed and it was -ruled that after 7 P.M. they would receive three extra dollars. So -when 6 P.M. would arrive with yet another scene to be taken, the -non-guaranty actors became very cheery. More money loomed, and more -sandwiches, pie, coffee, or milk, on the company. Frequently those not -on the guaranteed list made more than those on it, which peeved the -favored ones. - -Along about now Mr. Herbert Yost contributed some artistic bits. Once -he was Edgar Allan Poe and he wrote “The Raven” while his sick wife, -poor little Virginia, died. We were a bit afraid of being too classic. -The public might not understand--we must go slowly yet awhile, but not -all our days. - -Mr. Yost was one actor who used a different name for his picture work. -He called himself “Barry O’Moore” in the movies. Not that he felt the -movies beneath him, but he was nervous about the future reaction. He -showed good foresight. For as soon as the big theatrical producers -got wind of the fact that their actors were working in moving picture -studios, they decided to put a crimp in the idea. The Charles Frohman -office issued an edict that any actor who worked in moving pictures -could not work for them. But the edict was shortly revoked. Even so -long ago had the power of the little motion picture begun to be felt. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -MACK SENNETT GETS STARTED - - -One of our regular “extra” people was Mack Sennett. He quietly -dubbed along like the rest, only he grouched. He never approved -whole-heartedly of anything we did, nor how we did it, nor who did it. -There was something wrong about all of us--even Mary Pickford! Said the -coming King of Comedy productions: “I don’t see what they’re all so -crazy about her for--I think she’s affected.” Florence Lawrence didn’t -suit him either--“she talks baby-talk.” And to Sennett “baby-talk” was -the limit! Of myself he said: “Sometimes she talks to you and sometimes -she doesn’t.” Good-looking Frank Grandin he called “Inflated Grandin.” - -But beneath all this discontent was the feeling that he wasn’t being -given a fair chance; which, along with a smoldering ambition, was the -reason for the grouch. - -When work was over, Sennett would hang around the studio watching -for the opportune moment when his director would leave. Mr. Griffith -often walked home wanting to get a bit of fresh air. This Sennett had -discovered. So in front of the studio or at the corner of Broadway and -Fourteenth Street he’d pull off the “accidental” meeting. Then for -twenty-three blocks he would have the boss all to himself and wholly -at his mercy. Twenty-three blocks of uninterrupted conversation. “Well -now, what do you really think about these moving pictures? What do you -think there is in them? Do you think they are going to last? What’s in -them for the actor? What do you think of my chances?” - -To all of which Mr. Griffith would reply: “Well, not much for the -actor, if you’re thinking of staying. The only thing is to become a -director. I can’t see that there’s anything much for the actor as far -as the future is concerned.” - -Mr. Sennett had come to the movies via the chorus of musical comedy. -It also was understood he had had a previous career as a trainer -for lightweight boxers. If there was one person in the studio that -never would be heard from--well, we figured that person would be Mack -Sennett. He played policemen mostly--and what future for a movie -policeman? His other supernumerary part was a French dude. But he was -very serious about his policeman and his French dude. From persistent -study of Max Linder--the popular Pathé comique of this day--and -adoption of his style of boulevardier dressing, spats, boutonnière, and -cane, Mr. Sennett evolved a French type that for an Irishman wasn’t so -bad. But even so, to all of us, it seemed hopeless. Why did he take so -much pains? - -He got by pretty well when any social flair was unnecessary; when Mary -Pickford and I played peasants, tenement ladies, and washwomen, Mack -occasionally loved, honored, and cherished us in the guise of a laborer -or peddler. He had a muscle-bound way about him in these serious -rôles--perhaps he was made self-conscious by the sudden prominence. But -Mary and I never minded. The extra girls, however, made an awful fuss -when they had to work in a comedy with Sennett, for he clowned so. They -would rather not work than work with Sennett. How peeved they’d get! -“Oh, dear,” they’d howl, “do I have to work with Sennett?” - -Now ’tis said he is worth five millions! - -In “Father Gets in the Game,” an early release, Sennett is seen as the -gay Parisian papa, the Linder influence plainly in evidence. - -Mr. Griffith was more than willing, if he could find a good story with -a leading comedy part suitable to Mr. Sennett, to let him have his -fling. Finally, one such came along--quite legitimate, with plenty of -action, called “The Curtain Pole”--venturesome for a comedy, for it was -apparent it would exceed the five-hundred-foot limit. It took seven -hundred and sixty-five feet of film to put the story over. - -Released in February, 1909, it created quite a sensation. - -The natives of Fort Lee, where “The Curtain Pole” was taken, were -all worked up over it. Carpenters had been sent over a few days in -advance, to erect, in a clearing in the wooded part of Fort Lee, stalls -for fruits, vegetables, and other foodstuffs. The wreckage of these -booths by M. Sennett in the guise of _M. Dupont_ was to be the big -climax of the picture. The “set” when finished was of such ambitious -proportions--and for a comedy, mind you--that we were all terribly -excited, and we concluded that while it had taken Mr. Sennett a long -time and much coaxing to get himself “starred,” it was no slouch of a -part he had eventually obtained for himself. - -I know I was all stirred up, for I was a market woman giving the -green cabbages the thrifty stare, when the cab with the curtain pole -sticking out four or five feet either side, entered the market-place. -M. Dupont, fortified with a couple of absinthe frappés, was trying -to manipulate the pole with sufficient abandon to effect the general -destruction of the booths. He succeeded very well, for before I had -paid for my cabbage something hit me and I was knocked not only flat -but considerably out, and left genuinely unconscious in the center of -the stage. While I was satisfied he should have them, I wasn’t so keen -just then about Mack Sennett’s starring ventures. But he gave a classic -and noble performance, albeit a hard-working one. - -One other picture was released this same year with Mack Sennett in a -prominent part--“The Politician’s Love Story.” - -New York’s Central Park awoke one February morning to find her leafless -trees and brush all a-glisten with a sleet that made them look like -fantastic crystal branches. When the actors reported at the studio that -morning, they found Mr. Griffith in consultation with himself. He did -not want to waste that fairyland just a few blocks away. - -A hurried look through pigeon-holed scripts unearthed no winter story. -“Well,” announced our director, “make up everybody, straight make-up. -Bobby, pack up the one top hat, the one fur coat and cap, I’ll call a -couple of taxis, and on the way we’ll change this summer story into a -winter one.” - -So was evolved “The Politician’s Love Story” in which were scenes -where lovers strolled all wrapped up in each other and cuddled down -on tucked-away benches. Well, lovers can cuddle in winter as well as -summer, and we were crazy to get the silver thaw in the picture; and -we got it, though we nearly froze. But we had luxurious taxis to sit -in when not needed, and afterwards we were taken to the Casino to thaw -out, and were fed hot coffee and sandwiches in little private rooms. - -“The Curtain Pole” and “The Politician’s Love Story” started the -grumbling young Mack Sennett on the road to fame and fortune. Like the -grouchy poker player who kicks himself into financial recuperation, -Mack Sennett grouched himself into success. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -ON LOCATION--EXPERIENCES PLEASANT AND OTHERWISE - - -Before the first winter drove us indoors there had been screened a -number of Mexican and Indian pictures. There was one thriller, “The -Greaser’s Gauntlet,” in which Wilfred Lucas, recruited from Kirke -La Shelle’s “Heir to the Hoorah” played the daring, handsome, and -righteous José. And Wilfred Lucas, by the way, was the first real -g-r-a-n-d actor, democratic enough to work in our movies. That had -happened through friendship for Mr. Griffith. They had been in a -production together. - -For a mountain fastness of arid Mexico, we journeyed not far from -Edgewater, New Jersey. No need to go further. Up the Hudson along the -Palisades was sufficiently Mexico-ish for our needs. There were many -choice boulders for abductors to hide behind and lonely roads for -hold-ups. New Jersey near by was a fruitful land for movie landscape; -it didn’t take long to get there, and transportation was cheap. Small -wonder Fort Lee shortly grew to be the popular studio town it did. - -In those days, movie conveyance for both actors and cargo was a bit -crude. We had no automobiles. When Jersey-bound, we’d dash from -wherever we lived to the nearest subway, never dreaming of spending -fifty cents on a taxi. We left our subway at the 125th Street station. -Down the escalator, three steps at a bound, we flew, and took up -another hike to the ferry building. And while we hiked this stretch we -wondered--for so far we had come breakfastless--if we would have time -for some nourishment before the 8:45 boat. - -A block this side of the ferry building was “Murphy’s,” a nice clean -saloon with a family restaurant in the back, where members of the -company often gathered for an early morning bite. We stuffed ourselves -until the clock told us to be getting to our little ferry-boat. Who -knew when or where we might eat again that day? - -“Ham,” Mr. Murphy’s best waiter, took care of us. As the hungry -breakfasters grew in number and regularity Mr. Murphy became -inquisitive. Mr. Murphy was right, we didn’t work on the railroad and -we didn’t drive trucks. So, who, inquired Mr. Murphy of Ham, might -these strange people be who ate so much and were so jolly in the early -morning? - -And Ham answered, “Them is moving picture people.” - -And Mr. Murphy replied, “Well, give them the best and lots of it.” - -We needed “the best and lots of it.” We needed regular longshoremen’s -meals. Outdoor picture work with its long hours meant physical -endurance in equal measure with artistic outpourings. - -Ham is still in Mr. Murphy’s service, but his job has grown rather dull -with the years. No more picture people to start the day off bright and -snappy. Now he only turns on the tap to draw a glass of Mr. Volstead’s -less than half of one per cent. - -“But I want to ask you something,” said Ham as I started to leave. - -“Yes?” - -“Would you tell me”--hushed and awed the tone--“did Mary Pickford ever -come in here?” - -“Oh, yes, Ham, she came sometimes.” - -“I told the boss so, I told him Mary Pickford had come here with them -picture people.” - -Whether Mary had or hadn’t, I didn’t remember, but I couldn’t deny Ham -that little bit of romance to cheer along his colorless to-days. - -Ham’s breakfast disposed of, we would rush to the ferry, seek our nook -in the boat, and enjoy a short laze before reaching the Jersey side. -At one of the little inns along the Hudson we rented a couple of rooms -where we made up and dressed. Soon would appear old man Brown and his -son, each driving a two-seated buggy. And according to what scenes -we were slated for, we would be told to pile in, and off we would be -driven to “location.” - -“Old Man Brown” was a garrulous, good-natured Irishman who regaled us -with tales of prominent persons who, in his younger days, had been his -patrons. How proud he was to tell of Lillian Russell’s weekly visit to -her daughter Dorothy who was attending a convent school up the Hudson! - -Speaking of “Old Man Brown” brings to mind “Hughie.” Hughie’s job was -to drive the express wagon which transported costumes, properties, -cameras, and tripods. In the studio, on the night preceding a day in -the country, each actor packed his costume and make-up box and got -it ready for Hughie. For sometimes in the early morning darkness of -4 A. M. Hughie would have to whip up his horses in front of 11 East -Fourteenth Street so as to be on the spot in Jersey when the actors -arrived via their speedier locomotion. - -Arrived on location, Johnny Mahr and Bobbie Harron would climb the -wagon, get out the costumes, and bring them to the actor. And if your -particular bundle did not arrive in double-quick time and you were in -the first or second scene, out you dashed and did a mad scramble on -to the wagon where you frantically searched. Suppose it had been left -behind! - -Hughie had a tough time of it trucking by two horsepower when winter -came along. So I was very happy some few years later, when calling on -Mr. Hugh Ford at the Famous Players’ old studio in West Fifty-sixth -Street, N. Y., now torn down, to find Hughie there with a comfortable -job “on the door.” - - * * * * * - -David Griffith was always overly fastidious about “location.” His -feeling for charming landscapes and his use of them in the movies was -a significant factor in the success of his early pictures. So we had -a “location” woman, Gene Gauntier, who dug up “locations” and wrote -scenarios for the princely wage of twenty-five dollars weekly. Miss -Gauntier will be eternally remembered as the discoverer of Shadyside. -Shades of Shadyside! with never a tree, a spot of green grass, or a -clinging vine; only sand, rocks, and quarries from which the baked heat -oozed unmercifully. - -Miss Gauntier’s aptitude along the location line, however, did -not satisfy her soaring ambition, so she left Biograph for Kalem. -Under Sidney Olcott’s direction, she played _Mary_ in his important -production “From the Manger to the Cross,” and was the heroine of some -charming Irish stories he produced in Ireland. - - * * * * * - -“The Redman and the Child” was the second picture Biograph’s new -director produced, and his first Indian picture. Charles Inslee was the -big-hearted Indian chief in the story and little Johnny Tansy played -the child. The picture made little Johnny famous. He had as much honor -as the movies of those days could give a child. Jackie Coogan was the -lucky kid to arrive in the world when he did. - -When the New Theatre (now the Century), sponsoring high-class -uncommercial drama opened, Johnny Tansy was the child wonder of the -company. Here he fell under the observant eye of George Foster Platt -and became his protégé. And so our Johnny was lost to the movies. - -We went to Little Falls, New Jersey, for “The Redman and the Child,” -which, at the time, was claimed to be “the very acme of photographic -art.” I’ll say we worked over that Passaic River. Mr. Griffith made it -yield its utmost. As there was so little money for anything pretentious -in the way of a studio set, we became a bit intoxicated with the -rivers, flowers, fields, and rocks that a munificent nature spread -before us, asking no price. - -My memories of working outdoors that first summer are not so pleasant. -We thought we were going to get cool, fresh air in the country, but the -muggy atmosphere that hung over the Hudson on humid August days didn’t -thrill us much. I could have survived the day better in the studio with -the breeze from our one electric fan. - -On Jersey days, work finished, back to our little Inn in a mad rush to -remove make-up, dress, and catch the next ferry. Our toilet was often -no more than a lick and a promise with finishing touches added as we -journeyed ferrywards along the river road in old man Brown’s buggy. - -[Illustration: Caudebec Inn at Cuddebackville. - - (_See p. 119_) -] - -[Illustration: From “The Mended Lute,” made at Cuddebackville, with -Florence Lawrence, Owen Moore and Jim Kirkwood. - - (_See p. 116_) -] - -[Illustration: Frank Powell, Mr. Griffith’s first $10-a-day actor, with -Marion Leonard in “Fools of Fate,” made at Cuddebackville. - - (_See p. 108_) -] - -[Illustration: Richard Barthelmess as _Arno_, the youngest son, with -Nazimova in “War Brides,” a Herbert Brennon production. The part that -put Dicky over. - - (_See p. 136_) -] - -Were we ever going anywhere but Fort Lee and Edgewater and Shadyside? -I do believe that first summer I was made love to on every rock and -boulder for twenty miles up and down the Hudson. - -Well, we did branch out a bit. We did a picture in Greenwich, -Connecticut. Driving to the station, our picture day finished, we -passed a magnificent property, hemmed in by high fences and protected -with beautiful iron gates. Signs read “Private Property. Keep Out.” -We heeded them not. In our nervous excitement (we were not calm about -this deed of valor) we kept away from the residence proper, and drove -to the outbuildings and the Superintendent’s office. Told him we’d been -working in the country near by and would appreciate it much if we could -come on the morrow and take some scenes; slipped him a twenty, and that -did the trick. - -There was nothing we had missed driving around Millbank, which, we -learned later, was the home of Mrs. A. A. Anderson, the well-known -philanthropist who passed away some few years ago. So on the morrow, -bright and early, we dropped anchor there, made up in one of the barns, -and were rehearsing nicely, being very quiet and circumspect, when down -the pathway coming directly toward us, with blood in her eye, marched -the irate Mrs. Anderson. Trembling and weak-kneed we looked about us. -Could we be hearing aright? Was she really saying those dreadful things -to us? Weakly we protested our innocence. Vain our explanation. And so -we folded our tents and meekly and shamefacedly slunk away. - -Before the summer was over we went to Seagate and Atlantic Highlands. -It wasn’t very pleasant at Atlantic Highlands, for here we encountered -the summer boarder. As they had nothing better to do, they would -see what we were going to do. We were generally being lovers, of -course, and strolling in pairs beneath a sunshade until we reached -the foreground, where we were to make a graceful flop onto the sandy -beach and play our parts beneath the flirtatious parasol. Before we -were ready to take the scene we had to put ropes up to keep back the -uninvited audience which giggled and tee-heed and commented loudly -throughout. We felt like monkeys in a zoo--as if we’d gone back to the -day when the populace jeered the old strolling players of Stratford -town. - -Mr. Griffith got badly annoyed when we had such experiences. His job -worried him, the nasty publicity of doing our work in the street, like -ditch diggers. So he had to pick on some one and I was handy. How -could _I_ stand for it? Why was _I_ willing to endure it? He _had_ to, -of course. So thinking to frighten me and make me a good girl who’d -stay home, he said: “Something has occurred to me; it’s probable this -business might get kind of public--some day, you know, you may get in -the subway and have all the people stare at you while they whisper to -each other, ‘That’s that girl we saw in the movie the other night.’ -_And how would you like that?_” - -One saving grace the Highlands had for us. We could get a swim -sometimes. And we discovered Galilee, a fishing village about twenty -miles down the coast, the locale of that first version of Enoch -Arden--“After Many Years.” - -But when winter came, though we lost the spectators we acquired other -discomforts. Our make-up would be frozen, and the dreary, cold, damp -rooms in the country hotels made us shivery and miserable. We’d -hurriedly climb into our costumes, drag on our coats, and then light -our little alcohol stove or candle to get the make-up sufficiently -smeary. When made up, out into the cold, crisp day. One of the men -would have a camp-fire going where we’d huddle between scenes and keep -limber enough to act. Then when ready for the scene Billy Bitzer would -have to light the little lamp that he attached to the camera on cold -days to warm the film so it wouldn’t be streaked with “lightning.” -While that was going on we stood at attention, ready to do our bit when -the film was. - -We weren’t so keen on playing leads on such days as those, for when you -are half frozen it isn’t so easy to look as if you were calmly dying -of joy, for which emotional state the script might be asking. What we -liked best in the winter was to follow Mack Sennett in the chases which -he always led, and which he made so much of, later, when he became the -big man in Keystone films. The chase warmed us up, for Mack Sennett -led us on some merry jaunts, over stone walls, down gulleys, a-top of -fences--whatever looked good and hard to do. - -Somehow we found it difficult to be always working with the weather. -Though we watched carefully it seemed there always were “summer” -stories to be finished, almost up to snow time; and “winter” stories in -the works when June roses were in bud. Pink swiss on a bleak November -day ’neath the leafless maple didn’t feel so good; nor did velvet and -fur and heavy wool in the studio in humid August. - -But such were the things that happened. We accepted them with a good -grace. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -AT THE STUDIO - - -This story must now take itself indoors. We are terribly excited over -Tolstoy’s “Resurrection.” So even though it be May, we must to the -studio where the carpenters and scene painters are fixing us a Siberia. - -As the days went by we produced many works of literary -masters--Dickens, Scott, Shakespeare, Bret Harte, O. Henry, and Frank -Norris. We never bothered about “rights” for the little one-reel -versions of five-act plays and eight hundred page novels. Authors and -publishers were quite unaware of our existence. - -Arthur Johnson, Owen Moore, and Florence Lawrence played the leading -parts in our “free adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s Powerful Novel.” And -it so happened that just as Prince Demetri was ready to don his fur -robes, and the poor exiles their woolen slips, for the trudge over the -snow-clad steppes, a nice hot spell came our way, and we must have been -the hottest Russians that ever endured Siberia. - -Owen Moore got so querulous with the heat--he was playing one of -those handsome, cruel officers who poke bayonets at the innocent and -well-behaved exiles--that he nearly killed us throwing tables and heavy -furniture at us. I objected to the realism. We were all a bit peevish, -what with the unseasonable heat and the last moment discovery that the -costumer had sent our wrapper-like dresses in sizes miles too large. - -The scene being set and rehearsals finished, there were left just -the few moments while the property man added the finishing touches -to the salt and flour snow (we had graduated from sawdust), to make -the costumes wearable. So another girl and I grabbed the lot and -rushed into a little Polish tailor shop in the basement next door and -borrowed the Polish tailor’s sewing machines so that we could put in -the necessary hems and pleats. Zip went the sewing machines--there was -no time to lose--for we could not afford two days of Russian exiles at -three dollars per day. - -Nine o’clock was the morning hour of bustle and busyness at 11 East -Fourteenth Street. But the actors in their eagerness to work were -on the job long before nine sometimes. They straggled along from -all directions. They even came by the horse-drawn surface car whose -obliging and curious conductors stopped directly in front of No. 11. - -And so curious became one conductor that he was not able to stand the -strain, and he quit his job of jerking Bessie’s reins, and got himself -a job as “extra.” Although the conductor’s identity was never fully -established, we had strong suspicions that it was Henry Lehrman, an -extra who had managed in a very short time to get himself called Pathé, -which was good for an Austrian. - -“Actors”--graduates from various trades and professions of uncertain -standing, and actors without acting jobs, lounged all over the place, -from the street steps where they basked on mild, sunny days, into -the shady hall where they kept cool on hot days; and had they made -acquaintance with studio life, they could be found in the privacy of -the men’s one dressing-room shooting craps--the pastime during the -waiting hours. - -An especially busy hour 9 A.M. when we were to start on a new picture. -What kind of a picture was it to be? The air was full of expectancy. -Who would be cast for the leads? How keen we were to work! How we hoped -for a good part--then for any kind of a part--then for only a chance -to rehearse a part. In their eagerness to get a good part in a movie, -the actors behaved like hungry chickens being fed nice, yellow corn, -knocking and trampling each other in their mad scramble for the best -bits. - -This Mr. Griffith did enjoy. He would draw his chair up center, and -leisurely, and in a rather teasing way, look the company over. And when -you were being looked at you thought, “Ah, it’s going to be me.” But -in a few minutes some one else would be looked at. “No, it was going -to be he.” A long look at Owen, a long look at Charlie, a long look -at Arthur, and then the director would speak: “Arthur, I’ll try you -first.” One by one, in the same way the company would be picked. There -would be a few rough rehearsals; some one wouldn’t suit; the chief -would decide the part was more in Owen’s line. Such nervousness until -we got all set! - -Indeed, we put forth our best efforts. There was too much competition -and no one had a cinch on a line of good parts. When we did “The -Cricket on the Hearth,” Mr. Griffith rehearsed all his women in the -part of _Dot_, Marion Leonard, Florence Lawrence, Violet Merserau, -and then he was nice to me. Miss Merserau, however, portrayed -_May Plummer_--making her movie début. Herbert Pryor played _John -Perrybingle_, and Owen Moore, _Edward Plummer_. - -Sometimes after rehearsing a story all day our director would chuck -it as “no good” and begin on another. He never used a script and -he rehearsed in sequence the scenes of every story until each scene -dovetailed smoothly, and the acting was O. K. He worked out his story -using his actors as chessmen. He knew what he wanted and the camera -never began to grind until every little detail satisfied him. - -There was some incentive for an actor to do his best. More was asked of -us than to be just a “type,” and the women couldn’t get by with just -“pretty looks.” We worked hard, but we liked it. With equal grace we -all played leads one day and decorated the back drop the next. On a day -when there would be no work whatever for you, you’d reluctantly depart. -Sometimes Mr. Griffith almost had to drive the non-working actors out -of the studio. The place was small and he needed room. - -Sometimes when rehearsing a picture he liked a lot, it would be as -late as 3 P.M. before a fainting, lunchless lot of actors would hear -those welcome words, “All right, everybody, get your lunches and make -up.” Then Bobbie Harron would circulate the Childs’ menu card and the -thirty-cent allotment would be checked off. Roast beef or a ham-and-egg -sandwich, pie, tea, coffee, or milk usually nourished us. And it was -a funny thing, that no matter how rich one was, or how one might have -longed for something different, even might have been ill and needed -something special, none of us ever dreamed of spending a nickel of his -own. - -While the actors ate and made up, and the carpenters were getting the -set ready, Mr. Griffith, accompanied by three or four or five or six -actors not on the working list that afternoon, would depart for a -restaurant near by. But no woman was ever invited to these parties. -This social arrangement obtained only on days when a new picture was -to be got under way. David Griffith was a generous host, but he always -got a good return on his investment. For while being strengthened on -luscious steak, steins of Pilsener, and fluffy German pancakes all done -up in gobs of melted butter, lemon juice, and powdered sugar, ideas -would sprout, and comments and suggestions come freely from the Knights -of Lüchow’s Round Table, and when the party was over they returned to -the studio all happy, and the director ready for a big day’s work. - -But the other actors, now made up and costumed but fed only on -sandwiches, were wearing expressions of envy and reproach which made -the returning jolly dogs feel a trifle uncomfortable. - -“Well, let’s get busy around here--wasting a hell of a lot of time--six -o’clock already--have to work all night now--now come on, we’ll run -through it--show me what you can do--Bitzer, where do you want them? -Come in and watch this, Doc.” Mr. Griffith was back on the job all -right. - -One such rehearsal usually sufficed. Then Johnny Mahr with his -five-foot board would get the focus and mark little chalk crosses -on the floor, usually four, two for the foreground and two for the -background. Then Johnny would hammer a nail into each cross and with -his ball of twine, tying it from nail to nail, enclose the set. Now -a rehearsal for “lines.” And when Bitzer would say it was O. K. and -Doc beamed his round Irish smile, we would take the picture, and God -help the actor who looked at the camera or at the director when he was -shouting instructions while the scene was being photographed. - -The old ways of doing were being revolutionized day by day with the -introduction of the close-up, switchback, light effects, and screen -acting that could be recognized as a portrayal of human conduct. -Exhibitors soon began clamoring for A. B. pictures, not only for the -U. S. A. but for foreign countries as well; and as Mr. Griffith had a -commission on every foot of film sold, it was an easy matter for us to -judge our ever-increasing popularity. - -The Biograph Company readily acknowledged its young director’s -achievements, and the other companies soon took cognizance of a new and -keen competitor. The first metropolitan showings began a rivalry with -the other companies. Once in the race, we were there to win--and we -did. Biograph pictures came to mean something just a little different -from what had been. There was a sure artistic touch to them; the fine -shadings were there that mark the line between talent and genius. - -David Griffith had found his place; found it long before he knew it. -In ways, it was a congenial berth. Mr. Marvin, once he saw how the -wind blew, seldom came into the studio. He was willing to let the new -producer work things out his own way. An occasional conference there -was, necessarily--a friendly chat as to how things were coming along. - -Mr. Marvin was tall and dark, quite a handsome man--so approachable. -The actors felt quite at ease with him. Had he not been one of us? -Had he not directed even Mr. Griffith in a penny-in-the-slot movie? -Years later I recalled the incident to Mr. Marvin. He had forgotten it -completely, but with a hearty laugh said: “No did I really? Well, God -forgive me.” - -“God forgive us all,” I answered. - -Liking Mr. Marvin as we did, we did not quite understand or approve the -sudden, unexpected intrusion of Mr. J. J. Kennedy, one day. - -“Oh, our _president_? Why, do you suppose,” the anxious actors queried, -“he’s become suddenly so interested?” What could poor movie actors be -expected to know of politics and high finance? Everything had been so -pleasant, we couldn’t understand it. We were rather awed by Mr. Kennedy -at first. Red-headed, pugnacious Irish Jeremiah--why, he never gave an -actor a smile or the faintest recognition, and feeling ourselves such -poor worms, as a result, we became nothing less than Sphinxes whenever -his rare but awe-inspiring presence graced the studio. - -But we soon learned that “fighting J. J.” was of some importance in -this movie business. And other things about him we learned: that he was -a big man in the world of engineering--a millionaire who lived in a -lovely brownstone in Brooklyn. We soon discovered he was human, too. - -It seemed Mr. Kennedy had had his affairs all settled to retire from -the world of business activities, when, in the critical days resulting -from the 1907 panic, he stepped into the breach and saved from -impending disaster the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. - -The little A. M. and B. Co. would have been terribly surprised had she -been told that she was to become the organization that would develop -some of the greatest of motion picture directors and stars--the -Augustin Daly stock company of the movies. For while there is never the -grind of its preposterous old camera to be heard in the length of the -land to-day, while for years (at the time of writing this, nearly ten) -all its wheels of activity have been silent, “The Old Biograph” remains -as the most romantic memory, the most vital force in the early history -of the American motion picture. - -The association with these two scholarly gentlemen Messrs. Kennedy -and Marvin, unusual then as to-day in the picture business, helped to -soften the crudities of the work, and tone down the apparent rough -edges of our job. So considerate of our tender feelings were both Mr. -Marvin and Mr. Kennedy, that when either desired to visit or bring -interested friends into the studio, they would ask Mr. Griffith for -a propitious moment, and then stand off in the background as though -apologizing for the intrusion. - -Mr. Griffith, but not by way of retaliation, had reason to make -intrusions on his bosses. He went pleading the cause of better screen -stories. For that was the ticklish point--to raise our artistic -standard--not to depart too rapidly from the accepted--and to keep our -product commercial. - -David Griffith began feeling his wings. He dared to consider a -production of Browning’s “Pippa Passes.” If just once he could do -something radical to make the indifferent legitimate actors, critics, -writers, and a better class of public take cognizance of us! So there -resulted long discussions with the Biograph executives as to the -advisability of Browning in moving pictures, and after much persuasion -consent was eventually granted. - -There was no question in our minds as to whether “Pippa Passes” would -be an artistic success. Had this classic writer fashioned his famous -poem directly for the movies he couldn’t have turned out a better -screen subject. But might not the bare idea of the high-brow Robert -scare away the moving picture public? - -In those days there were several kinds of motion picture publics. In -sections of New York City, there was the dirty, dark little store, -a sheet at one end and the projection machine at the other. It took -courage to sit through a show in such a place, for one seldom escaped -without some weary soul finding a shoulder the while he indulged in -forty winks. Besides this there were the better-known Keith and Proctor -Theatres on Fourteenth Street, Twenty-third, and 125th Street, the -Fourteenth Street Theatre, and the old Academy of Music. - -In the smaller American cities, the motion picture public was of -middle-class homey folks who washed their own supper dishes in a hurry -so as to see the new movie, and to meet their neighbors who, like -themselves, dashed hatless to the nickelodeon, dragging along with them -the children and the dog. - -Things like this happened, when dinner hour was approaching, and mother -was anxiously awaiting her child: the neighborhood policeman would -casually saunter over to the picture house, poke his head in at the -door, spy the wanted child, tap her little shoulder, gently reproving: -“Jennie, your mother wants you”--whereupon Jennie would reluctantly -tear herself away so that the family could all sit down together to -their pot-roast and noodles. - -Yes, Browning would need courage. - -“Pippa Passes” being ever in Mr. Griffith’s mind these days, he scanned -each new face in the studio as he mulled over the needed characters. -The cast would be the best possible one he could get together. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -MARY PICKFORD HAPPENS ALONG - - -It was a bright May morning in 1909. When I came off the scene, I -noticed a little girl sitting quietly in a corner near the door. She -looked about fourteen. I afterwards learned she was nearing seventeen. -She wore a plain navy-blue serge suit, a blue-and-white striped lawn -shirtwaist, a rolled brim Tuscan straw sailor hat with a dark blue -ribbon bow. About her face, so fresh, so pretty, and so gentle, bobbed -a dozen or more short golden curls--such perfect little curls as I had -never seen. - -A timid applicant usually hugged the background. Bold ones would press -forward to the camera and stand there, obtruding themselves, in the -hope that the director would see them, like their look, and engage them -for a day’s work. - -But Mary Pickford tucked herself away in a niche, while she quietly -gave us “the once over.” The boss’s eagle eye had been roving her -way at intervals, the while he directed, for here was something -“different”--a maid so fair and an actress to boot! Pausing a moment in -his work, he came over to me and said, “Don’t you think she would be -good for Pippa?” - -“Ideal,” I answered. - -Before we closed shop that day, he had Mary make up--gave her a violin, -and told her to walk across the stage while playing it so that Billy -Bitzer could make a test. - -Before she left the studio that day, every actor there had a “line” on -Mary. In the dressing-room, the word went around: - -“There’s a cute kid outside; have you seen her?” - -“No, where is she?” - -“She’s been sitting out there in a corner by herself.” - -“Guess I’ll take a look.” - -“She’s cute all right; they’re taking a test.” - -Something was impending. There was excitement and expectancy in the -air. America’s Sweetheart was soon to make her first screen appearance. - -The test was O. K. and Mary was told to come to the studio on the -morrow. David promised her five dollars a day for her first picture, -and were her work good, he’d talk business with her. That satisfied -Mary. - -As “Giannina,” the pretty daughter of Taddeo Ferrari, in “The Violin -Maker of Cremona” Mary Pickford made her motion picture début. She was -ideally suited to the part, and had good support from David Miles as -the cripple Filippo. - -The studio bunch was all agog over the picture and the new girl, long -before the quiet word was passed to the regulars a few days later: -“Projection room, they’re going to run ‘The Violin Maker.’” After -the showing, Mr. Griffith had a serious conversation with Mary and -offered her twenty-five dollars a week for three days’ work. This Mary -accepted. She felt she might stay through the summer. - -Her second picture was “The Lonely Villa,” the brain child of Mack -Sennett, gleaned from a newspaper--good old-fashioned melodrama. Mary -played a child of twelve with two younger sisters and a mother. They -were nice people, and wealthy. Miss Leonard, playing the mother, would -be beautifully arrayed in the brown-silk-and-velvet. But what could be -done for Mary? She had no clothes fit for the wealthy little aristocrat -she was to portray and there was nothing in the meager stock wardrobe -for her. “Oh, she’s so pretty,” I said to my husband, “can’t we dress -her up? She’ll just be darling in the right kind of clothes.” So he -parted with twenty dollars from the cash register and trusted me to -dispose of it at Best’s--then on Twenty-third Street--for a proper -wardrobe. Off I went on my joyful errand, and brought back to the -studio a smart pale blue linen frock, blue silk stockings to match, and -nifty patent leather pumps. What a dainty little miss she looked, her -fluffy curls a-bobbing, when she had donned the new pretties! - -During the dreary waits between scenes, there being no private -dressing-rooms, actors would be falling all over each other, and they -could find seclusion only by digging themselves in behind old and -unused scenery. Owen Moore was especially apt in hiding himself. He had -an unfriendly way of disappearing. None of the herd instinct in him. -At times we had quite a job locating him. Cruising along the back drop -of a Coney Island Police Court, or perhaps a section of the Chinese -wall, we’d innocently stumble upon him. But we didn’t need to hunt -him the day that Mary Pickford was all dressed up in Best & Company’s -best. That day he never left the camera stand, and his face was all one -generous Irish smile. (How little we know when our troubles are going -to begin!) - -Following “The Lonely Villa” came “The Way of Man” and then a series of -comedies in which Mary was teamed with Billy Quirk, “Sweet and Twenty,” -“They Would Elope,” “His Wife’s Visitors.” - -Though Mary Pickford affiliated with the movies for twenty-five dollars -weekly with the understanding that she would work three days a week and -play “parts” only, she was a good sport and would come in as an “extra” -in a scene if we needed her. So occasionally in a courtroom scene, or -a church wedding where the camera was set up to get the congregation -or spectators from the rear, Mary could attend with perfect safety as -the Pickford curls, from the back of her head, would never have been -recognized by the most enthusiastic fan of that day. Mr. Griffith would -not have his “Mary” a “super.” - -Considering the stellar position she has held for years, and her -present-day affluence, many movie fans may think that Mary Pickford -was kissed by the fairies when she was born. Not so. Life’s hard -realities--the understanding of her little family’s struggles to make -both ends meet when she was even as young as Jackie Coogan at the time -of his first appearance with Charlie Chaplin in “The Kid”--that was her -fairy’s kiss--that and her mother’s great love for her. - -Of course, such idolatry as Mrs. Smith gave her first-born might have -made of her a simpering silly, or worse. But Gladys Smith (as Mary -Pickford was born) was pretty--and she had talent and brains. So what -wonder if Mother Smith often sat all through the night at her child’s -bedside, not wanting to sleep, but only to worship her beautiful -daughter? - -Mary told me her story in our early intimate days together in the -movies. With her little gang she was playing in the streets of Toronto -where she was born, perhaps playing “bean bag”--she was indeed young -enough for that. - -[Illustration: From “Wark” to “work,” with only the difference of a -vowel. - - (_See p. 185_) -] - -[Illustration: Biograph’s one automobile (note D. W. G. on door), in -front of Old Redonda Hotel. - - (_See p. 185_) -] - -[Illustration: Annie Lee. From “Enoch Arden,” the first two-reel -picture. - - (_See p. 195_) -] - -[Illustration: Jeanie Macpherson, Frank Grandin, Linda Griffith and -Wilfred Lucas, in “Enoch Arden.”] - -[Illustration: The vessel that was towed from San Pedro. From “Enoch -Arden.”] - -[Illustration: The Norwegian’s shack, the scene of Enoch’s departure. -From “Enoch Arden.”] - -In frock coat and silk hat an advance agent was looking over the -prospects for business in the town, and at the same time looking for a -few kids needed in his show. His eye caught pretty little Gladys Smith. -Would Mama let her play at the opera house? - -“Let’s ask Mama.” - -Mama, the young Mrs. Smith, consented. Seeing that, a very few years -afterwards, through an accident on the St. Lawrence River boat on which -her husband worked, Mama was suddenly left a young widow with three -tiny youngsters to support, her consent that day proved to be one of -those things just meant to be. - -With the Valentine Stock Company in her home town when only five, Mary -played her first part, _Cissy_ in “The Silver King.” In 1902, Mary was -already a “star,” playing _Jessie_ in “The Fatal Wedding.” The season -of 1904 found Gladys Smith, then twelve years old, playing leading -parts, such as _Dolly_ in “The Child Wife,” a play written by Charles -Taylor, first husband to Laurette and the father of her two children. -The following season Gladys Smith created the part of _Freckles_ in -“The Gypsy Girl,” written by Hal Reid, father of the popular and much -loved Wallace Reid. Gladys Smith’s salary was then forty dollars per -week and she sent her mother, who was living in Brooklyn, fifteen -dollars weekly for her support. In 1906 the Smith family toured with -Chauncey Olcott in “Edmund Burke.” But it was as the little boy _Patsy -Poor_ in “New York Life” that Mary’s chance came for better things. - -David Belasco had told Gladys he would give her a hearing. And so the -day came when on the dark and empty Stage of the Republic Theatre, -a chair her only “support,” Gladys did Patsy’s death scene for -Mr. Belasco and he thought so well of it that she was engaged for -Charlotte Walker’s younger sister _Betty_ in “The Warrens of Virginia.” - -So “The Warrens of Virginia” with Gladys Smith, rechristened by Mr. -Belasco “Mary Pickford” (a family name) came and went. The magic wand -of Belasco had touched Mary, but magic wands mean little when one needs -to eat. “The Warrens of Virginia” finished its run, and Mary, her -seventeen years resting heavily upon her, was confronted with the long -idle summer and the nearly depleted family exchequer. So arrived the -day in the late spring, when from the weary round of agencies and with -faint hope of signing early for next season little Mary wandered to the -old Biograph studio at 11 East Fourteenth Street. - -Such a freshly sweet and pretty little thing she was, that her chances -of not being engaged were meagre. Since that day when she first cast -her lot with the movies--that day in June, 1909, when the Pickford -releases so inauspiciously started, they have continued with only -one interruption. That was in January, 1913, when in David Belasco’s -production of “The Good Little Devil,” she co-starred with Ernest -Truex. What an exciting day at the studio it was when it was discovered -that Mr. Belasco was up in the projection room seeing some of Mary’s -pictures! - -Mary’s return to the legitimate was a clever move. It made for -publicity and afterward served her, despite the shortness of the -engagement, as a qualification for becoming an Adolph Zukor-Famous -Player. - -Mr. Zukor established his “Famous Players” through the production of -“Queen Elizabeth,” the first feature picture with a famous player, the -player being no less a personage than the divine Sara Bernhardt. This -was in 1912. So when Mary Pickford became a Famous Player, it caused -considerable comment. However, she has become the most famous of all -the Famous Players engaged by Mr. Zukor. - -And as for Famous Players, long before Adolph Zukor’s day, they had -been appearing before a movie camera. As far back as 1903 Joseph -Jefferson played in his famous “Rip Van Winkle” for the American -Mutoscope and Biograph Company. And Sara Bernhardt appeared as -_Camille_, in the Eclair Company’s two-reel production of the Dumas -play in 1911. - -Mary Pickford did not reach the peak of fame and affluence without her -“ifs.” When the first fall came, and little Mary had not connected up -with a legitimate job, she said to me one day: “Miss Arvidson, we have -just fifty dollars in the bank for all of us, and I’m worried to death. -I want to get back on the stage. Of course, the pictures are regular, -but if I had enough put away, I’d get out.” - -Another day: “If I stay in the movies I know I will just be ruined for -the stage--the acting is so different--and I never use my voice. Do you -think it will hurt me if I stay in the pictures any longer?” - -“Well, Mary,” I answered, “I cannot advise you. We all just have to -take our chances.” - -Good fortune it was for the movies, for her family and for her, -that she stayed. In the beginning she encountered practically no -competition. Not until dainty Marguerite Clark left the field of -the legitimate in 1913 and appeared in her first charming photoplay -“Wildflower” did Miss Pickford ever need to bother her little head -over anything as improbable as a legitimate competitor in a field -where she had reigned as queen undisputed and unchallenged. - -It is often asked whether Mary Pickford is a good business woman. My -opinion is that she’s a very good business woman. And I am told that -she had a head for business as far back as the days of _Patsy Poor_. -She must have an understudy and no one but sister Lottie was going to -be that understudy. Lottie stayed the season even though no emergency -where she could have officiated, presented itself. - -I know Mary brought a business head with her to Biograph. Mr. Griffith -had told her if she’d be a good sport about doing what little -unpleasant stunts the stories might call for, he would raise her -salary. The first came in “They Would Elope,” some two months after her -initiation. - -The scene called for the overturning of the canoe in which the elopers -were escaping down the muddy Passaic. Not a second did Mary demur, but -obediently flopped into the river. The scene over, wet and dirty, the -boys fished her out and rushed her, wrapped in a warm blanket, to the -waiting automobile. - -It was the last scene of the day--we reserved the nasty ones for the -finish. Mary’s place in the car was between my husband and myself. -Hardly were we comfortably settled, hardly had the chauffeur time to -put the car in “high,” before Mary with all the evidence of her good -sportsmanship so plainly visible, naïvely looked up into her director’s -face and sweetly reminded him of his promise. She got her raise. And I -got the shock of my young life. That pretty little thing with yellow -curls thinking of money like that! - -Later, when Carl Laemmle had bucked the General Film Company with the -organization of his independent company, the “Imp,” he enticed Mary -away from the Biograph by an offer of twenty-five dollars a week over -her then one hundred weekly salary. Mary was still under legal age, so -Owen Moore, to whom Mary had been secretly married, had to sign the -contract. He with several other “Biographers” had gone over to the -“Imp.” Mrs. Smith with Lottie and Jack still clung to the Biograph. -Mid anguished tears Mrs. Smith showed me the contract, and in a broken -voice said: “What’s to become of Mary at that awful ‘Imp’ with no one -to direct her? How could she have been influenced to leave Mr. Griffith -for only twenty-five dollars extra and not even consult her mother? -What good will the twenty-five dollars do with her career ruined?” - -But the break did not hurt Mary. It helped her. She soon sued the -“Imp,” claiming that her artistic career was being ruined as she was -being forced to act with carpenters. That was the story according to -the dailies. Shortly afterward she was back at Biograph with another -twenty-five dollar weekly advance in her salary. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -ACQUIRING ACTORS AND STYLE - - -Through conflicting emotions and varying decisions and an -ever-increasing interest and faith in the new work, Biograph’s first -movie actors stuck. With Mary Pickford pictures winning favor, David -Griffith became ambitious for new talent, and as the right sort didn’t -come seeking, _he_ decided to go seeking. He’d dash out of the studio -while the carpenters were putting up a new set, jump into a taxi, call -at the different dramatic agencies, and ask had they any actors who -might like to work in moving pictures at ten dollars a day! - -At one of these agencies--Paul Scott’s--he arrived just as a -good-looking manly sort of chap was about to leave. - -“That’s the type I want.” - -Mr. Scott replied, “Well, I’ll introduce you.” - -Mr. Griffith lost no time in telling the personable Frank Powell about -the movies, and offering the new salary, secured his services. - -With his fair bride, Eleanor Hicks, who had been playing “leads” with -Ellen Terry, while he stage managed, Mr. Powell had just returned from -England. But Miss Terry and London triumphs were now of the past, and -Mr. Powell was glad enough to end the tiresome hunt for a job, and his -temporary money worries by becoming the first actor to be engaged by -Mr. Griffith at the fancy price of ten dollars a day. Mr. Powell was -well worth the ten for he had good presence, clean-cut features, and -wore good clothes. He became our leading aristocrat, specializing in -brokers, bankers, and doctors--the cultured professional man. David -soon saw that he could take over little responsibilities and relieve -him of many irksome details not concerned with the dramatic end. So -he became the first assistant, and then a director of comedies--the -first--under Mr. Griffith’s supervision. - -In time he went with William Fox as director. He discovered the -screen’s first famous vamp, Theda Bara. Against Mr. Fox’s protests--for -Mr. Fox wanted a well-known movie player--Frank Powell selected the -unknown Theda from among the extras to play Mr. Kipling’s famous -lady in “A Fool There Was,” because she was a strange-looking person -who wore queer earrings and dresses made of odd tapestry cloths. -The picture made William Fox his first big money in the movies, and -established his place in the motion picture world. - -“His Duty” was Frank Powell’s first picture. In the cast were Owen -Moore and Kate Bruce. “The Cardinal’s Conspiracy”--the name we -gave to “Richelieu”--marked Mr. Powell’s first important screen -characterization. It was taken at Greenwich, Connecticut, on Commodore -Benedict’s magnificent estate, _Indian Harbor_. Soon came “The Broken -Locket” which had a nice part for Kate Bruce. - -Fortunate “Brucie,” as her confrères call her! She seems never to have -had to hunt a job since that long ago day when D. W. Griffith picked -her as a member of the old Biograph Stock Company. Little bits or big -parts mattered nothing to “Brucie” as long as she was working with us. - -David hunted movie recruits not only at the dramatic agencies, but also -at the Lambs and Players Clubs of New York City. It was at the Lambs -he found James Kirkwood, and determined right off to get him down to -the studio. He had to be subtle. He never knew what mighty indignation -might be hurled at him for simply suggesting “movie acting” to a -legitimate actor. But Jim Kirkwood made good his promise to come, and -no effort was spared to make the visit both pleasant and impressive. - -I always thought we were a rather well-behaved lot--there was rather -strict discipline maintained at all times. But on this occasion we -old troupers were told to “sit pretty,” to be quiet and stay in the -dressing-room if there were no scenes being taken in which we were -working, and if we were called upon to work, to please just “work” and -not be sociable. Our director seemed to be somewhat ashamed of his -faithful old crew. So the studio remained hushed and awed--a solemn -dignity pervaded it. In the dressing-room, those who didn’t know what -was going on said, “Why are you all so quiet?” - -“Oh, don’t you know?” we sang in unison. “There’s a Broadway actor out -there, from the _Henry Miller Company_.” - -“_Oh, you don’t say so!_” - -The effect was funniest on Mack Sennett. He wore a satirical smile that -spoke volumes. For he had divined that these “up-stage” new actors were -to get more than five per day; besides, he was getting few enough parts -as things were, now where _would_ he be? - -“Lord Jim” was certainly treated with great deference. He was shown -several scenes “in the taking,” and then escorted upstairs to see some -of Mary Pickford’s pictures. The Cook’s tour over, Mr. Kirkwood agreed -to appear in the movies. - -A slow, easy manner had Jim Kirkwood, which with underlying strength -made for good screen technique. Early June was the time of his -first release, “The Message,” in which picture as _David Williams_ -he portrayed the honest, big-hearted farmer. Mr. Kirkwood, the -diamond-in-the-rough type, was honest and big-hearted through all his -movie career. He was the heroic Indian, as in “Comata, the Sioux”; the -brave fisherman as in “Lines of White on a Sullen Sea”--the latter one -of Stanner E. V. Taylor’s early classic efforts which was taken in the -little fishing village of Galilee in October, 1909. - -Harriet Quimby, now established as a journalist, came down to visit. -Thought it would be good fun to act in a scene, so she played a village -fishermaiden and thus qualified as a picture actress for her other more -thrilling performance two years later. I was with her that time, on -the flying field at Dover, where Bleriot had landed on the very first -Channel crossing, and where she was to “take off” for France. Gaumont -took a five-hundred-foot picture of the flight, titling it “The English -Channel Flown by a LADY AVIATOR for the First Time.” - -The day Harriet Quimby flew the English Channel brought sad news -to the world, for that appalling disaster--the sinking of the -_Titanic_--occurred. It also brought a personal sadness to the -Biograph, for Mr. Marvin’s youngest son, who was returning from his -honeymoon, was lost. Before the happy couple had sailed, a moving -picture of the wedding had been taken in the studio. - -It was not long after his initiation that Mr. Kirkwood brought a fellow -Lamb, Mr. Walthall, to the studio. He had been one of the three “bad -men” with Mr. Kirkwood in “The Great Divide,” which play had just -finished its New York run. Mr. Griffith, an Italian costume picture -on the ways, was snooping around for an actor who not only could look -but also act an Italian troubadour. When he met Henry Walthall of the -dark, curly hair, the brown eyes, the graceful carriage, he rested -content. “The Sealed Room” was the name of the screened emotion that -put Mr. Walthall over in the movies. Wally’s acting proved to be the -most convincing of its type so far. He was very handsome in his silk -and velvet, and gold trappings, with a bejeweled chain around his neck, -and a most adorable little mustache. - -It was foreordained that the Civil War should have a hearing very soon. -There was Kentucky, David Griffith’s birth state, calling, and there -in our midst was the ideal southerner, Henry Walthall. And so after a -few weeks the first “Stirring Episode of the Civil War”--a little movie -named “In Old Kentucky”--was rushed along. In the picture were Mary -Pickford, Owen Moore, Kate Bruce, and many lesser lights. It was a long -time back that Mr. Walthall started on his career of “Little Colonels.” -He portrayed many before he climaxed them with his great “Little -Colonel” in “The Birth of a Nation!” - -A remarkable trio--Frank Powell, Jim Kirkwood, and Henry Walthall--such -distinct types. Though they all owned well-tailored dress suits, -Frank Powell’s was featured most often. Henry Walthall, suggestive -of romance, had fewer opportunities; and rugged Jim Kirkwood only -occasionally was permitted to don his own soup-and-fish and look -distingué. - -With the acquisition of the ten-dollar-a-day actor, we seemed to -acquire a new dignity. No doubt about recruits fresh from Broadway -lending tone--although the original five-per-day actors, who were still -getting the same old five, looked with varying feelings of resentment -and delight at their entrance. We old ones figured that for all our -faithfulness and hard work, we might have been raised right off to -ten dollars, too. But at least there was hope in that ten per--the -proposition looked better now with salaries going up, and actors coming -to stay, and willing to forego the dazzling footlights and the sweet -applause of the audience. - -Having reached ten-dollars-a-day, it didn’t take so long to climb to -twenty--undreamed extravagance--but good advertising along the Rialto -and at the Lambs Club. “Twenty dollars a day? It listens well--the -movies must have financial standing, anyway,” the legitimate concluded. - -Occasionally, Frank Craven, since famous as the author of many -successful Broadway plays, came down and watched pictures being made. -While he personally didn’t care about the movies, through him Jack -Standing came down and jobbed at twenty per. Through friendship for Mr. -and Mrs. Frank Powell, with whom he had acted in Ellen Terry’s company, -David Powell entered the fold for twenty per. Even though money -tempted, the high-class actor came more readily through friendship for -some one already “in” than as a cold business proposition. Our movie -money was talking just the same. - -But hard as it was to get men, it was much harder to get women. They -would not leave that “drammer” (how they loved it!) to work in a dingy -studio with no footlights, no admiring audience to applaud them, and no -pretty make-ups. - -Only occasionally did I accompany my husband on a tour of the dramatic -agencies, for our manner to each other was still a most unmarried one. -I’d wait in the taxi while he went up to the different offices to see -if he could entice some fair feminine. But, after each visit, back he’d -plump into the taxi so distressed, “I can get men, but I cannot get -women; they simply won’t come.” - -Well, if he couldn’t lure ladies from the agencies, he’d grab them off -the street. With Austin Webb, an actor friend who has since left the -stage for promotion of oil and skyscrapers, he was strolling along -Broadway one day when a little black-haired girl passed by accompanied -by her mother. - -“Now that’s the kind of girl I’m looking for,” said Mr. Griffith. - -Mr. Webb answered: “Well, why not speak to her? She’s an actress, you -can bet your hat on that.” - -But the movie director having a certain position to maintain, and not -wanting to be misunderstood, hesitated. Mr. Webb volunteered, stepped -up to and asked the girl would she like to work in a moving picture. -Prompt her reply, “Oh, I’d love to, I just love pictures.” The “girl” -was Marion Sunshine of the then vaudeville team of Sunshine and -Tempest. She was quite a famous personality to be in Biograph movies at -this time. - -Now Austin Webb, who during David Griffith’s movie acting days had -loaned him his own grand wardrobe, was one who might have become a -big movie star. David implored him to try it, but he was skeptical. -It took sporting blood to plunge moviewards in the crude days of our -beginnings. Who could tell which way the thing would flop? - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -CUDDEBACKVILLE - - -I was not one of the select few who made the first trip to -Cuddebackville, New York. I had been slated for a visit to my husband’s -folks in Louisville, Kentucky, and while there this alluring adventure -was slipped over on me. - -A new picture was being started out at Greenwich, Connecticut, at -Commodore Benedict’s, the day I was leaving, and as I was taking a late -train, I was invited out on a farewell visit, as it were. - -The picture was “The Golden Supper,” taken from Tennyson’s “Lover’s -Tale.” I arrived just in time for the Princess’s royal funeral. Down -the majestic stairway of the Commodore’s palatial home, the cortège -took its way, escorting on a flower-bedecked stretcher, in all her -pallid beauty, the earthly remains of the dead little princess. - -Now in the movies, if anywhere, a princess must be beautiful. I knew -not who was playing this fair royal child until the actors put the bier -down, and the princess sat up, when I was quite dumbfounded to see our -own little Dorothy West come to life. - -Dorothy had done nicely times before as a little child of the ghetto -and as frail Italian maids of the peasant class, and now here she was a -full-fledged princess. So, in my amazement, I said to my husband, for -it was a sincere, impersonal interest in the matter that I felt: “Is -Dorothy West playing the Princess? Aren’t you taking a chance?” With -great assurance he answered, “Oh, with the photography we now have, I -can make them all beautiful.” - -Next day, as the lovely Shenandoah Valley spread out before me, I kept -hearing those startling words, “Oh, with the photography we now have, I -can make them all beautiful.” - -“The Mended Lute” was perhaps the first picture produced with the -inspiring background of Cuddebackville scenery. Florence Lawrence, -Owen Moore, and Jim Kirkwood the leading actors. David wrote me to -Louisville on his return to New York: - - DEAR LINDA: - - Well, I am back in New York. Got back at twelve o’clock last - night.... I have accounts to make out for eight days, imagine that - job, can you? - - Haven’t had my talk with Mr. Kennedy as yet, as I have been away, - but expect to on Tuesday or Wednesday as soon as I can see him. - Lost six pounds up in the country, hard work, if you please.... - - And then I want to go back to that place again and take you - this time because it’s very fine up there. I am saving a great - automobile ride for you--if I stay.... - -“If I stay”--always that “if.” A year had now rolled by and in August -Mr. Griffith would sign his second contract--_if_ he stayed. - -The hegira to Cuddebackville had been undertaken to show Biograph -officials what could be done by just forgetting the old stamping -grounds adjacent to Fort Lee. Contract-signing time approaching, Mr. -Griffith wanted to splurge. A number of scripts had collected that -called for wild mountainous country, among them “The Mended Lute.” -Mr. Kennedy and our secretary, Mr. R. H. Hammer; Mr. Griffith and -his photographer, Mr. Bitzer, sitting in conference had decided upon -a place up in the Orange Mountains called Cuddebackville. It had -scenic possibilities, housing facilities, and lacked summer boarders. -Through an engineering job--the construction of a dam at one end of -the old D. L. and W. Canal, on whose placid waters in days gone by the -elder Vanderbilt had towed coal to New York--Mr. Kennedy had become -acquainted with Cuddebackville. - -Unsuspecting sleepy little village, with your one small inn, your -general store, and your few stray farms! How famous on the map of movie -locations you were to become! How famous in many lands your soft, green -mountains, your gently purling streams, your fields of corn! - -“The Mended Lute” would be Mr. Griffith’s catch-penny. The beauties he -had crowded in the little one-reeler should suffice to bowl over any -unsuspecting President. So this “Cuddebackville Special,” along with -several others that had collected awaiting Mr. Kennedy’s pleasure, was -projected for the authorities. And David signed up for another year at -an increase in salary and a doubling of his percentage. And he could go -to Cuddebackville whenever he so desired. - -Of course, the next time _she_ went, and she had that “great automobile -ride” that he was saving for her. - -Joy, but didn’t they become delirious, the actors slated for a -Cuddebackville week. A week in the mountains in August, with no hotel -bill, and pay checks every day! Few there were so ultra modern that -they would take no joy in the bleating of the lambs but would prefer -their city third floor back. - -Much preparation for such a week. We had to see that our best blouse -was back from the laundry and our dotted swiss in order for evening, -our costumes right, and grease-paint complete, for any of us might be -asked to double up for Indians before the week was over. - -It was a five-hour trip--a pretty one along the Hudson to West -Point--then through the Orange Mountains. Our journey ended at a little -station set in a valley sweet with tasseled corn and blossoming white -buckwheat. In the distance--mountains; near by--beckoning roads lined -with maples. It was the longest stop that an Ontario and Western train -had ever made at Cuddebackville. Such excitement and such a jam on -the little platform! No chance to slink in unnoticed as on the first -unpretentious visit. - -“Were we sure it was the right place?” the conductor kept asking. - -“Oh, yes, quite so.” - -Damned if he could make it out. For we didn’t look like farmers come -to settle in the country; nor like fishermen come to cast for trout in -the Neversink--we had nothing with us that resembled expensive fishing -rods and boots; nor did we look like a strange religious sect come to -worship in our own way. No, nor might we have been one of a lost tribe -of Cuddebacks who after years of vain searching had at last discovered -the remote little spot where the first Monsieur Caudebec had pitched -his tent so far from his own dear France. As the train steamed on its -way, from the rear platform the conductor was still gazing, and I -thought he threw us a rather dirty look. - -[Illustration: The most artistic fireside glow of the early days. From -“The Drunkard’s Reformation,” with Linda Griffith, Arthur Johnson and -Adele De Garde. - - (_See p. 128_) -] - -[Illustration: The famous “light effect.” From “Pippa Passes,” with -Gertrude Robinson. - - (_See p. 97_) -] - -An express wagon was waiting for our load of stuff--big wads of -canvas for the teepees, cameras, and costume baskets. A man in a red -automobile was also waiting--Mr. Predmore, who owned Caudebec Inn where -we were to stop. Mr. Griffith and Mr. Bitzer and a few other of the -important personages took their places in the automobile--the second -in the county--the “Red Devil” we afterwards called it. The actors -straggled along. - -[Illustration: From “The Mills of the Gods,” with Linda Griffith and -Arthur Johnson. - - (_See p. 49_) -] - -[Illustration: Biograph’s first Western studio. Scene from “The -Converts,” with Linda Griffith, Arthur Johnson and Marion Leonard. - - (_See p. 150_) -] - -Caudebec Inn was no towering edifice--just a comfy place three stories -high, with one bathroom, a tiny parlor, rag-rugged, and a generously -sized dining-room whose cheerful windows looked upon apple orchards. -It was neat and spotlessly clean. On two sides were broad piazzas. The -inn faced the basin at the head of the old D. L. and W. Canal, and the -canal took its pretty way alongside for a mile or more until it spilled -itself over a busted dam (Mr. Kennedy’s I opined--it was the only one -about), making lovely rapids which later we used in many a thriller. - -It was extremely fortunate that we were the only guests. We filled the -place. Such a thing as an actor having a room to himself, let alone a -bed, was as yet unheard of in those vagrant days. Mr. Powell doubled -and sometimes tripled them. Some actors got awfully Ritzy, resenting -especially the tripling, and at night would sneak downstairs hoping to -find a nice vacant hammock on the porch. But that had all been looked -into. The hammock would be occupied by some lucky devil whose snores -were being gently wafted on the soft summer breezes. Three in a bed, -two in a cot, or two in a hammock--the stringy old-fashioned kind of -hammock--which would offer the better comfort? - -Immediately after lunch, the boss and Billy Bitzer, with Mr. Predmore -at the wheel, would depart in “The Red Devil” on a location hunt. The -carpenters must get right to work on their stockade. The actors were -soon busy digging out costumes and grease paint boxes, and getting made -up and costumed; for as soon as the chief returned, he would want to -grab a couple of scenes if the light still held. The making up was not -a quiet process. As the actors acquired brown grease paint and leather -trappings, animal skins and tomahawks--what a pow-wow! - -When the Cuddeback farmer first met the Biograph Indian, “Gad,” thought -he, “what was the world coming to anyhow? Moving picture people? Smart -folks to have found their Cuddebackville. Who’d have believed it? New -York City actors riding up and down their roads, and stopping off to do -wicked stage acting right in front of their best apple tree.” - -“Hey there, Hiram, how’ll five bucks suit you?” - -Hiram was a bit deaf. - -“No? Ten? All right, here she is.” - -Hiram we won completely. He hoped we’d come often. And the Big Farmer’s -“help” were with us heart and soul. We sometimes used them for -“extras” and paid them five dollars. Back to the farm at five per week -after that? No, they’d wait and loaf until the “picture people” came -again. The picture people nearly demoralized the farming business in -Cuddebackville and environs--got the labor situation in a terrible mess. - - * * * * * - -There was need for a stone house in “1776” or “The Hessian Renegades,” -and for “Leather Stocking”--a genuine pre-revolutionary stone house. -Three saddle horses were also needed. For the moment we were stumped. - -Toward late afternoon when the light began to fail us, we would utilize -the time hunting the morrow’s locations. This fading hour found Billy -Bitzer, David, and myself (myself still in Janice Meredith costume and -curls of “1776”) enjoying the physical luxury of the “Red Devil,” but -mentally disturbed over the stone house and horses. We happened to -turn into a pretty road; we spied a beautiful gateway and beyond the -gateway, grassy slopes and wonderful trees and pools of quiet water. - -“Let’s stop here a minute,” said Mr. Griffith. “Whose place is this?” - -“I’d never go in there, if I were you,” answered Mr. Predmore. “That -place belongs to Mr. Goddefroy, he’s the wealthiest man around here; -won’t have an automobile on his place and is down on anybody who rides -in one; has fine stables and the automobiles are just beginning to -interfere with his horseback rides. I don’t know just how he’d receive -you. Anyhow I can’t drive you in in this car of mine.” So we parked -outside in the roadway. - -“We’ve got to work in here, that’s all there is to it,” said David, -looking about. But where did anybody live? The road wound up and up. -Sheep nibbling on the velvet grass were mixed in with a few prize pigs -taking their siestas beneath beautiful copper beeches. “Certainly is -some place,” he continued. We had sauntered up the gravel road quite -to the hilltop before we saw coming towards us across the lawn, a -bright-eyed, pink-cheeked woman in simple gingham dress. She greeted us -pleasantly. The situation was explained and the lady replied, “Well, -that is very interesting, and as far as I am concerned you are quite -welcome to take some pictures here, but you must ask the boss first.” - -Over by his stables we found the “Boss.” - -“We’d like to take some pictures, please, on your beautiful place.” -Stone houses and horses we had quite forgotten for the moment in the -wealth of moving picture backgrounds the estate provided. “We’re -stopping up at the Inn for a week--doing some Fenimore Cooper stories, -and we are looking primarily for a stone house and some horses.” - -“Have you seen the old stone house down below?” - -“Stone house?” I repeated to myself; then to be sure, whispered to -Bitzer, “Did he say a _stone_ house?” - -Bitzer replied, “Yes, he said a stone house.” Mr. Griffith managed to -pull himself together, but his answer came rather halting, “Why, why, -no.” - -“Come along and I’ll show you. Maybe you can use it.” - -Weak-kneed and still struggling for breath we trailed along--and when -we saw it-- - -Just built for us was the old stone house that had been on the place so -long that no one knew when it had been built. But we hesitated. “We’ll -have to bring horses, because the party leaves on horseback, and that -would mess up your place too much.” - -“Oh, yes, I forgot, you haven’t your horses yet. I wonder if some -of ours would do,” said Mrs. Goddefroy, who was none other than the -gingham-clad lady. - -Back to the stable we went, emotionally upset by now, but trying to -appear calm. We’d been quite reconciled to take a stab at it with the -rough work-horses of the Cuddebackville farmer; had thought to groom -them up a bit and let it go at that. But here were gentlemen’s horses. -Yes, gentlemen’s horses, but neither Miss Leonard nor myself rode, and -these spirited prancing creatures of the Goddefroy stables filled us -with alarm. I would look for something “gentle,” and not too young and -peppy, but with the characteristics of good breeding and training. - -And that is how “Mother” and I met. - -“Mother” is one of the treasured memories of my motion picture life. -What a gentle old mother she was! healthy, so lazy, and so safe. How -relieved I was--how at ease on her broad back. “Mother” ambled on the -scene and “Mother” ambled off; she ate the grasses and the flowers on -the canal bank; she was not a bit concerned over having her picture -taken. I have always felt the credit was wholly hers that my uncle, my -sister, and I made our journey safely until the bad Indians surprised -us going through the woods. - - * * * * * - -It was lots of fun being invited on these location-hunting expeditions. -An automobile ride was luxury. These were the first and we were getting -them for nothing. No, the picture business was not so bad after all. - -Back at the Inn the Indians would be changing from leather fringes and -feathered head dresses to their bathing suits. And when the location -party returned, they’d have reached the green slopes of the Big Basin -where, soap in hand, they would be sudsing off the brown bolamenia -from legs and arms before the plunge into the cool waters of the Big -Basin--a rinse and a swim “to onct.” - -The girls who “did” Indians had the privacy of the one bathroom for -their cleaning up. So they were usually “pretty” again, lounging in -the hammocks or enjoying the porch rockers; a few would be over in the -spring house freshening up on healthful spring water; a few at the -General Store buying picture post-cards. - -And then came dinner and in ones, twos, and threes, the company -strolled in--a hungry lot. Frail little Mrs. Predmore wondered would -she ever get the actors fed up. It took her the week usually, she -afterwards confided. When the cook would let her, she’d go into the -kitchen and make us lemon meringue pies. The actors were always hoping -the cook would leave, or get sick, or die, so Mrs. Predmore could cook -all the dinner. - -Sometimes we were very merry at dinner. When Arthur Johnson would -arrive bowing himself gallantly in, in a manner bred of youthful -days as a Shakespearean actor with the Owen Dramatic Company, loud -and hearty applause would greet him, which he’d accept with all the -smiling, gracious salaams of the old-time ten, twenty, and thirty -tragedian. - - * * * * * - -Evening at Cuddebackville! - -The biggest thrill would be an automobile ride to Middletown, nine -miles away. If Mr. Predmore weren’t busy after dinner, he’d take us. -It was a joyful ride over the mountains to Middletown, quite the most -priceless fun of an evening. Every one was eager for it except the -little groups of twos, who, sentimentally inclined, were paddling a -canoe out on the basin or down the canal. There would be Mary Pickford -and Owen Moore, and James Kirkwood and Gertrude Robinson, and Stanner -E. V. Taylor and Marion Leonard, experiencing tense moments in the -silence broken only by the drip, drip of the paddle beneath the mellow -moon. Romance got well under way at Cuddebackville. - -The evening divertisements became more complex as we became better -acquainted. “Wally” Walthall, Arthur Johnson, and Mack Sennett became -our principal parlor entertainers. “Wally” rendered old southern -ditties as only a true southern gentleman from Alabama could. - -Arthur Johnson and Mack Sennett did good team-work; they were our Van -and Schenck. Arthur, who presided at the piano, had a sentimental -turn; he liked “The Little Grey Home in the West” kind of song, but the -future producer of movie comedies was not so sentimentally disposed. As -long as harmony reigned in the camp of Johnson and Sennett, there were -tuneful evenings for the musically inclined. But every now and then -Sennett would get miffed about something and never a do-re-mi would -be got out of him, and when Arthur’s nerves could stand the strain no -longer, he’d burst forth to the assemblage, “I wouldn’t mind if he’d -fuss with me, but this silence thing gets my goat.” - -Those who cared not for the Song Festival could join Jeanie Macpherson -who, out in the dining-room, would be supervising stunts in the world -of black magic. Here Tony O’Sullivan could always be found. He told -hair-raising ghost stories and wound up the evening’s fun by personally -conducting a tour through the cemetery. The cemetery lay just beyond -the apple orchard, and along the canal bank to the back of the Inn. - -Now were the moon bright, the touring party might get a glint of -lovers paddling by. Arrived back at the Inn, they might greet the “Red -Devil” returning with a small exclusive party from the Goddefroys--Mr. -Griffith and Miss Arvidson, Mr. Powell and Miss Hicks. - -There was just one little touch of sin. Secluded in an outbuilding some -of the boys played craps, sometimes losing all their salary before they -got it. One of the men finally brought this wicked state of affairs to -Mr. Griffith’s attention, and there were no more crap games. - - * * * * * - -In front of Caudebec Inn the “Red Devil” is snorting and getting -impatient to be started on her way to the station, for the actors are -strolling down the road ahead of her. Mr. Griffith and Mr. Predmore -are just finishing the final “settling up” of the board bill. Little -Mrs. Predmore looking tinier than ever--she seemed to shrivel during -our strenuous weeks--is gratefully sighing as she bids us farewell. She -was glad to see us come, and she was glad to see us go. - - * * * * * - -Meanwhile, out in Hollywood, the Japs are still raising carnations, -and a few bungalow apartment houses are just beginning to sprout on -the Boulevard; but otherwise the foothills continue their, as yet, -undisturbed sleep beneath the California sunshine. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -“PIPPA PASSES” FILMED - - -There was a frictional feeling in our return to prosaic studio -life after the glorious freedom of the country. But the new -“projections”--the pictures that had been printed and assembled in our -absence--would take the edge off and cheer us up some; we were all -a-thrill about seeing the first run of the pictures we had taken in the -country; and we were eager about the picture we were to do next. - -During our absence we would have missed seeing not only our own -releases but those of the other companies, which, our day’s work -finished, we used to try to catch up on. Mondays and Thursdays had come -to be release days for Biograph pictures. Then at some theatres, came -whole evenings devoted to them. On these occasions exhibitors would put -a stand outside saying “Biograph Night.” After the first showing it was -a difficult job to locate a picture. From Tenth Avenue to Avenue A, -we’d roam, and no matter how hot, stuffy, or dirty the place might be, -we’d make the grade in time. - -“Pippa Passes,” which was to make or unmake us, was all this time -hanging fire. Mr. Griffith was getting an all star cast intact. The -newly recruited James Kirkwood and Henry Walthall gave us two good men -who, with Owen Moore and Arthur Johnson, were all the actors needed. -For the women, there were Marion Leonard, Gertrude Robinson, and -myself. And little Mary Pickford whom our director had engaged with -Pippa in mind (?). When the day came to shoot Browning for the first -time, it was winsome Gertrude Robinson with black curls and dark blue -eyes who was chosen for the rôle of the spiritual Pippa. David thought -Mary had grown a bit plump; she no longer filled his mental image of -the type. - -When at last we started on “Pippa Passes,” things went off with a bang. -Each of the four themes--Morn, Noon, Evening, Night--would be followed -by a flash of Pippa singing her little song. - -It was “Morn” that intrigued. To show “daybreak” in Pippa’s little room -would mean trying out a new light effect. The only light effect so far -experimented with had been the “fireside glow.” The opportunity to try -a different kind so interested Mr. Griffith that before he began to -“shoot” Pippa, he had a scheme all worked out. - -He figured on cutting a little rectangular place in the back wall of -Pippa’s room, about three feet by one, and arranging a sliding board -to fit the aperture much like the cover of a box sliding in and out of -grooves. The board was to be gradually lowered and beams of light from -a powerful Kleig shining through would thus appear as the first rays of -the rising sun striking the wall of the room. Other lights stationed -outside Pippa’s window would give the effect of soft morning light. -Then the lights full up, the mercury tubes a-sizzling, the room fully -lighted, the back wall would have become a regular back wall again, -with no little hole in it. - -All this was explained to the camera men Billy Bitzer and Arthur -Marvin, for the whole technical staff was in attendance on the -production of this one thousand foot feature--one thousand feet being -the length of our features at this time. Bitzer didn’t think much of -the idea, but Arthur Marvin, who had seen his chief’s radical ideas -worked out successfully before, was less inclined to skepticism. But -response, on the whole, was rather snippy. While David would have -preferred a heartier appreciation, he would not be deterred, and he -spoke in rather plain words: “Well, come on, let’s do it anyhow; I -don’t give a damn what anybody thinks about it.” - -Pippa is asleep in her little bed. The dawn is coming--a tense -moment--for Pippa must wake, sit up in her little bed, rise, cross to -the window, and greet the dawn in perfect harmony with the mechanical -force operating the sliding board and the Kleigs. All was manipulated -in perfect tempo. - -The skeptical studio bunch remained stubborn until the first projection -of the picture upstairs. At first the comments came in hushed and awed -tones, and then when the showing was over, the little experiment in -light effects was greeted with uncontrolled enthusiasm. - -“Pippa Passes” was released on October 4, 1909, a day of great anxiety. -We felt pretty sure it was good stuff, but we were wholly unprepared -for what was to happen. On the morning of October 10th, while we -were scanning the news items in the columns of the _New York Times_, -the while we imbibed our breakfast coffee, our unbelieving eyes were -greeted with a column headlined thus: - - BROWNING NOW GIVEN IN MOVING PICTURES - - “Pippa Passes” the Latest Play - Without Words to be Seen - In the Nickelodeons - - THE CLASSICS DRAWN UPON - - Even Biblical Stories Portrayed For - Critical Audiences--Improvement - Due to Board of Censors - -It was all too much--much too much. The newspapers were writing about -us. A conservative New York daily was taking us seriously. It seemed -incredible, but there it was before our eyes. It looked wonderful! Oh, -so wonderful we nearly wept. Suddenly everything was changed. Now we -could begin to lift up our heads, and perhaps invite our lit’ry friends -to our movies! - -This is what the _New York Times_ man had to say: - - “Pippa Passes” is being given in the nickelodeons and Browning is - being presented to the average motion picture audiences, who have - received it with applause and are asking for more. - - This achievement is the present nearest-Boston record of the - reformed motion picture play producing, but from all accounts - there seems to be no reason why one may not expect to see soon - the intellectual aristocracy of the nickelodeon demanding Kant’s - Prolegomena to Metaphysics with the “Kritik of Pure Reason” for a - curtain raiser. - - Since popular opinion has been expressing itself through the - Board of Censors of the People’s Institute, such material as “The - Odyssey,” the Old Testament, Tolstoy, George Eliot, De Maupassant - and Hugo has been drawn upon to furnish the films, in place of the - sensational blood-and-thunder variety which brought down public - indignation upon the manufacturers six months ago. Browning, - however, seems to be the most rarefied dramatic stuff up to date. - - As for Pippa without words, the first films show the sunlight - waking Pippa for her holiday with light and shade effects like - those obtained by the Secessionist Photographers. - - Then Pippa goes on her way dancing and singing. The quarreling - family hears her, and forgets its dissension. The taproom brawlers - cease their carouse and so on, with the pictures alternately - showing Pippa on her way, and then the effect of her “passing” - on the various groups in the Browning poem. The contrast between - the tired business man at a roof garden and the sweatshop worker - applauding Pippa is certainly striking. That this demand for the - classics is genuine is indicated by the fact that the adventurous - producers who inaugurated these expensive departures from cheap - melodrama are being overwhelmed by offers from renting agents. - Not only the nickelodeons of New York but those of many less - pretentious cities and towns are demanding Browning and the other - “high-brow” effects. - -There certainly was a decided change in the general attitude toward -us after this wonderful publicity. Directly we had ’phone calls from -friends saying they would like to go to the movies with us; and they -would just love to come down to the studio and watch a picture being -made. Even our one erudite friend, a Greek scholar, inquired where -he could see “Pippa Passes.” As the picture was shown for only one -night, we thought it might be rather nice to invite the dead-language -person and his wife to the studio. They came and found it intensely -interesting: met Mary Pickford and thought her “sweet.” - -Besides the Greek professor, another friend, one of the big men of the -Old Guard--an old newspaper man, and president and editor of _Leslie’s -Weekly_ and _Judge_ at this time--began making inquiries. - -The night the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York City opened, David thought -it wouldn’t be a bad idea to splurge a bit and invite Mr. Sleicher to -dinner, he being the editor who had paid him six dollars for his poem, -“The Wild Duck.” He’d surely think we had come a long pace ahead in the -movies, dining at the Ritz, and doing it so casual-like. - -Talk there was at the dinner about newspapers and magazines, and then -we got around to the movies, and the money they were making. Mr. -Sleicher said: “Well, there’s more money in them than in my business, -but I like my business better. Now in my game, twenty-four hours or -even less, after a thing happens you can see a picture of it and read -about it in the paper, and you can’t do that in your movies.” (I -understand that even before the time of this dinner, events of special -interest occasionally found their way to the screen on the day they -happened. In London, in 1906, the Urbanora people showed the boat race -between Cambridge and Harvard Universities on the evening of the day -they were held, but we did not know about that.) - -Mr. Griffith was not going to be outdone; so, with much bravado, for -he was quite convinced of its truth, he said: “Well, we are not doing -it now, but the time will come when the day’s news events will be -regularly pictured on the screen with the same speed the ambitious -young reporter gets his scoop on the front page of his newspaper. We’ll -have all the daily news told in moving pictures the same as it is told -in words on the printed page. Now, I’m willing to bet you.” - -But John Sleicher was skeptical. Had he not been, he would then and -there have invested some of his pennies in the movies. He regretted the -opportunity many times afterward, for while the prediction has not been -fulfilled exactly, the News Reel of to-day gives promise that it will -be. However, Mr. Sleicher lived to enjoy the News Reel quite as much as -he did his newspaper, and that meant a great deal for him. - -These little happenings were encouraging. Intelligent persons on the -outside were taking interest. So again we’d buck up and go at the movie -job with renewed vigor. - -For a time we lived in the clouds--our habitat a mountain peak. But -that couldn’t last. No kind of mountain peak existence could. We should -have known. Even after all the encouragement, down off our peak we’d -slip into the deep dark valley again. - -We tried to keep an unswerving faith, but who could have visioned the -great things that were to come? Doubts still persisted. Yes, even -after the Browning triumph, longings came over us to return to former -ambitions. They had not been buried so deeply after all. We’d see a -fine play and get the blue devils. In this mood my husband would do the -rounds of the movie houses and chancing upon a lot of bad pictures, -come back utterly discouraged. - -“They can’t last. I give them a few years. Where’s my play? Since I -went into these movies I haven’t had a minute to look at a thing I -ever wrote. And I went into them because I thought surely I’d get time -to write or do something with what I had.” (Monetary needs so soon -forgotten!) “Well, anyhow, nobody’s going to know I ever did this sort -of thing when I’m a famous playwright. Nobody’s ever going to know that -David W. Griffith, the playwright, was once the Lawrence Griffith of -the movies.” - -So “Lawrence” continued on the next Biograph contract. The two names -would get all balled up sometimes and I’d get peeved and say: “Why -don’t you use your right name? I think you’re so silly.” - -But David remained obdurate until he signed his third Biograph -contract. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -GETTING ON - - -One thing was sure--the pictures were making money. The percentage -told that story. What a thrill we got at the first peek at the royalty -check each month. Made us nervous. Where were we headed? Sometimes we -almost wished that financially we were not succeeding so well, for -then we would have quitted the movies. But wouldn’t that have been a -crazy thing to do? A year of fifty-two working weeks? At the rate we -were going, we could keep at it for three years, and quit with twelve -thousand in the bank, then David could write plays and realize his -youthful ambition. - -We lived simply. When the royalty check before the end of the second -year amounted to nine hundred and a thousand a month, we still -maintained a thirty-five-dollar-a-month apartment. Never dreamed of -getting stylish. No time for it. So each month there was a nice little -roll to bank, and it was put right into the Bowery Savings Bank. The -only trouble with a savings bank was they wouldn’t accept more than -three thousand dollars, so we secured a list of them and I went the -rounds depositing honest movie money with a rapidity quite unbelievable. - -[Illustration: A desert caravan of the early days. - - (_See p. 197_) -] - -[Illustration: From “The Last Drop of Water,” one of the first -two-reelers, produced in San Fernando desert, with Jeanie Macpherson -(seated, front row). - - (_See p. 197_) -] - -The Griffiths were not the only thrifty ones. When Mary Pickford was -getting one hundred a week, her mother wept because she wouldn’t -buy pretty clothes. At Mount Beacon this happened. One of the perky -little ingénue-ish extra girls appeared in a frock decidedly not -home-made. You could count on it that it had come either from Macy’s or -Siegel-Cooper’s Eighteenth Street store, and that it had cost a whole -week’s wages. Not much escaped Ma Smith’s eagle eye, and so she wailed: -“I wish Mary would buy clothes like the other girls.” But Mary, the -same simple, unaffected Mary that a year since had said “thank you” for -her twenty-five, was quite contented to continue wearing the clothes -her mama made her, and at that a few would do. - -[Illustration: Mabel Normand with Lee Dougherty, Jr., “off duty.” - - (_See p. 204_) -] - -A few years after this time I met Mary in Macy’s one summer day and -hardly recognized her. She had grown thin and had acquired style. I -admired her smart costume and said: “Nice suit, Mary, I’m looking for -one. Mind telling me where you found it?” But Mary, with a note of -boredom, so unlike the Mary I’d known, answered: “Oh, my aunt brought -me six from Paris.” - -“Mary, you haven’t forgotten how we used to strike bargains with the -salesman at Hearn’s on Fourteenth Street, have you?” - -“Oh,” said Mary, quickly coming back to earth and proving greatness but -a dream, “wasn’t it fun? Let’s go over to the Astor and have tea.” - -Across from Macy’s, Mary’s first bus was parked and young brother Jack -was chauffing. When we hopped into the car, we found a very disgruntled -youth who, having waited longer than he thought he ought to have, gave -me a stony stare and never spoke a word. As far as young Jack Smith was -concerned, I’d never been on earth before. - -We wondered about Mack Sennett. Would he ever buy a girl an ice -cream soda? Marion Leonard said it would be his birthday if he ever -did. But the day arrived when Mack Sennett did open up. He bought a -seventy-five-dollar diamond necklace for Mabel Normand, and then after -some misunderstanding between himself and Mabel, proving he had a head -for business, he offered it to different members of the company for -eighty-five dollars. - -Spike Robinson, who used to box with Mr. Griffith and who now boxes -with Douglas Fairbanks, looms up as the one generous member of the -company, being willing always to buy the girls ice cream sodas or -lemonade or sarsaparilla--the refreshments of our age of innocence. - - * * * * * - -The fall of 1909 brought to the studio a number of new women who -proved valuable additions to our company. Stephanie Longfellow, who -was a _bona fide_ niece of the poet Henry, was one of them. Her first -pictures were released in August. They were “The Better Way” and “A -Strange Meeting.” Miss Longfellow was quite a different type from -her predecessors and her work was delightful. She was a refreshing -personality with unusual mental attainments. “_She’s_ a lady,” said the -director. Some ten years ago Miss Longfellow retired to domestic life -via a happy marriage outside the profession. - -Handsome Mrs. Grace Henderson became our grande dame of quality, -breezing in from past glories of “Peter Pan” (having played _Peter’s_ -Mother) and of the famous old Daly Stock Company. - -Another grande dame of appearance distinguished, drawing modest pay -checks occasionally, and with a cultural family background most unusual -for a stage mother, was Caroline Harris. Miss Harris, otherwise Mrs. -Barthelmess, and mother of ten-year-old Dicky Barthelmess, was one -stage mother not supported by her child. Only when home on a vacation -from military school did Dicky work in a picture. He made his début -with Mrs. Tom Ince, and his little heart was quite broken when he -discovered his only scene had been cut out. - -Miss Harris’s first stage appearance had been with Benjamin Chapin -playing _Mrs. Lincoln_ in “Lincoln at the White House,” afterwards -called “Honest Abe.” Her first part in the movies was in De -Maupassant’s “The Necklace,” in which Rose King played the lead. Miss -Harris had learned of the Biograph through a girl who jobbed at the -studio, Helen Ormsby, the daughter of a Brooklyn newspaper man. - -Mabel Trunelle had a rather crowded hour at the Biograph. She had had -considerable experience at the Edison studio and was well equipped in -movie technique. She had come on recommendation of her husband, Herbert -Pryor, and she succeeded, even though a wife--which was unusual, for -wives of the good actors were not popular around the studio. If an -actor wanted to keep on the right side of the director, he left his -wife at home; that meant a sacrifice often enough, for there were times -without number when women were needed and a wife could have been used -and the five dollars kept in the family, but the majority preferred not -to risk it. Dell Henderson and George Nichols succeeded quite well with -this “wife” business, but they seem to have been the only ones besides -Mr. Pryor. - -Florence Barker, a good trouper who had had stock experience in Los -Angeles, her home town, now happened along to enjoy popularity, and -to become Frank Powell’s leading woman. Through her Eleanor Kershaw, -sister to Willette, and wife to the late Thomas H. Ince, happened to -come to the Biograph. - -Quite the most pathetic figure at the studio was Eleanor Kershaw -Ince. In deep mourning for her mother who had just been killed in an -accident, and all alone, with a tiny baby at home, she put in brave -hours for her little five-dollar bills. When six o’clock came and her -work was not finished, how she fretted about her little one. That baby, -Tom Ince’s eldest child “Billy,” is now a husky lad and he probably -doesn’t know how we all worried over him then. Miss Kershaw played sad -little persons such as the maid in “The Course of True Love,” flower -girls, and match girls, in wispy clothes, on cold November days, -offering their wares on the streets of Coytesville and Fort Lee. - -There was the blond and lily-like Blanche Sweet, an undeveloped child -too young to play sweethearts and wives, but a good type for the more -insignificant parts, such as maids and daughters. David wanted to use -her this first winter in a picture called “Choosing a Husband,” so he -tried her out, but finding her so utterly unemotional, he dismissed her -saying, “Oh, she’s terrible.” Then he tried Miss Barker and had her -play the part. But he directed Miss Sweet in her first picture, “All on -Account of a Cold.” - -Mr. Powell liked Miss Sweet’s work, and so did Doc, and so Mr. Powell -used her in the first picture he directed, “All on Account of the -Milk.” Mr. Powell was rehearsing in the basement of No. 11 while Mr. -Griffith was doing the same upstairs. Mary Pickford played the daughter -and Blanche Sweet, the maid, and in the picture they change places. - -On the back porch of a little farmhouse a rendezvous takes place with -the milkman. It was bitterly cold, and even though the girls wore -woolen dresses under their cotton aprons, they looked like frozen -turnips. The scenes being of tense love, the girls were supposed to -be divinely rapturous and to show no discomfort--not even know it -was winter. But the breathing was a different matter, for as young -Blanche uttered endearing words to her lover, a white cloud issued -from her mouth. Now that would look dreadful on the screen. So in the -nervousness of the situation Mr. Powell yelled at her, “Stop talking, -just _look_ at him, this is supposed to be summer.” She obeyed, when -from her delicate nostrils came a similar white line of frosted breath -at which the director, now wholly beside himself, yelled, “Stop -breathing, what kind of a picture do you think this will be, anyhow.” -So little Blanche proceeded to strangle for a few moments while we -secured a few feet of summer. - -In “The Day After”--four hundred and sixty feet of a New Year’s party -picture, showing what a youngster she was, Blanche Sweet played _Cupid_. - -Kate Bruce had become the leading character woman. Little Christie -Miller, frail, white, and bent, played the kindly old men, while Vernon -Clarges interpreted the more pompous, distinguished elderly ones. Daddy -Butler was mostly just a nice kind papa, and George Nichols played a -diversified range of parts--monks, rugged Westerners, and such. George -Nichols had been a member of the old Alcazar and Central Theatres in -San Francisco, where Mr. Griffith in his stranded actor days had worked. - -Of the children, little Gladys Egan did remarkable work playing many -dramatic leading parts. Her performance in “The Broken Doll” should be -recorded here. Adele de Garde was another nine-year-old child wonder. -These children were not comiques. They were tragediennes and how they -could tear a passion to tatters! The Wolff children sufficed well in -infantile rôles. Their mother kept a dramatic agency for children. - -Boys were little in demand, and as Mary Pickford usually had her family -handy, we came to use little Jack--he was at this time nine years old. -He created quite a stir about the old A. B. He even managed to make -himself the topic of conversation at lunch time and other off-duty -hours. “Had he a future like sister Mary?” We were even then ready to -grant Mary a future. - -Lottie was discussed too, but in a more casual way. No one was -especially interested in Lottie. Mary was very hesitant in bringing her -to the studio; she confided that Lottie was not pretty and she didn’t -think she’d be good in the movies. She was the tomboy of the family and -she loved nothing better than to play baseball with the boys, and when -later she did become a Biograph player she had her innings at many a -game. - -For a year and a half that had winged its way, my husband and I had -kept our secret well, although a something was looming that might make -us spill it. There had been nervous moments. Only three people at the -studio knew the facts of the case, Wilfred Lucas, Paul Scardon, and -Harry Salter. But Wilfred Lucas, whose hospitality we’d frequently -enjoyed, never betrayed us. - -Nor did Paul Scardon. I don’t remember Mr. Scardon doing any work -of consequence at the Biograph, but he eventually connected up with -the Vitagraph, becoming one of its directors. He discovered Betty -Blythe, developed her from an unknown extra girl to a leading woman of -prominence. After the death of his first wife, he married her. Miss -Blythe has been a big star for some years now and while Mr. Scardon -has not been directing her, he travels with her to distant enchanting -lands, to Egypt, the Riviera, and such places where Miss Blythe has -been working on big feature pictures. It was under William Fox’s banner -that Miss Blythe first came into prominence. The picture was “The Queen -of Sheba.” - -Lucas and Scardon were friends of ours before our marriage, but Harry -Salter was the only person about the studio in whom David had confided. -And I wasn’t told a thing about it. Helping to purloin Florence -Lawrence from the Vitagraph, Mr. Salter had just naturally fallen in -love with her and they had been secretly married, and no one knew -it but Mr. Griffith. A fellow-feeling probably had made David a bit -confidential--an unusual thing for him. It was one day, on a little -launch going to Navesink. My husband was in the front of the boat, his -back to us. Harry and Florence and I were seated aft. We were quietly -enjoying the ride, not a word being spoken, when Harry Salter, pointing -to a hole in the heel of David’s stocking, at the same time turned to -me and with a knowing smile said, “Miss Arvidson, look!” - -The something that was looming that would make us reveal our -well-concealed secret, was a trip to California to escape the bad -eastern weather of January, February and March. - -Now I did not intend to spend three nights on the Santa Fé Limited -in a Lower Eight, or an Upper Three, when there was the luxury of a -drawing-room at hand. Nor was it my husband’s wish either. I felt I -had earned every little five-per-day I’d had from the Biograph and had -minded my own business sufficiently well to share comfort with the -director. Yes, I would take my place as that most unwelcome person--the -director’s wife. So when the tickets were being made up, Mr. Hammer -was brought into the secret, but he just couldn’t believe it. But Mr. -Dougherty said: “Well, that is bringing coal to Newcastle.” Nobody -could understand what he meant by this, but that is what he said. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -TO THE WEST COAST - - -After shivering through one Eastern winter, trying to get the -necessary outdoor scenes for our pictures, we concluded that it -would be to our advantage to pack up the wardrobe, the cameras, and -other paraphernalia, get a little organization together, and with a -portmanteau of Western scripts hie ourselves to the city of Los Angeles. - -We weren’t the first to go there. Selig already had a studio there. -Frank Boggs had brought a little company of Selig players to Los -Angeles in the early days of 1908. The next company that reached the -coast was that of the New York Motion Picture Patents Corporation, -making the Bison brand of pictures. They had arrived in Los Angeles -about Thanksgiving, 1909--seventeen players under the command of Fred -Balshofer. - -Kalem was taking pictures in Los Angeles, too. I felt very much annoyed -one night, shortly before we left New York, to see a Kalem picture with -Carlyle Blackwell and Alice Joyce having a petting party in Westlake -Park. - -How we did buzz around, those last weeks in New York! Mr. Powell’s -company worked nights to keep up the two one-thousand-foot releases per -week. - -News was already being broadcast that it was quite O.K. down at the -Biograph if you got in right--that they were doing good things and -were going to send a company to California for the winter, which would -mean a regular salary for the time away. - -And so arrived Mr. Dell Henderson, who became leading man for the night -company at five per night. The demands for physical beauty that he had -to fulfil certainly should have earned more than the ordinary five. -He had to be so handsome that his jealous wife prevails upon thugs to -waylay him and scar for life his manly beauty so that the admiring -women will let him alone. - -This movie, “The Love of Lady Irma,” was one of the first pictures Mr. -Powell directed. Florence Barker, who became the leading woman for the -No. 2 California Comedy Company, played _Lady Irma_, the jealous wife. -She had joined the company in December, her first picture being “The -Dancing Girl of Butte,” in which she was cast with Owen Moore and Mack -Sennett. - -It was in these days that Eleanor Kershaw did her bit; also Dorothy -West and Ruth Hart. Miss Hart, now Mrs. Victor Moore and the mother of -two children, played the sweet domestic wife, a rôle Mr. Griffith felt -she was a good exponent of, and which she has successfully continued in -her private life. - -Frank Grandin appears in his first leading part, playing _The Duke_ -in “The Duke’s Plan”; and our atmospheric genial Englishman, Charles -Craig, affiliated the same month, playing opposite Mary Pickford in -“The Englishman and the Girl.” - -The studio was now a busy place. A Civil War picture had to be rushed -through before we could get away. Mr. Powell was busy engaging actors -for it and had just completed his cast of principals when he bumped -into an actor friend, Tommy Ince. It seems Mr. Ince at the moment was -“broke.” Apologetically, Mr. Powell said he couldn’t offer anything -much, but if Mr. Ince didn’t mind coming in as an “extra” he would -give him ten dollars for the day. This quite overcame Tom Ince and he -stammered forth, “Glory be”--or words to that effect--“I’d be glad to -get five.” Only one part did Tom Ince play with Biograph and that was -in “The New Lid” with Lucille Lee Stewart, Ralph Ince’s wife and sister -of Anita Stewart. - -I happened to call on Eleanor Hicks Powell one evening in the summer -of 1912 when our only Biograph baby, Baden Powell, had reached the -creeping age. During the evening Mr. and Mrs. Tom Ince dropped in. Of -course, we talked “movies.” Mr. Ince was worrying about an offer he’d -had to go to California as manager and leading director of the 101 -Ranch, Kaybee Company, for one hundred and twenty-five dollars per -week, as I remember. He offered me forty dollars to go out as leading -woman, but I couldn’t see the Indians. Mr. Ince couldn’t see them -either--but it was the best offer that had come his way. - -Mr. Ince made a great success out of the 101 Ranch, but having -ambitions to do the “high-class,” he moved on in quest of it. Took to -developing stars like Charles Ray, Enid Markey, and Dorothy Dalton; -became one of the Triangle outfit with David Griffith and Mack Sennett; -exploited dramatic stars like George Beban, Billie Burke, and Enid -Bennett; did “Civilization”--but _after_ “The Birth of a Nation.” - - * * * * * - -Who was to go to California and who wasn’t? Ah, that was the question! -Some husbands didn’t care to leave their wives, and as they couldn’t -afford to take them, they were out. Some didn’t mind the separation. -Some of the women had ties; if not husbands, mothers; and the -California salary would not be big enough to keep up two homes. Some -didn’t want to leave New York; and some who should have known they -didn’t have a ghost of a chance wept sad and plentiful tears whenever -the director looked their way. One of these was Jeanie Macpherson. -Jeanie didn’t go along this first time. - -A few days after Christmas was the time of the first hegira to the land -of the eucalyptus and the pepper tree. It was a big day. - -We were going to Los Angeles to take moving pictures, and Hollywood -didn’t mean a thing. Pasadena the company knew about. Like Palm Beach, -it was where millionaires sojourned for two months during the Eastern -winter. San Gabriel Mission they’d seen photos of, and counted on using -it in pictures. They understood there were many beaches accessible by -trolley; and residential districts like West Adams; even Figueroa, the -home of Los Angeles’s first millionaires, was a fine avenue then; and -Westlake and Eastlake Parks which were quite in town. But they didn’t -know Edendale from the Old Soldiers’ Home at Sawtelle. San Pedro? Yes, -that was where the steamers arrived from San Francisco. San Fernando? -Well, yes, there was a Mission there too, but it was rather far away, -and right in the heart of a parched and cactus-covered desert. Mt. Lowe -was easy--there was the incline railway to help us to the top. - -Four luxurious days on luxurious trains before we would sight the palms -and poinsettias that were gaily beckoning to us across the distances. - -Let us away! - -The company departed via the Black Diamond Express on the Lehigh -Valley, which route meant ferry to Jersey City. A late arrival in -Chicago allowed just comfortable time to make the California Limited -leaving at 8 P.M. - -The company was luxurious for but three days. - -It was only Mr. R. H. Hammer, my husband, and myself who had been -allotted four full days of elegance. We _de luxe’d_ out of New York via -the Twentieth Century Limited. I had come into my own. - -Mr. Powell was in charge of the company and so he checked them off on -arrival at the ferry--Marion Leonard, Florence Barker, Mary Pickford, -Dorothy West, Kate Bruce, the women; George Nichols, Henry Walthall, -Billy Quirk, Frank Grandin, Charlie West, Mack Sennett, Dell Henderson, -Arthur Johnson, Daddy Butler, Christie Miller, Tony O’Sullivan, and -Alfred Paget, the men. There were three wives who were actresses also, -Eleanor Hicks, Florence Lee (Mrs. Dell Henderson), and Mrs. George -Nichols. And there were two camera men, Billy Bitzer and Arthur Marvin; -a scenic artist, Eddie Shelter; a carpenter or two, and two property -boys, Bobbie Harron and Johnny Mahr. - -No theatrical job had come along for Mary Pickford, and the few summer -months she had intended spending in “the pictures” would lengthen into -a full year now that she had decided to go with us to California. Her -salary was still small: it was about forty dollars a week at this time. - -Frank Powell had a busy hour at the Ferry Building although Mr. -Griffith was there also to see that all the company got on board. He -had not anticipated too smooth an exit. Nor did he get it, even though -he had taken well into account his temperamentalists. And sure enough, -Arthur Johnson and Charlie West arrived breathless and hatless, fresh -from an all-night party, just as the last gong rang. - -And while David was nervously awaiting them and while dear relatives -were weeping their fond farewells, the Pickford family chose the -opportune moment to put on a little play of their own. - -Ma Smith, it seems, had made up her mind that a last minute hold-up -might succeed in forcing Mr. Griffith to raise Mary’s salary--I’m not -sure whether it was five or ten dollars a week. So they held a little -pow-wow on the subject, right on the dock, in the midst of all the -excitement; and Jack began to cry because he wasn’t going along with -his big sister; and Owen Moore between saying sad good-byes to Mary, -hoped the boss might relent and give him the ten extra he had held out -for, for Los Angeles. - -For, much as Owen loved Mary and Mary loved Owen, he let a few dollars -part them for the glorious season out in California. - -Well, anyhow, little Jack’s tears and Mother Smith’s talk and pretty -Mary’s gentle but persistent implorations did not get her the ten -dollars extra. David had something up his sleeve he knew would calm the -Smith family, and make them listen to reason, and he delivered it with -a firm finality. - -“Now I’ve got little Gertie Robinson all ready to come on at a moment’s -notice. Mary goes without the five (or ten) or not at all.” - -Mary went. Then Jack began to bawl. It was a terrible family parting. -So Mr. Griffith compromised and said he’d take Jack and give him three -checks a week, fifteen dollars. The company paid his fare, of course, -for we had extra tickets and plenty of room for one small boy in the -coaches at our disposal. - -It was a pleasant trip, especially for those who had not been to -California before. Some found card games so engrossing that they never -took a peek at the scenery. Some, especially Mary and Dorothy West, -oh’d and ah’d so that Arthur Johnson, thinking the enthusiasm a bit -overdone, began kidding the scenery lovers. “Oh, lookit, lookit,” -Arthur would exclaim when the gushing was at its height. - -The “Biograph Special” we were. We had rare service on the train. -We had every attention from the dining-car steward. Had we not been -allowed three dollars per day for meals on the train? And didn’t we -spend it? For the invigorating air breathed from the observation -platform gave us healthy appetites. - -At San Bernardino (perhaps the custom still survives, I don’t know, -for now when I go to Los Angeles, I go via the Overland Limited to -San Francisco instead) we each received a dainty bouquet of pretty, -fragrant carnations. Flowers for nothing! We could hardly believe our -eyes. - -At last we were there! Mr. Hammer gallantly suggested, although it -was afternoon, that the women of the company go to a hotel at the -Biograph’s expense, until they located permanent quarters. So the -ladies were registered at the Alexandria, then but lately opened, and -shining and grand it was. Although they made but a short stay there, -they attracted considerable attention. One day Mary Pickford stepped -out of the Alexandria’s elevator just as William Randolph Hearst was -entering. Seeing Mary, he said, “I wonder who that pretty girl is.” And -one night at dinner, between sips of his ale, indicating our table -which was but one removed from his, Mr. Hearst wondered some more as to -who the people were. - -The players were quite overcome at the company’s hospitality. It was -quite different from traveling with a theatrical road show where you -had to pay for sleepers and meals, and where you might be dumped out at -a railroad station at any hour of the cold gray dawn, with a Miners’ -Convention occupying every bed and couch in the town, and be left -entirely to your own resources. - -I may be wrong, but I think Mr. Grey of the office force (but not the -Mr. Grey of the present Griffith organization; it was years before -his movie affiliation, and the Biograph’s Mr. Grey has been dead some -years now) went out to California ahead of the company to make banking -arrangements and look around for a location for the studio. - -On Grand Avenue and Washington Street, hardly ten minutes by trolley -from Broadway and Fifth, and seven by motor from our hotel, mixed in -with a lumber yard and a baseball park, was a nice vacant lot. It was -surrounded by a board fence six feet or so in height, high enough to -prevent passers-by from looking in on us. Just an ordinary dirt lot, it -was. In the corners and along the fence-edges the coarse-bladed grass, -the kind that grows only in California, had already sprouted, and -otherwise it looked just like a small boy’s happy baseball ground. It -was selected for the studio. - -[Illustration: Joe Graybill, Blanche Sweet and Vivian Prescott, in “How -She Triumphed.” - - (_See p. 184_) -] - -A stage had to be rigged up where we could take “interiors,” for while -we intended doing most of our work “on location,” there would have to -be a place where we could lay a carpet and place pieces of furniture -about for parlor, bedroom--but not bath. As yet modesty had deterred -us from entering that sanctum of tiles, porcelain, cold cream, and -rose-water jars. Mr. C. B. DeMille was as yet a bit away in the offing, -and Milady’s ablutions and Milord’s Gilette were still matters of a -private nature--to the movies. - -[Illustration: Mack Sennett, Mabel Normand and Fred Mace, in a -“Keystone Comedy.” - - (_See p. 204_) -] - -[Illustration: Lunch on the “lot,” Biograph’s “last word” studio, the -second year. Left to right: Mack Sennett, William Beaudine, Eddie -Dillon, Vivian Prescott. - - (_See p. 202_) -] - -A load of wood was ordered from our neighbor, and the carpenters set -about to fix up a stage and some dressing-rooms: we couldn’t dress and -make up in our hotels, that was sure, nor could we do so in the open -spaces of our “lot.” - -Our stage, erected in the center of the lot, was merely a wooden floor -raised a few feet off the ground and about fifty feet square, of rough -splintery wood, and when we “did” Western bar-rooms--_au naturel_--it -was just the thing. - -Two small adjoining dressing-rooms for the men soon came into being; -then similar ones for the women. They looked like tiny bath-houses as -they faced each other across the lot. They sufficed, however. There -were no quarrels as to where the star should dress. When there were -extras, they dressed in relays, and sometimes a tent was put up. - -Telegraph poles ran alongside the studio and after our business -became known in the neighborhood, and especially on days when we were -portraying strenuous drama and got noisy, up these poles the small boys -would clamber and have a big time watching the proceedings and throwing -us friendly salutations which didn’t always help along the “action.” - - * * * * * - -A place had to be found where our camera men could develop the film -and we could see the results of our work, for when a picture left Los -Angeles it must be complete and ready for release, so down on Spring -Street and Second, a loft was rented for a few dollars a month. It was -a roomy, though dingy, barn of a place, but it served our purpose well. -A tiny dark room was boarded off and fixed up for the developing, and a -place set apart for the printing. The huge wheels on which the prints -were dried stood boldly apart in the room. There was a little desk for -cutting and splicing. At the head of the room furthest from the windows -a screen was set, and a sort of low partition about midway the length -of the loft hemmed in the projection room. - -When things had settled into a routine, and on rainy days, we rehearsed -and worked out scenarios up in our loft. We also had the costumes -delivered there. The loft was always accessible, and we spent many -evenings seeing projections and getting our things together for an -early morning start. - -Across the street from the loft was a famous old eating place, -Hoffman’s, where my husband and I dined when we returned late or too -weary to dress for the more pretentious hotel dining-room. It was a bit -expensive for some of the company, but convenient to our headquarters -was one of those market places, indigenous to Los Angeles, where -violets and hams commingled on neighborly counters, that served good -and inexpensive food on a long white enameled table where guests sat -only on one side, on high, spindly stools. It was patronized generously -by the actors for breakfast and lunch, when we were working in the -downtown studio. Here Mary Pickford and brother Jack and Dorothy West -were regular patrons. - -While the studio was being put in shape, the members of the company -had been scooting about looking for suitable places to live. Salaries -were not so large, but that economy had to be practiced, even with -the fourteen dollars a week expense money allowed every member of the -company. - -Mary Pickford had brother Jack to look after, and she decided that -if she clubbed in with some of the girls and they all found a place -together it would be cheaper, and also not so lonely for her. So -Mary, with Jack, and two of the young girls--Dorothy West and Effie -Johnson--thirty-dollar-a-weekers, found shelter in a rooming house -called “The Lille.” It was on South Olive and Fifth Streets, but it is -there no more. The four had rooms here for three and a half per week -per person. - -But the quartette didn’t stay long at “The Lille”--decided they needed -hotel conveniences. So they scurried about and located finally for the -winter at the New Broadway Hotel on North Broadway and Second Streets. -Here they lived in comfort, if not in style, with two rooms and a -connecting bath, for five fifty per week per person. - -When we got going, Mr. Griffith was rather glad Jack Smith was along, -for with the two companies working we found we could use a small boy -quite often. So Jack earned his fifteen a week regularly that first -California winter. - -The men of the company were all devoted to little Jack. He would sit -around nights watching them play poker, sometimes until 3 A.M.; he -didn’t want to be forever at the movies with his big sister. Mary -allowed Jack fifty cents a night for his dinner; he’d connect up -somewhere or other with his pals, in any event with his big brother -Dell Henderson, and they would make a night of it. - -We were to be no proud owners of an automobile, but rented one by the -hour at four dollars for car and chauffeur. The director and his camera -man and persons playing leads would travel by motor to location while -the others would trolley. As Los Angeles had, even then, the most -wonderful system of trolleys in the world, there were few places, no -matter how remote, that could not be reached by electric car. - -Sunday came to be a big day for the automobile, for on that day we -scouted for the week’s locations--that is, after David had made out his -weekly expenses, his Sunday morning job. - -Here is a sample, recorded in almost illegible pen-and-ink longhand: - - Luncheon (30 actors) $ 7.50 - Carfare (30 actors, location both ways) 15.00 - Automobile (so many hours $4. per) 100.00 - Locations (gratuities for using people’s places) 20.00 - Incidentals 17.00 - Extras (not actors, not incidentals either) 11.00 - -Those sufficiently interested may add. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -IN CALIFORNIA AND ON THE JOB - - -We would not have been true to the traditions of the Golden State had -we not used a Mission in our first picture. We meant to do our very -best right off and send back a knock-out. - -So to San Gabriel we went to get the lovely old Mission atmosphere in a -picture called “Threads of Destiny.” - -We spread ourselves; we took the Mission front, back and sideways, -inside and out; we used the worn old stairway, shaded by a fragrant -pepper tree, that led to the choir loft: we even planted lilies--or -rather, Mary Pickford as _Myrtle_, the orphan girl of San Gabriel, -planted lilies--along the adobe wall of the old cemetery where slept -baptized Indians and Mexicans. - -It was pleasant sprawling about in the lazy sunshine. We who were -“atmosphere” wandered about the cemetery, reading the old tombstones, -and had the priest guide us through the Mission showing us its -three-hundred-year-old treasures. And across the way we visited the -curio shop where we bought pretty post-cards and ate _tamales_, real -Mexican _tamales_. - -We would experiment on this Mission picture. We wanted a dim, religious -light, and here it was, and we wanted to get it on the screen as it -looked to us, the real thing. One little window let in an afternoon -slant of soft sunshine that fell directly upon the pulpit where -Christie Miller, playing an old priest, was to stand and bless the -congregation. If we could light up Christie, the devout worshipers -could be mere shadows and it would look fine--just what we wanted. -Billy Bitzer would “get” it if it could be got, that we knew. So while -Billy was tuning up his camera, Bobby Harron came and gathered in the -congregation from the curio shop and cemetery, and we quietly took -our places in the chapel and did our atmospheric bit. We did pray--we -prayed that it would be a good effect. - -We rather held our breath at the picture’s first showing until his -tricky scene was flashed on the screen. Then we relaxed; it was all -there! - -Spanish California was not to be neglected this trip, and our next -picture, a romance of the Spanish dominion, called “In Old California” -is historical as the first Biograph to be taken in Hollywood. The -Hollywood Inn was at this time the only exclusive winter resort between -the city and the ocean. We needed rooms where we could make up and -dress, and Mr. Anderson, the genial young proprietor, welcomed us -cordially. - -Marion Leonard was playing the beautiful Spanish señorita in this movie -and Frank Grandin the handsome young lover who afterwards became the -governor of California. As we came out of the hotel in our make up and -Spanish finery and quietly drove off into the foothills, guests were -lolling on the broad front porch. With a start they came to. Whatever -in the world was happening! “Did you see those people? What is it? -What’s going on? Let’s get our motor and follow them and see,” said -they. - -We had selected what we thought a remote and secluded spot in the -foothills, but soon in ones and twos and threes the guests appeared. -For a time they seemed well-behaved spectators; they kept quiet and -in the background. But Miss Leonard’s dramatic scenes proved too much -for them. They resented the love-making and began making derogatory -comments about movie actors, and one “lady” becoming particularly -incensed, shouted loudly, “Well, I wouldn’t dress up like a fool like -that woman and act like her, no, not for all the money in the world.” -That off her chest, she turned on her heel, and left us flat. - -Paul de Longpré, the famous flower artist, lived only a few blocks -from the Inn on Hollywood Boulevard. Many years ago he had left his -native France and built a lovely château in the broad stretches of -young Hollywood. In his gardens he had planted every variety of rose. -A tangled profusion of them covered even the walls of his house. We -offered fifty dollars a day for the use of the gardens. M. de Longpré -went us one better. He offered to let us work if we’d buy a corner lot -for three hundred dollars. But what could we do with a corner lot? We -had no idea we would work six days and pay the three hundred dollars -just in rental. But that we did. What we didn’t do, was, take title -to the corner lot. Had we done so we would have laid a foundation for -fortune. - -I recall M. de Longpré as the first person we met on location in -California who seemed to appreciate that we were at least striving for -something in an art line. To him we were not mere buffoons as we were -to the ladies of the Hollywood Inn. - -“Love Among the Roses” we aptly called the picture in which Marion -Leonard played a great lady residing in the Kingdom of Never-never Land. - -Monsieur de Longpré’s lovely house and gardens--a show place for -tourists some twelve years ago--has long since been cut up into -building lots on which have been erected rows of California bungalows. -For when motion picture studios began to spring up like mushrooms in -this quiet residential district, actors had to be domiciled and the -boulevard was no longer desirable as a restful home locality. Also, the -financial return on property thus manipulated was not to be lightly -regarded. The town council voted a memorial to the kindly French -artist. So Hollywood has a de Longpré Avenue. - -The day we lunched at the Hollywood Inn marked an event for Hollywood. -Few motion picture actors had desecrated the Inn’s conservative grounds -until that day. A few years later only motion picture actors lived -there, and they live there now, though the old-maid régime is coming -along rapidly. Aside from the movie intrusion, Mr. Anderson foresaw the -changes that were to come. In due time he built the now famous Beverly -Hills Hotel. But the movie actor, who has now achieved a social and -financial standing that equals that of other professions, he still has -with him. - - * * * * * - -Goodness gracious, how could we ever get all the scenic beauty on the -screen! It was too distracting, what with Missions, desert, mountains, -ocean, beaches, cliffs, and flowers. We wanted to send enough of it -back in our pictures to ensure our coming again next winter. - -We had a scenario that called for a wealthy gentleman’s winter home. -We hied ourselves out to Pasadena, to Orange Grove Avenue, Hillside -Avenue, Busch’s sunken gardens, Doheny’s, and other famous show places. -We found a place with gardens and pergolas, just the thing. Asked -permission to use the house and grounds, from very charming ladies -wintering within, possibly a bit bored, for they seemed delighted with -the idea. - -It was not the custom in those days to explain the nature of the story -for which one desired a place; and the ladies being so keen on seeing -moving pictures being made, the matter ended right there. The scenario -which had been selected for our pioneer work in Pasadena was called -“Gold is Not All.” - -The day came to start work on the picture. We were all packed up in our -motor car outside the Alexandria Hotel getting an early start, for the -earlier we got to work, the fewer the days we would need to trespass on -the borrowed property. - -“Gold is Not All” was a story of contrasts. There were very wealthy -people in it and very poor people. And the poor faction was so poor -that mother, little mother, had to take in washing to help out, which -washing she returned to the rich people’s houses. - -Like many other fallacies that have become identified with motion -picture characterization, rich people are invariably represented as -being unkind, selfish, penurious, and immoral--oh, always immoral. And -the poor are loving, kind, true, surfeited with virtue. The poor mother -idolized her children, worked and slaved for them; father always loved -mother, never strayed from home. But the rich man, drat him, ah, he had -sweethearts galore, he was dishonest on the stock market, he put marble -dust in the sugar, his wife was something merely to be exploited, and -his children were always “poor little rich boys and girls.” - -So we were primed for action and quite ready to make our wealthy -gentleman sojourning in his winter mansion an utter rake, a miserable -specimen of the middle-aged debauchee who treated cruelly a -long-suffering wife. But the little poor families were such models of -all the virtues, they hadn’t missed one; and their days were full of -happiness. - -The hostess of this charming home with some friends watched our -performances. There was no limit to their hospitality. They brought -out tables and a tea-service and they loaned us their “bestest” -butler--there was a lawn party in the story. When the picture was -finished, Mr. Griffith invited the owner and his family and their -friends to the studio to see the picture. - -The projection over, we noticed a strange lack of enthusiasm; and -then Monsieur took Mr. Griffith aside and asked him if it would be -absolutely necessary for him to release the picture. - -“Really,” said the gentleman, “we are a very happy family, my wife -and I and the children, we like each other a lot. All my friends have -been told about the picture and they’ll watch for it--and I just don’t -like it, that’s all. You know a person can have money and still be a -respectable citizen in the community.” - -And that was that. But we learned something. - -And here comes little Jack Pickford in his first leading part, a comedy -directed by Frank Powell, and called “The Kid.” It was full of impish -pranks of the small boy who does not want his lonely daddy to bring him -home a new mama, but he comes across in time and soon is all for her. - -Two more pictures, “The Converts,” and “The Way of the World,” finished -us at San Gabriel. Both were Christian preachments, having repentant -Magdalenes as heroines, and were admirably suited for portrayal -against the Mission’s mellow walls. - -Sleepy old San Gabriel, where dwelt, that first winter, but a handful -of Mexicans and where no sound but the mocking bird was heard until the -jangling trolley arrived and unloaded its cackling tourists! - -Mission atmosphere got under the skin; so we determined on San Fernando -for “Over Silent Paths,” an American Desert story of a lone miner and -his daughter who had come by prairie-schooner from their far-away -Eastern home. - -San Fernando Mission was twenty-two miles from Los Angeles, with -inadequate train service, and the dirt road, after the first winter -rains had swelled the “rivers” and washed away the bridges, was often -impassable by motor. - -The desertion and the desecration of the picturesque place was -complete. For more than two hundred years the hot sun and winter rain -had beat upon the Mission’s adobe walls. It boasted no curio shop, no -lunch room, not even a priest to guard it. A few Japs were living in -the one habitable room--they mended bicycles. We were as free to move -in as were the swallows so thickly perched on the chapel rafters. An -occasional tourist with his kodak had been the only visitor until we -came. Then all was changed. - -It was in San Fernando that we first met up with the typical California -rancher. This man, whose name I recall as “Boroff” had been one of the -first settlers in the valley. On a “location hunt” we had spied Mr. -Boroff’s interesting-looking place with its flowers and its cows, and -had decided to pay our respects and see if we could get the ranch for a -picture, sometime. One of the “hands” brought Mr. Boroff to us. Rangy -and rugged, oh, what health-in-the-cheeks he had! He swung us about -the place and then suddenly we found ourselves in a huge barn drinking -tall glasses of the most wonderful buttermilk. - -“Do you know,” said Mr. Boroff, downing his, “I drink a quart of -whiskey every day to pass the time away, and a gallon of buttermilk so -I’ll live long.” - - * * * * * - -Squatted one afternoon on the edge of the roadway in front of the -Mission, I began idly scratching up the baked dirt with an old Mexican -stiletto we were using in a picture. A few inches below the surface -I noticed funny little round things that did not seem to be rocks. -I picked up a few, broke off pieces of dry dirt, cleaned the small -particles on my Mexican shawl, and found them to be old Indian beads, -all colors, blue, red, and yellow. Through the leisure hours of that -day I dug beads until I had an interesting little string of them. The -Indians from whose decorated leather trappings the beads had fallen had -been sleeping many years in the old cemetery back of the Mission. - -Now there are grass and flower beds growing over my little burial place -of the beads, for the Mission has been restored; but even were it not -so, the movie actress of to-day would surely rather lounge contentedly -in her limousine than squat on old Mother Earth, digging up Indian -beads. - - * * * * * - -The third and last of the Missions we visited was romantic San Juan -Capistrano, seventy miles south of Los Angeles, nestling in the -foothills some three miles from the Pacific. - -Our scenario man, Mr. Taylor, had prepared a Spanish story of the padre -days, and this lovely rambling Mission with its adjacent olive ranches, -live-oak groves, silvery aliso trees, and cliffs along the seashore, -was to afford stacks of local color. - -Our one automobile deposited its quota--Mr. Griffith and party--in San -Juan Capistrano in the late afternoon. The evening train brought the -rest of the actors. - -There was one little Inn, the Mendelssohn--now fixed up and boasting -all modern conveniences; then merely an airy wooden structure evidently -built under the prevailing delusion that southern California has -a tropical climate. There was a tiny office; the only parlor, the -proprietor’s personal one, which he was kind enough to let us use. He -had a stove and it felt mighty good to get warmed up nights before -turning in. - -The bedrooms were upstairs. To reach them you had to go out in the -yard, the back-yard, climb the rickety stairs to the porch, on to -which each little bedroom by means of its own little door, opened. The -bare-floored bedrooms were just large enough to hold a creaky double -bed, wash-bowl and pitcher, and a chair. - -We must see the Mission before dinner. The idea of dinner didn’t thrill -us much, and the thought of going to bed thrilled us less. But why -expect the beauty of old things and modern comfort too? The thought -of seeing old San Juan in the dim light of early evening should have -sufficed. - -Beautiful old ruin! The peace and the silence! We might have been in -the Sahara. - -Every member of the company was to work in this picture. There were no -more than ten little bedrooms in the hotel. Actors slept everywhere, -two and three in a bed; even the parlor had to be fixed up with -cots. Miss Leonard and others of the women had been domiciled in a -neighborly Spanish house--the only other available decent quarters. - -Dell Henderson, who had put himself wise to the arrangement of sleeping -partners, had copped little Jack Pickford as his bedfellow. Dell was -one of our very largest actors and Jack being about as big as a peanut, -Dell had figured that with the little fellow by his side he might be -able to catch forty winks during the night. - -Few of us managed to get unbroken winks. Between the creaking of one’s -own bed and the snores from other rooms down the line (the walls were -like paper) and the footsteps on the shaking porch, of actors going -from room to room looking for something better than what had been -allotted them, it was a restful night! All through it, at intervals, -Charlie Craig kept calling to his bedfellow, “Don’t squash me--don’t -squash me.” But the most disgruntled of all was Sennett. To every room -he came calling “Hey, how many in this bed? Who’s in there? Got three -in my bed; I can’t sleep three in a bed.” But responses were few and -faint, and from Dell Henderson’s room came only silence. So after -waiting in vain for help in his difficulty, and thoroughly disgusted, -Mack returned to what must have been very chummy quarters. - -There had been engaged for this picture a bunch of cowboys, -rough-riders, headed by Bill Carroll, for we were to pull some -thrillers in the way of horse stuff. The riders with their horses were -leaving Los Angeles on the midnight train, due to reach Capistrano at -2 A.M. - -It was all so weird and spooky that midnight had arrived before I had -summoned sufficient courage to let myself go to sleep. No sooner had I -dozed off than out of the black and the silence came a terrific roar, -yells, and loud laughter, and pistol shots going zip, zip, zip. - -These hot-headed Mexicans! Things happened here, and something dreadful -was going to happen right now. I heard horses; and soon horses and -riders galloped madly into the back-yard, right to the foot of our -stairs, it seemed. - -But it was only our cowboys who had arrived, feeling good, and full -of the joy of life. Old Colonel Roosevelt knew all about this sort -of thing, and would have appreciated the celebration. No thought -had been given the boys’ slumber places, and so after a look around -they docilely crawled up into the barn and were soon asleep in the -sweet-smelling hay. - -“The Two Brothers,” the picture we were to do, told the story of the -good and bad brother. Good brother marries the pretty señorita in the -Mission chapel. - -An experienced and cultured gentleman was the French priest in charge -of this Mission. He was most obliging and told us we could use whatever -we liked of the wedding ceremonial symbols, which we did, but which we -shouldn’t have done on this particular day of days--Good Friday. - -The wedding was some spread. There were Spanish ladies in gay satins -and mantillas, and Spanish gentlemen in velvets and gold lace, and -priest and acolytes carrying the sacred emblems. They paraded all over -the Mission grounds. Then the camera was set up to get the chapel -entrance. While all was going happily, without warning, from out the -turquoise blue sky, right at the feet of the blushing bride and the -happy groom, fell the stuffed figure of a man! Right in the foreground -the figure landed, and, of course, it completely ruined our beautiful -scene. - -On Good Friday in these Spanish-Mexican towns of California a -ceremonial called “burning Judas” used to take place (and may still, -for all I know). Old carts and wheels and pieces of junk in the village -are gathered in a heap outside the Mission grounds, and old suits of -clothes are stuffed with straw, making effigies of Judas. The villagers -set fire to this lot of rubbish and to the Judases as well, and the -evil they have brought during the year is supposed to disappear in the -smoke from their burning bodies. The handsomest Judas, however, is -saved from the conflagration for a more ignominous finish. A healthy -young bull is secured and to his formidable horns this Judas is -strapped. Then the bull is turned loose, so annoyed by this monstrous -thing on his horns that he madly cavorts until Judas’s clothes are torn -to shreds and his straw insides are spilled all over the place, and he -is done for, completely. - -Now while we had been rehearsing and taking the wedding scenes, the -sacristan, a little old man to whom life meant tending the Mission and -ringing the bells at the appointed hour, had been covertly taking us -in, and when he saw our gay though holy processional start into the -very sanctum of the Mission on Good Friday, his soul revolted. No, that -he would not stand for! - -Something even worse than riding the bull’s horns could happen to -Judas; and that was to be thrown at movie actors. So the sacristan -picked the prize Judas, and at the climactic scene he dropped him on -us, and then broadcasting a roar of Mexican oaths he went on his way, -his soul relieved and his heart rejoicing. - -[Illustration: Mary Pickford as a picturesque Indian, before “curls” -and “Mary” had become synonymous terms. - - (_See p. 168_) -] - -But we felt differently. There was no telling now what these San Juan -hot-heads might do to us. But the seeming lack of reverence of our -procession was explained to the little sacristan by the understanding -priest. - -[Illustration: The Hollywood Inn, the setting for “The Dutch Gold -Mine,” with Mack Sennett and Eddie Dillon. The players were thrilled -at being received in such a hostelry, and the guests amazed at seeing -picture actors. - - (_See p. 158_) -] - -[Illustration: From “Comrades,” the first picture directed by Mack -Sennett, with Mack Sennett and Dell Henderson. - - (_See p. 204_) -] - -The next day we did the abduction. We took ourselves miles from the -Mission. We chose a treacherous-looking road along the ocean cliffs. -In a ramshackle buggy the bride and groom were speeding on their -honeymoon, but bad brother and his band of outlaws were hot on the -trail to steal the bride. Our cowboys bringing up the rear were -cavorting on their horses; the horses were rearing on their hind legs; -and the director was yelling, “A dollar for a fall, boys, a dollar for -a fall!” The boys fell, on all sides they fell; they swung off their -horses, and they climbed back on, and they spilled themselves in the -dust, their horses riding on without them. Some of the boys made ten -and some twenty dollars that day, just for “falls.” And not one was -even scratched. - -The next day was Easter Sunday, and our work being finished, in the -gray dawn we folded our tents and silently slunk away. - -But the curse of Judas was upon us. When the picture was projected, all -was fine--scenic effects beautiful--and photography superb, until--we -came to the wedding procession! - -Judas, to our surprise, was nowhere to be seen; he had fallen out of -focus evidently, but the effect of his anathema was all there. The -scene was so streaked with “lightning” we could not use it. At San -Gabriel we retook it later, but it never seemed the same to us. - - * * * * * - -Sierra Madre was another of our choice locations this first trip. -Here were wonderful mountains with fascinating trails and canyons -deep and long. From Sierra Madre, Mount Wilson was climbed, by -foot or donkey, for no magnificent motor road then led to its -five-thousand-and-something-foot summit. - -At the quarter-mile house we did “The Gold-seekers,” a story of -California in the days of ’49, with Henry Walthall striking pay dirt in -the west fork of the San Gabriel canyon. - -Mary Pickford did one of her Indians here, “A Romance of the Western -Hills.” David thought Mary had a good face for Indians on account of -her high cheek bones, and usually cast her for the red-skinned maid or -young squaw. A smear of brown grease paint over her fair face and a wig -of coarse straight black hair made a picturesque little Indian girl of -“our Mary.” - -Curls and Mary Pickford were not yet synonymous. She played, besides -Indians, many character parts with her hair smacked straight back; and -she “did” young wives with her hair in a “bun” on the top of her head -to make her look tall and married. When Mary wore curls, it meant an -hour of labor at night. The curls necessitated three distinct kinds of -“curlers,” the ones for the wave on top, others for the long curls, and -little curlers for the shorter hair around the face. I often thought -Mary Pickford earned her slim salary those days for the time and effort -she spent on her hair alone. - -It was an unhappy Mary on that first trip to Los Angeles, Owen Moore -having passed up his little sweetheart on account of the weekly ten -dollars he thought Mr. Griffith should have added to his salary. The -day’s work over, came her lonesome hour. On the long rides home from -location, cuddled up in her seat in the car, she dreamed of home and -dear ones. And one day passing the eastbound Santa Fé Limited, out of a -deep sad sigh the words escaped, “God bless all the trains going East -and speed the one we go on”--the Irish in her speaking. - -An urge to do “Ramona” in a motion picture possessed Mr. Griffith all -the while we were in California, for the picturesque settings of Helen -Hunt Jackson’s deep-motived romance were so close at hand. Several -conferences had been held on the subject in New York, before we left. -But in order to make a screen adaptation of this story of the white -man’s injustice to the Indian, arrangements would have to be made with -the publishers, Little, Brown & Company. They asked one hundred dollars -for the motion picture rights and the Biograph Company came across like -good sports and paid it, and “Ramona” went on record. It was conceded -to be the most expensive picture put out by any manufacturer up to that -time. - -To Camulos, Ventura County, seventy miles from Los Angeles, we traveled -to do this production of “Ramona.” For Camulos was one of the five -homes accredited to the real Ramona that Mrs. Jackson picked for her -fictional one. She picked well. - -What a wealth of atmosphere of beautiful old Spain, Camulos’s far-famed -adobe offered! Scenes of sheep-shearing; scenes in the little -flower-covered outdoor chapel where Ramona’s family and their faithful -Indian servants worshiped; love scenes at Ramona’s iron-barred window; -scenes of heartache on the bleak mountain top but a few miles distant -where Alessandro and Ramona bury their little baby, dead from the white -man’s persecutions; and finally the wedding scene of Ramona and Felipe -amid the oranges and roses and grass pinks of the patio. Even bells -that were cast in old Spain rang silently on the screen. The Biograph -Company brought out a special folder with cuts and descriptive matter. -The picture was Mr. Griffith’s most artistic creation to date. - -Nor did we neglect the oil fields, for oil had its romance. So at -Olinda, that tremendous field, we “took” plungers innumerable and -expensive oil spilling out of huge barrels into little lakes, all black -and smooth and shiny. The picture, called “Unexpected Help,” had Arthur -Johnson and little Gladys Egan as star actors. One other oil picture we -did, “A Rich Revenge,” a comedy of the California oil fields, with Mary -Pickford and Billy Quirk. - -We had located a picturesque oil field. A crabbed-looking man in dirty -blue jeans seemed the only person about. We asked him would there be -any objection to our working, and he gruffly answered in the negative. - -So we “set up,” and got our scenes; and, work finished, looked about -for our man, wishing to thank him. Feeling sorry for him, we went one -better and tendered him a twenty-dollar gold piece. When he saw that -money, he began to curse us so hard that we were glad when we hit the -highway. - -At the garage in the village we made inquiries and were enlightened. -The man of the dirty blue jeans was none other than the millionaire -owner of the oil well, an oil well that was gushing one fair fortune -per day. And though he refused our money as though it were poison, -three times a week that man walked to Santa Ana, ten miles distant, -where he could buy a ten-cent pie for five cents. - -Still more atmosphere we recorded in a picture called “As It Is In -Life”--the famous old pigeon farm located near the dry bed of the San -Gabriel River. Shortly after the time of our picture, the winter -storms washed away this landmark and we were glad then that we had so -struggled with the thousands of fluttering pigeons that just wouldn’t -be still and feed when we wanted them to, and insisted upon being good, -quiet little pigeons when we wished them to loop the loop. - -It seems we paid little attention to sea stories. Perhaps because we -had our own Atlantic waiting for us back home, and we had done sea -stories. We produced only one, “The Unchanging Sea,” suggested by -Charles Kingsley’s poem, “The Three Fishers.” - -Charlie Ogle, who had worked in a few old Biographs but had been signed -up with Edison before Mr. Griffith had a chance to get him, said to me -one day out at the Lasky lot last winter--1924: - -“What was that wonderful sea picture you played in? My, that _was_ a -picture, and you did beautiful work. I’ll never forget it.” - -“You couldn’t remember a sea picture I played in, Mr. Ogle. Heavens, -that was so long ago you must mean some one else.” - -“No, I don’t, and I remember it very well. What was the name?” - -“Enoch Arden?” - -“No.” - -“Fisher Folk?” - -“No, now what _was_ that picture?” - -And at that moment we were interrupted in our game of guess as Leatrice -Joy, whom we had been watching, came off the scene to revive from the -heavy smoke of a café fire, before doing it over again. - -“I’ve got it--‘The Unchanging Sea.’” - -“That’s it, that’s the one. I’ll never forget that picture.” - -“As I remember, it was considered quite a masterpiece.” - -The fishing village of Santa Monica was the locale of this story. At -this time there was but a handful of little shacks beyond the pier, -places rented for almost nothing by poor, health-seeking Easteners. No -pretentious Ince studio as yet meandered along the cliffs some nine -miles beyond. The road ran through wild country on to Jack Rabbit Lodge -where a squatter had a shack that tourists visited occasionally and for -twenty-five cents were shown an old Indian burial ground. - -The only fellow movie actors we met this first winter in Los Angeles -were two members of the Kalem Company, beautiful Alice Joyce and -handsome Carlyle Blackwell, who often on fine mornings trotted their -horses over Santa Monica’s wet sands. - -Occasionally, we met Nat Goodwin, who had cantered all the way from his -home in Venice-by-the-Sea. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - -BACK HOME AGAIN - - -Now we must pack up our troubles in our little black bag and go home. -They must be lonesome for us at 11 East Fourteenth, for the studio has -been dark and silent in our absence. Mr. Dougherty especially will be -glad to see us. And others--the jobless actors. For things were coming -along now so that Mr. Griffith didn’t have to dig so hard for new -talent. - -Much talk there’ll be about the pictures we did--how the public is -receiving them--which ones are most popular--how worthwhile the trip -was--how economical we were--and how hard we worked. - -When once again we had donned our working harness, how stuffy and -cramped the studio seemed! Four months in the open had ruined us; four -months with only a white sheet suspended above our heads when we did -“interiors” on our lot and the sun was too strong. We felt now like -toadstools in a dark cellar, with neither sun nor fresh air. - -There was so much to keep Mr. Griffith busy--cutting and titling -of pictures, and conferences upstairs. But the blossoming pink and -white apple orchards must be heeded, so we deserted a few days, hied -ourselves to New Jersey’s old stone houses and fruit trees and friendly -hens, and did a picture “In the Season of Buds.” - -Dorothy West played a leading part in “A Child of the Ghetto,” in which -was featured more Eastern atmosphere--the old oaken bucket. - -For a time we stayed indoors. We acquired a new actor, Joseph Graybill, -and a few old ones returned, Vernon Clarges and Mrs. Grace Henderson, -Jim Kirkwood and Gertrude Robinson. They now played leading parts. The -public must not get fed up with the same old faces--Mr. Griffith always -saw to that--so it was “go easy” on the California actors for a while. - -The feeling of the old actors towards the new ones, this spring, was -largely a jealous one. “Gee, Griff likes him all right, what are we -going to do about it?” said Charlie West and Arthur Johnson when Joe -Graybill was having his first rehearsals and the director was beaming -with satisfaction and so happy that he was singing lusty arias from -“Rigoletto.” - -“We’ll fix him,” they decided. - -So this day Charlie and Arthur returned from lunch with a small -brown bottle containing spiritous liquor, with which they would ply -Joe Graybill surreptitiously in the men’s dressing-room in the hope -that they might incapacitate him. But Joe drank up, rehearsed, and -Mr. Griffith’s smile only grew broader. Better than ever was the -rehearsal. So Charles went out for another little brown bottle and Joe -disposed of it, and rehearsed--better still. Another bottle, another -rehearsal--better than ever--until in a blaze of glory the scene was -taken and Joe Graybill stood upon the topmost rung of the ladder, -leaving Charles and Arthur gazing sadly upward. - -There was another reason why Mr. Griffith welcomed new faces. He had a -way of not letting an actor get all worked up about himself. When that -seemed imminent, new talent would suddenly appear on the scene to play -“leads” for two or three weeks so that the importance of the regular -could simmer down a bit. - -Now that they had developed an affection for their movie jobs, the -actors didn’t like this so well. They’d come down to the studio, sit -around and watch, get nervous, and after drawing three or four weeks’ -salary without working (things had come along apace), they wouldn’t -know what to make of it. They’d carry on something awful. They’d moan: -“When am I going to work? I don’t like this loafing--I wonder if -Griffith doesn’t like me any more--I’d like to know if he wants me to -quit and this is his way of getting me to make the overture.” Finally, -Eddie August, after suffering three weeks of idleness, on pay, got very -brave and told Mr. Griffith he wished he’d fire him or else, for God’s -sake, use him. Mr. August was quite relieved to have Mr. Griffith’s -explanation that in his case he was merely trying out new people, and -didn’t want him to quit at all, would be very glad to have him stay. - -When the Black-eyed Susans had reached full bloom, we went back to -Greenwich, Connecticut, and did a picture called “What the Daisy -Said,” with Mary Pickford and Gertrude Robinson. We visited Commodore -Benedict’s place again, and again he brought out boxes of his best -cigars. A good old sport he was. - -To the Civil War again, in the same old New Jersey setting, with -Dorothy West playing the heroine in “The House with the Closed -Shutters.” In her coward brother’s clothes she takes his place on the -battlefield, breaks through the lines, delivers a message, and is shot -as she returns. And, forever after, inside the darkened rooms of the -House with the Closed Shutters the brother pays through bitter years -the price of his cowardice. - -All our old stamping grounds we revisited this summer. At the Atlantic -Highlands we did two pictures: one, “A Salutary Lesson,” with Marion -Leonard; and the other, “The Sorrows of the Unfaithful,” with Mary -Pickford. - -At Paterson, New Jersey, we found a feudal castle. It belonged to one -Mr. Lambert, a silk manufacturer. Here we did “The Call to Arms” where -little Mary donned tights for the first and only time, playing a page, -and looking picturesque on a medieval horse, but being a very unhappy -Mary for a reason that none of us knew. - -How she fussed about those tights--nearly shed tears. She sat on the -lawn all wrapped up in the generous folds of her velvet cape, and -wouldn’t budge until she was called for her scene, and she talked so -strangely. For Owen was there, and all the other actors were to see her -in the tights, and Mary and Owen had a secret--a secret that made such -a situation quite unbearable. She had confided it only to “Doc,” but -the rest of us had been wondering. - -What a miserable, hot, muggy day it was. Tolerable only sitting on the -grassy slopes of the Lambert estate, but how awful in the rooms of the -little frame hotel over by the railroad tracks where we had made up -and where some of the actors were still awaiting orders as to how they -should dress. - -Dell Henderson, who was assisting Mr. Griffith on this picture, was -laboring back and forth from the castle to the hotel bringing orders to -the waiting actors as they were needed. Sennett was one of the waiting -ones, and he was all humped up in his pet grouch when Dell entered and -said, “Here, Sennett, the boss says for you to don this armor.” - -“Armor, in this heat? Armor? I guess I won’t wear armor.” Then a short -pause, “Are you going to wear armor?” - -“Yes, I’m no teacher’s pet,” said Dell, as he gathered to himself -the pieces of his suit of mail and began to climb into them. So the -doubting Mack Sennett could do naught but imitate him, for no matter -how balky his manner, one word from the boss and he became a good -little boy again. - -In August we were once more back in Cuddebackville. The O. and W.’s -conductor was no longer skeptical of our visits. We brought so many -actors sometimes that we not only filled the little Inn but had to find -neighboring farmhouses in which to park the overflow. - -We met all the old Cuddebacks again. We never realized what a tribe -they were until we had to do a scene in a cemetery, and every grave we -picked made trouble for us with some Cuddeback or other still living. -How to get away with it we didn’t know until we hit upon the idea of -simultaneously enacting a fake but intensely melodramatic scene down by -the General Store. That did the trick. All the villagers missed their -lunch that day and were unaware of the desecration of their dead. - -“Wally” Walthall gave his famous fried chicken luncheon at the -minister’s house. Talent was versatile. We’d worked through our lunch -hour this day, so it was either go lunchless or beg the privilege of -slaughtering some of the minister’s wife’s tempting spring chickens and -cooking them in her kitchen. That’s how “Wally” had the opportunity to -prove his fried chicken the equal of any Ritz-Carlton’s. - -We met up with old Pete again. Although nearly ninety, he was worrying -his faithful spouse into a deep and dark melancholia. Pete drove the -big bus, rigged up for our use out of one of his old farm wagons. It -was usually filled with “actresses”--wicked females from the city who -wore gay clothes and put paint on their faces. What a good time old -Pete did have once out on the highway! What a chatter, chatter, chatter -he did maintain! Never had he dreamed of such intimacy with ladies out -of a the-ayter! - -But a wife was ever a wife. So no matter how old and decrepit Pete was, -to Mrs. Pete he still had charm, so why wouldn’t he be alluring to -these city girls? Every night Mrs. Pete was Johnny-on-the-spot, when -the bus unloaded its quota of fair femininity at the Inn, waiting to -lead her errant swain right straight home. - -Our friends the Goddefroys still held open house for us. Dear old -Mr. Goddefroy told us of the disquieting notes that had crept into -Cuddebackville’s former tranquil life, due to our lavish expenditures -the first summer--told Mr. Griffith he was “knocking the place to hell.” - -But they still loved us. In a smart little trap they’d jog over to -location bringing buckets of fresh milk and boxes of apples and pears. -Toward late afternoon of a warm summer day, when working close to their -elaborate “cottage,” the “Boss” would appear with bottles of Bass’s -Ale, and bottles of C-and-C Ginger Ale, both of which he’d pour over -great chunks of ice into a great shining milk bucket--shandygaff! Was -it good? For the simple moving picture age in which we were living we -seemed to get a good deal out of life. - -We enjoyed the other social diversions of the year before--canoeing, -motoring, table-tipping. But one night, the night on which the -Macpherson magicians broke up Mr. Griffith’s beautiful sleep, nearly -saw the end of table-tipping. - -Retiring early after a hard day David was awakened by noisy festivities -downstairs, and getting good and mad about it he rapped a shoe on the -floor. The group on occult demonstration bent, thinking how wonderfully -their spooks were working, instead of quieting down became hilarious. -The morning found them much less optimistic about spirit rapping. - -We did an Irish story of the days when the harp rang through Tara’s -Hall--the famous “Wilful Peggy”--in which pretty Mary never looked -prettier nor acted more wilfully. But the something that had happened -to Mary since our first visits to Cuddebackville made her a different -Mary now. - -One day we were idling over by the Canal bank when, with the most -wistful expression and in the most wistful tone, Mary spoke, “You know, -Mrs. Griffith, I used to think this canal was the most beautiful place -I’d ever seen, and now it just seems to me like a dirty, muddy stream.” - -What had happened to her love’s young dream to so change the scenery -for her? - -Early that fall we went to Mount Beacon to do an Indian picture. The -hotel on the mountain top had been closed, but we dug up the owner and -he reopened parts of the place. At night we slid down the mountainside -in the incline railway car to the village of Fishkill where we dined -and slept at a regular city hotel. - -We nearly froze on that mountain top. Playing Indians, wrapped -up in warm Indian blankets, and thus draped picturesquely on the -mountainside, saved us. Mrs. Smith, not yet Pickford, did an Indian -squaw in this picture, which featured a picturesque character, one -Dark Cloud, for years model to the artist Remington. Dark Cloud was -sixty years old, but had the flexible, straight, slim figure of -nineteen. How beautifully he interpreted the Harvest Festival dance! - -There were other actor-Indians on this Mount Beacon picture, -present-day celebrities who were thanking their stars they were being -Indians with woolly blankets to pose in. There were Henry Walthall and -Lily Cahill and Jeanie Macpherson and Jim Kirkwood and Donald Crisp, -among others. - -Donald Crisp had crept quietly into the Biograph fold as Donald -Somebody Else. Occasionally, he authored poems in _The Smart -Set_--reason for being Donald Somebody Else in the movies. Of late, Mr. -Crisp has rather neglected poetry for the movies. He gave the screen -his greatest acting performance as _Battling Burrows_ in Mr. Griffith’s -artistic “Broken Blossoms.” - -The night that “Way Down East” opened in New York in 1920 (September 3) -Donald was radiant among the audience saying his farewells, for on the -morrow he was to sail for England to take charge of the Famous Players -studio there, where he put on among other things “Beside the Bonnie -Brier Bush.” - -Claire MacDowell and her husband, Charles Mailes, joined Biograph -this season. Stephanie Longfellow returned to play in more pictures; -Alfred Paget began to play small parts, as did Jeanie Macpherson; -also beautiful Florence LaBadie, who afterwards became a fan favorite -through Thannhouser’s startlingly successful serial “The Million Dollar -Mystery.” As one of the four principals, along with James Cruze of “The -Covered Wagon” fame, Sidney Bracy and Marguerite Snow, she attracted -much attention. A job as model to Howard Chandler Christie had -preceded her venture into the movies. Her tragic death, the result of a -motor accident, occurred in 1917. - -Edwin August came, to look handsome in costume, playing his first part -with Lucy Cotton (recently married to E. R. Thomas) in “The Fugitive,” -taken on Mount Beacon. Mabel Normand, who had peeked in on us the year -before, returned after a winter spent with Vitagraph. - -Mabel, as every one knows, had been responsible for the lovely magazine -covers by James Montgomery Flagg, and had also been model to Charles -Dana Gibson, before she came to pictures, which had happened through -friendship for Alice Joyce, who had also been a model, but was now -leading lady at the Kalem Company. It was at Kalem, playing extras, -that Mabel Normand began her rather startling movie career. Dorothy -Bernard made a screen début, as did the other Dorothy who afterward -became the wife of Wallace Reid. - -I recall Dorothy Davenport at the Delaware Water Gap where we took some -pictures that fall. She was a modish little person; she wore brown -pin-check ginghams and a huge brown taffeta bow on the end of a braid -of luxurious brown hair that fluttered down her back. She looked as -though she came direct from Miss Prim’s boarding school for children of -the élite--and so was distinctive for the movies. - -Fair Lily Cahill of the tailored blue serge, plain straw “dude,” and -lady-like veil worked intermittently that summer; she was always -immaculately bloused in “sun-kissed linen.” Not long after the days -of the Water Gap and Mount Beacon Indian pictures, Miss Cahill became -a Broadway leading woman in support of that long-time matinée idol, -Brandon Tynon, and somewhere along in this period she married him. - -Henry Lehrman, alias Pathé, hung about. How he loved being a -near-actor! How he adored getting fixed up for a picture! He was -satisfied by now that his make-ups were works of art. From the -dressing-room he would emerge patting his swollen chest, with the -laconic remark, “Some make-up!” - -Eddie Dillon returned, to smile his way through more studio days. He -often engaged me in long converse. Eddie was quite flabbergasted when -he learned my matrimonial status. He need not have been. For in Los -Angeles on Mr. Griffith’s busy evenings he often suggested my taking in -a movie with Eddie. But Eddie never knew about that. - -And there was Lloyd Carlton, who went all around the mulberry bush -before he landed in the movies. He first heard of them in far-off -Australia in 1908, when as stage manager for “Peter Pan” he met a Mr. -West, who was “doing” Australia and the Far East with a “show” that -consisted of ten-and fifteen-foot moving pictures, toting the films and -projection machine and the whole works along with him. Back on home -soil, Mr. Carlton bobbed up at Biograph where instead of Mr. Frohman’s -one hundred and fifty dollars weekly he cheerfully pocketed five -dollars per day for doing character bits. Followed Thannhouser, Lubin, -and Mr. Fox. - -[Illustration: Mary Pickford’s first picture, “The Violin Maker of -Cremona,” June 7, 1909. David Miles as the cripple Felippo. - - (_See p. 100_) -] - -[Illustration: Mary Pickford’s second picture. Mary Pickford, Marion -Leonard and Adele De Garde, in “The Lonely Villa.” - - (_See p. 100_) -] - -Mr. Carlton says he directed the first five-reel picture ever -released--“Through Fire to Fortune”--written by Clay Greene and -released March 2, 1914, by the General Film Company. Mr. Carlton -also says his picture contained the first night scene. Through crude -lighting manipulations Mr. Carlton secured it in the quarry at Betzwood -where rocks were painted black and properties arranged to represent -the interior of a mine. - - * * * * * - -And so from near and far, and from diverging avenues of endeavor, came -the new recruits to Biograph; but in the late fall Mary and Owen, and -the Smith family sailed for Cuba one fine day to produce some “Imp” -pictures there. When safe aboard the steamer, Mary and Owen decided to -brave mother’s tears and anguish. They told her of the secret marriage. - -[Illustration: Mary Pickford and Mack Sennett in “An Arcadian Maid,” -Aug. 1, 1910. - - (_See p. 78_) -] - -[Illustration: Mary Pickford, Mack Sennett, Joe Graybill and Marion -Sunshine, in “The Italian Barber,” which established Joe Graybill. - - (_See p. 174_) -] - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - -IT COMES TO PASS - - -There were no social engagements during these Biograph years. Our -dinner parties, which were concerned with nourishment mostly, were with -our co-workers. As we never knew when we would be allowed to eat, it -was impossible to dine with friends. There was no time for anything but -work--a good, hard steady grind it was, and we liked it. - -The one, lazy, lenient affair of the week was breakfast on Sunday -morning. From ten to twelve it stretched, and it was so restful to eat -at home and not have to look at a menu card or talk to a waiter, even -though the conversation would be all about the movies. - -“What are people interested in?” said he, one Sunday. - -“Well, men like to make money, and women want to be beautiful.” - -“That would make a good movie. Why don’t you write it?” - -“Glad to, if you think it’s any good.” - -So she wrote it, the part about the women wanting to be beautiful, and -called it “How She Triumphed,” and in it Blanche Sweet evolved from an -ugly duckling with no beaux to a very lovely bit of femininity with -sighing swains all around her. In the picture she did calisthenics -according to Walter Camp as one way of getting there. - -After the leisurely Sunday morning hours had crept their way, to the -studio David would hie himself to read scripts with Mr. Dougherty. And -Sunday night would mean a movie show somewhere. And Monday morning it -began all over again. - -From “Wark,” to “work,” only the difference of a vowel, so what an -appropriate middle name for David Griffith! What infinite patience he -had. If we got stuck in the mud when going out to location--we were -stuck, and we’d get out, so why worry? No cursing out of driver or car -or weather; no, “What the ----? Why the ----couldn’t you have taken -another road?” Instead would suddenly be heard baritone strains of -“Samson and Delilah” or some old plantation negro song while we waited -for horses or another car to pull us out. - -And it did happen once when on location perhaps twenty miles out in -the wilds, that the leading man suddenly discovered he had brought the -wrong pair of trousers. Nothing to do but send back for the right ones. -Mr. Griffith was not indifferent to the time that would be lost, but -getting himself all worked up would not make the picture any better. -He’d sing, perhaps an Irish come-all-you, or, were he out in the -desert, get out the automobile robe and start a crap game. - -Arthur Marvin never ceased to marvel at his chief’s agility and -capacity for hard work. Mr. Marvin had a sort of leisurely way of -working. - -Up and down a stubble field Mr. Griffith was tearing one day--getting -a line on a barn, a tree and some old plows. Arthur was having a -few drags on his pipe--the film boxes being full and everything in -readiness to put up the tripod wherever the director should decide. -David’s long legs kept striding merrily all over the cut harvest -field--most miserable place to walk--Arthur musing as he looked on. -“There goes Griffith, he’ll die working.” In a few moments Mr. Griffith -right-about faced and with not a symptom of being out of breath said, -“Set her up here, Arthur.” - -That winter we lost our genial Arthur Marvin, but David Griffith is -still hitting the stubble field. Well, he took good care of himself. -He did a daily dozen, and he sparred with our ex-lightweight, Spike -Robinson. The bellboys at the Alexandria Hotel called him “the polar -bear” because he bought a bucket of cracked ice every morning to make -the Los Angeles morning bath more tonic-y. - -One could not have better equipment for the trying experiences of movie -work than patience, and a sense of humor. And the “polar bear” is well -equipped with both. - -But there were times when even a sense of humor failed to sustain -one. Nothing was funny about the uncertain mornings when we’d gather -at the 125th Street ferry for the 8:45 boat, having watched weather -since daylight through our bedroom window, only to cross and recross -the Hudson on the same boat, the cumulus clouds we delighted in for -photographic softness having turned to rain clouds even as we watched -from the ferry slip. Back to the studio then to begin another picture -and to work late. And oh, how we’d grouch! - -But when it rained while we were registered at some expensive place -like the Kittatiny at the Delaware Water Gap, there was need for -anxiety, with the actors’ board bill mounting daily and nothing being -accomplished. - -Yes, we had worries. But we were getting encouragement too. The -splendid reviews of our pictures in _The Dramatic Mirror_ helped -a lot. The way our pictures were going over was a joy. With their -first announcement on the screen, what a twitter in the audience! A -great old title page Biograph pictures had. Nothing less than our -National emblem, our good old American eagle, sponsored them. He -certainly looked a fine bird on the screen, his wings benignly spread, -godfathering the Biograph’s little movie children. - -Exhibitors were certainly getting keen about “Biographs”; the public -was too. People were becoming anxious about the players as well, and -commencing to ask all sorts of questions about them. - -Stacks of mail were arriving daily imploring the names of players, but -of this no hint was given the actor. How surprised I was that time my -husband said to me, “You know we are getting as many as twenty-five -letters a day about Mary Pickford?” - -“Why, what do you mean, letters about her?” - -“Every picture she plays in brings a bunch of mail asking her name and -other things about her.” - -“You’re not kidding?” - -“Of course not.” - -“Did you tell her?” - -“No. I don’t want her asking for a raise in salary.” - -Biograph found it a difficult job sticking to their policy of secrecy. -Letters came from fans asking about their favorites; the pretty girl -with the curls--the girl with the sad eyes--the man with the lovely -smile--the funny little man--and the policeman. What tears of joy -Sennett would have wept had he known! - -In bunches the postman soon began to leave the “who” letters at 11 -East Fourteenth Street. “Who played the tall, thin man in ‘The -Tenderfoot’?” “Who played the little girl in the Colonial dress and -curls who danced the minuet in the rose garden at midnight in ‘Wilful -Peggy’?” “Who was the handsome Indian who did the corn dance on the -mountain top in ‘The Indian Runner’s Romance’?” - -Other picture concerns than Biograph had not as yet made the actor’s -name public. But they did give him his mail when addressed with -sufficient clarity. Arthur Mackley, the famous _Sheriff_ of Essanay, -was receiving, those days, ten letters a day. They came addressed. - - The Sheriff - Essanay Company - Chicago - -Some boy, the Sheriff, getting ten letters a day! - -It remained for English exhibitors first to name the Biograph players. -For Biograph, long after all the other picture companies had made -the actor’s name public, still refused to come out into the open. -Over in London the fans were appeased with fictitious names for their -favorites. Beautiful names they were, so hero-ish and so villain-ish, -so reminiscent of the old-time, sentimental, maiden-lady author. I -recall but one and a half names of our players. Dell Henderson was -given the beautiful soubriquet of “Arthur Donaldson” and Blanche Sweet -became “Daphne ----” something or other. - -But the yearning American youths and maidens continued to receive the -cold, stereotyped reply, “Biograph gives no names.” The Biograph was -not thinking as quickly as some of its players. - -Our friends from Cuddebackville, the Goddefroys, being in New York one -time this summer, Mr. Griffith thought it would be rather nice to -arrange an evening. They were interested in our California pictures, -as they were planning a trip there. We fixed up the projection room -and ran the better of the Western stuff. Afterward with our guests -and a few of the leading people we repaired to Cavanaugh’s on West -Twenty-third Street. - -Busy chatter about the pictures, every one raving over Mary Pickford’s -work in “Ramona,” when Mary, quietly, but with considerable assurance -said, “Some day I am going to be a great actress and have my name in -electric lights over a theatre.” - -I turned pale and felt weak. We all were shocked. Of course, she never -meant the movies, that would have been plumb crazy. No, she meant the -stage, and she was thinking of going back. The thought of losing Mary -made me very unhappy. But just how had she figured to get her name in -electric lights? What was on her mind, anyway? - -This summer of 1910 Mr. Griffith signed his third Biograph contract. -This contract called for a royalty of an eighth of a cent a foot on all -film sold and seventy-five dollars per week, but the name “Lawrence” -which had been signed on the dotted line the two preceding years, was -this time scratched out and “David” written in. - -“David” had gone into the silence and decided that the movies were now -worthy of his hire, and couldn’t dent his future too badly, no matter -what that future might be. David W. Griffith and Mary Pickford were -certainly growing bold. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - -THE FIRST TWO-REELER - - -Though the licensed picture companies--The General Film Group--kept a -watchful eye on one another, each had pride in its own trademark and -was satisfied with the little company of actors bringing it recognition. - -But the independent companies, now beginning to loom on the horizon, -were looking with envying eyes on the rich harvest the licensed -companies were reaping, and they figured that all they’d need, to do as -well, would be some of their well-trained actors, especially those of -Mr. Griffith’s quite famous little organization. Surely D. W. Griffith -had less to do with Mary Pickford’s success than Mary Pickford herself! -She it was the public came to see; so they were out, red-hot for Mary, -and offering publicity and more money. The little war was started. - -Actors in the companies that comprised the General Film Company could -not be bargained for except by the Independents. For instance, if an -actor of the Biograph Company were discovered offering his services -to Lubin or Edison or any of the General Film, that company promptly -reported the matter to Biograph and the ambitious actor found himself -not only turned down by Edison or Lubin or any other but his nice -little Biograph job would be gone as well. That had happened to Harry -Salter and Florence Lawrence. An actor in one of the General Film -group would have to resign his job before he could open negotiations -with any other company in that group. - - * * * * * - -We did grind out the work this fall and early winter. The promise of -California again was a big incentive. We might stay longer and have a -new studio, a regular place. - -While there was no more excitement pervading the studio than there had -been the year before, a more general willingness was noticed among the -leading people and more tears and anguish on the part of the beseeching -extras. Jeanie Macpherson sat on the steps leading to the basement of -the studio, and cried, until Mr. Griffith felt remorseful and took her. - -But such conduct hadn’t availed pink-cheeked lanky “Beau,” the year -before, when he was the one property boy left behind. Then that unhappy -youth’s tearful parting shot, “All I ask, Mr. Griffith, is that some -day you take me to California,” kept intruding and spoiling the -complete satisfaction of our days. Another year Mr. Griffith harkened -to his pleading. For nearly ten years now “Beau” as William Beaudine -has been directing pictures in Los Angeles. - -And so, while some of the old guard would not be with us, a goodly -number would. - -To the “Imp” had gone Mary and Owen; and while Ma fussed terribly about -it, there was nothing for her and Lottie and Jack to do but follow suit. - -David Miles and Anita Hendry, his wife, were already with “Imp”; and -they, with King Baggott and George Loane Tucker, Joe Smiley, Tom Ince, -Hayward Mack, and Isabel Rae, made a fair number of capable people. -But even so, Mary’s “Imp” pictures fell far short of her Biograph -pictures, and she wasn’t very happy and she didn’t stay so very long. - -As a member of the “Imp” Company, the silence and mystery that had -surrounded her when with Biograph instantly vanished. She now received -whole pages of advertising, for that was how the “Imp” would put the -pictures over. One of her first Independent pictures was “The Dream” -of which a reviewer said: “The picture got over on account of Miss -Pickford. Our feelings were somewhat sentimental when we saw ‘Our Mary’ -as a wife arrayed in evening gown and dining with swells. In other -words, we have always considered Mary a child. It never occurred to us -she might grow up and be a woman some day.” - -Marion Leonard and Stanner E. V. Taylor had taken their departure. -I believe it was Reliance-ward they went, as did Mr. Walthall, Mr. -Kirkwood, and Arthur Johnson. Arthur had become not so dependable, and -Mr. Griffith being unable to stand the worry of uncertain appearances, -reluctantly parted with his most popular actor, and his first leading -man. He never found any one to take his place exactly. For even so long -ago, before he and Mr. Griffith parted, ’twas said of Arthur Johnson, -“His face is better known than John Drew’s.” - -Mary gone, Mr. Griffith located Blanche Sweet somewhere on the road -and telegraphed an offer of forty dollars weekly to come with us to -California, which Miss Sweet accepted. He was willing to take a chance -on Blanche, being in need of a girl of her type. If she didn’t work out -right (he hardly expected her to set the world a-fire) the loss would -be small, as he was getting her so cheaply. - -Wilfred Lucas also received a telegram; but his tenderly implored him -to come for one hundred and fifty dollars--a staggering offer--the -biggest to date. He also accepted. - -Dell Henderson had been commissioned by Mr. Griffith to dispatch the -Lucas-one-hundred-and-fifty-dollar telegram, and the high salary made -him so sore that he promptly told it everywhere, causing jealous fits -to break out all over the studio. - -We had also in our California cast, Claire MacDowell, Stephanie -Longfellow, Florence Barker, Florence LaBadie, Mabel Normand, Vivian -Prescott, and Dorothy West for the more important parts; Grace -Henderson, Kate Toncray, and Kate Bruce for the character parts; and -little Gladys Egan for important child rôles. And of men--as memory -serves me--there were Frank Powell, Edwin August, Dell Henderson, -Charlie Craig, Mack Sennett, Joe Graybill, Charlie West, Donald Crisp, -Guy Hedlund, Alfred Paget, Eddie and Jack Dillon, Spike Robinson, Frank -Grandin, Tony O’Sullivan and “Big” Evans, and George Nichols. - -And some wives: Mrs. Frank Powell, Mrs. Dell Henderson, Mrs. George -Nichols, and Mrs. Billy Bitzer. - -And one baby: Frank Baden Powell. - -At Georgia and Girard Streets, Los Angeles, a ten-minute ride from the -center of the city, on a two-and-a-quarter-acre plot adjoining some -car barns, the carpenters were building our grand studio. An open air -studio--no artificial lighting--we could get all the light effects we -desired from the sun--and could begin to work as early as 8:30 and -continue until late in the afternoon. We had not yet reached the stage -where we felt that Mr. Electric Lamp could compete with the sun. - -How joyful we were when we first beheld the new studio! The stage was -of nice smooth boards and seemed almost big enough for two companies -to work at the same time. The muslin light diffusers were operated on -an overhead trolley system. There was even a telephone on the stage. -The studio was then indeed the last word in modern equipment. - -An elongated one-story building contained the office, projection room, -rehearsal room, for nights and rainy days, and two large dressing-rooms -for the men. In order to save wear and tear on the women’s clothes, -they were given the two dressing-rooms in the rear of the building -which opened directly onto the stage. - -To tell the world how secure our position--how prosperous -financially--at the street entrance to our studio there now waited -through the day one, and often two big, black seven-passenger touring -cars--rented by the month, at six hundred dollars per. Now between sets -in the studio we could dash out in the car and grab an exterior. - -In our dressing-rooms we had make-up tables, mirrors, lockers, and -running water. And oil stoves to keep us warm. For in the early -mornings, before the sun had reached our room, it was a shivery place. -Our cold cream and grease paints would be quite as stiff as our fingers. - -So now, with the new studio, a larger company, and our knowledge of the -surrounding country, there was nothing to it but that we must get right -on the job and do better and bigger pictures. - - * * * * * - -With the one exception already noted we had neglected the sea the year -before, and as yet we had attempted nothing important that had to do -with “Ol’ davil Sea,” as Eugene O’Neil calls it. The sea was trickier -than the mountains, and more expensive if one needed boats and things. -But this year we would go to it right, with a massive production of -Tennyson’s “Enoch Arden”--a second production of the poem that had -written history for us in our screen beginnings. - -The first time we had taken most of it in the studio, with only one -or two simple shots of the sea. Now we would do something g-r-a-n-d. -“Enoch Arden” was such good movie stuff, and Mr. Griffith was wondering -how he could get it all into one thousand feet of film. - -An exhibitor in those days would accept eleven hundred feet of film, -but that was the limit. The programs were arranged only for the -thousand-foot picture; a thousand-foot Biograph being shown Mondays -and Thursdays. How could two thousand feet be shown on Monday and none -on Thursday? Even could the exhibitor have so arranged it, would the -people sit through two thousand feet without a break? - -Well, now, we could do this: we could take the picture in two reels, -each of a thousand feet, show one reel Monday, the second Thursday, and -take a chance on the people becoming sufficiently interested in the -first reel to come back for the second--the only logical way of working -out the problem. Mr. Griffith fully realized his responsibility. Again -he would chance it. - -Santa Monica would be the ideal place for this big production; so every -day for a week--for a whole week was given to exteriors alone--we -motored out to Santa Monica in the cold early morning. - -The place had changed little in the year that had passed. The row of -tiny shacks was now occupied by Japs and Norwegians who caught and -dried fish and fought with each other at all other times. - -One friendly Norwegian loaned his shack as a dressing-room for the -women. We “shot” the same shack for Annie’s bridal home. The men made -up in a stranded horse car of bygone vintage that had been anchored in -the sand. We sent out an S. O. S. for a sailing vessel of Enoch’s day, -and we heard of one, and had it towed up from San Pedro. What would we -do next? - -We did “Enoch Arden” in two reels. Wilfred Lucas played Enoch; Frank -Grandin, Philip; and I played Annie Lee. Well, Jeanie Macpherson said I -had “sea eyes,” whatever that meant. - -Mrs. Grace Henderson kept the Inn to which Enoch returns; Annie’s and -Enoch’s babies grew up to be Florence LaBadie and Bobbie Harron (one -of Bobbie’s first parts), and Jeanie Macpherson powdered her hair and -played nurse to the little baby that later came to Philip and Annie. - -George Nichols departed via the Owl for San Francisco to get the -costumes from Goldstein & Company. There was so little to be had -in costumes in Los Angeles. Mr. Nichols had also journeyed to San -Francisco for costumes for “Ramona” the year before. - -The exhibitors said they would accept “Enoch Arden” in the two reels, -show the first on Monday, and the second reel Thursday. And so it -was first shown. And those who saw the first reel came back in all -eagerness to see the second half. And that was that. - -The picture was so great a success, however, that it was soon being -shown as a unit in picture houses; also in high schools and clubs, -accompanied by a lecturer. And so “Enoch Arden” wrote another chapter -of screen history. - -Sustained by its success Mr. Griffith listened to the call of the -desert. With two thousand feet of celluloid to record a story, he -felt he now could do something with prairie schooners, pioneers, and -redskins, and so he answered the desert call with a big epic of pioneer -romance, “The Last Drop of Water.” - -We set up camp in the San Fernando desert--two huge tents, one for -mess, with a cook and assistants who served chow to the cowboys and -extra men. Two rows of tables, planks set on wooden horses, ran the -length of the tent--there must have been at least fifty cowboys and -riders to be fed hearty meals three times a day. The other tent -contained trunks and wardrobe baskets, and here the boys slept and made -up. - -The hotel in the village of San Fernando, three miles or so from the -camp, accommodated the regular members of the company and all the extra -women, to whom the director, as he dashed off for his camp in the -morning, gave this parting advice, “Girls, stay together when you’re -not busy, for you’re likely to hear some pretty rough stuff if you -don’t.” - -Prairie schooners to the number of eight made up our desert caravan, -and there were the horses for the covered wagons, the United States -soldiers, and the Indians; dogs, chickens, and a cow; for this restless -element from a Mississippi town, making the trek across the land of -the buffalo and the Indian to gather gold nuggets in the hills of -California, brought with them as many familiar touches from their -deserted homes as they reckoned would survive the trip. - -Of course, conflicts with Indians, and the elements, resulted in a -gradual elimination of the home touches and disintegration of the -caravan, but there was a final triumphant arrival at their destination -for the few survivors. - -The picture was expensive, but quite worth it; we were at least headed -the right way, in those crude days of our beginnings. We were dealing -in things vital in our American life, and not one bit interested in -close-ups of empty-headed little ingénues with adenoids, bedroom -windows, manhandling of young girls, fast sets, perfumed bathrooms, or -nude youths heaving their muscles. Sex, as portrayed in the commercial -film of to-day, was noticeable by its absence. But if, to-day, the -production of clean and artistic pictures does not induce the dear -public to part with the necessary spondulics so that the producer can -pay his rent, buy an occasional meal and a new lining for the old -winter overcoat, then even Mr. Griffith must give the dear public -what it wants. And for the past year or two it has apparently wanted -picturizations daring as near as possible the most intimate intimacy of -the bedroom. - -The season closed with another “Covered Wagon” masterpiece called -“Crossing the American Prairies in the Early Fifties.” The picture -was taken at Topango Canyon. There were hundreds of men and women and -cowboys and a hundred horses from ranches near by, as well as eleven -prairie schooners. - -[Illustration: Linda Griffith and Mr. MacKay in “Mission Bells,” a -Kinemacolor picture play taken at San Juan Capistrano. - - (_See p. 162_) -] - -In the picture, guards had been posted at night, but being tired, they -fell asleep, so the Indians pounced upon the emigrants, slaughtering -some and taking some prisoners, to be burned at the stake. The few -survivors who escaped left numbers of dead pioneers behind. The -shifting desert sands would soon cover the bodies and remove all trace -of the massacre. The dead bodies were represented by the living bodies -of members of the company who had to be buried deep in the alkali -waste; and the getting covered up was going to be a dirty job for -the living corpses. So those scenes had to be taken last. - -[Illustration: A rain effect of early days at Kinemacolor’s Los Angeles -studio, known a year later as the Fine Arts Studio, where “The Birth -of a Nation” and “Intolerance” were filmed. From “The House That Jack -Built,” with Jack Brammall and Linda Griffith. - - (_See p. 245_) -] - -Little grains of sand gently falling upon one from out the property -boys’ cornucopias, while unpleasant, could be silently endured; but -when the property boys got the storm really started and the sand was -being poured upon one thick and heavy, getting into hair and ears and -eyes, no matter how protective the position one had assumed, there were -heard smothered oaths from the dead people that no wild cowboy had ever -excelled. - -Dell Henderson, dying with little old Christie Miller, was all humped -up and writhing in the desert sands. And while Dell was just about to -be featured as the far-famed gambler of the West in a line of showy -parts, and while he felt that Mr. Griffith had a friendly feeling for -him, his ardor for his movie job was beginning to cool. And when, after -being extricated from his earthy grave, he found the boss, he lost all -restraint. - -“Old man,” said Dell to David, “this is too much, I quit pictures, I’m -through.” But the next day when all bathed and barbered up, he felt -differently about it. - -But Dell hadn’t had it as rough as the atmospheric members of the -company. Even the wives had been called upon for atmosphere, and were -to make up and dress as men. They didn’t like the old trousers and the -greasy felt hats that were passed out to them, and they weren’t keen on -being recognized on the screen, in the unflattering costumes. - -So Mr. Griffith compromised: “All right, I’ll put you in the background -and you can sit down.” At that the women became more amiable and agreed -to help out the perspective. And in the last few hundred feet of the -second reel, they joined the dead emigrants and were covered up in the -whirlwind. - -The final scenes were reserved for the days immediately preceding our -departure for the East. As soon as they were taken, the company would -be dismissed to make the necessary preparations prior to leave-taking. -So to their pet establishment the women beat it to have their hair -beautifully and expensively washed and lemon-rinsed, and were all in -readiness for the California Limited, when a re-take was announced. -Static in the film! - -To their burial places once more they were rushed, and again the boys -stood by and again poured the cornucopias of sand over them, ruining -completely the crop of nice clean heads. Few got a chance at another -fashionable shampoo. The majority had to be contented with just a home -wash--or to take the sand along with them. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - -EMBRYO STARS - - -We fell to the lure of the Bret Harte story this winter. We advanced -to the romances of the hardy Argonauts, and the “pretty ladies” of the -mining towns. What a wealth of picturesque cinema material the lives of -the rugged forty-niners afforded! - -Dell Henderson was featured as the handsome gambler, _Jack Hamlin_; and -Claire MacDowell as the intriguing lady of uncertain virtue; Stephanie -Longfellow as the rare, morally excellent wife. - -Blanche Sweet was still too much the young girl to interpret or look -the part of Bret Harte’s halo-ized Magdelenes. Mr. Griffith, as yet -unwilling to grant that she had any soul or feeling in her work, -was using her in “girl” parts. But he changed his opinion with “The -Lonedale Operator.” That was the picture in which he first recognized -ability in Miss Sweet. - -The outdoor life of the West had plumped up the fair Blanche, and -Mr. Griffith felt at this stage in her development she typified, -excellently well, buxom youth. Why wouldn’t Blanche have plumped up -when she arrived on location with a bag of cream puffs nearly every day -and had her grandmother get up at odd hours of the night to fry her -bacon sandwiches? She soon filled out every wrinkle of the home-made -looking tweed suit she had worn on her arrival in Los Angeles. - - * * * * * - -Way, way up on the Santa Monica cliffs we built a log cabin for Blanche -Sweet to dwell in, as the heroine of “The White Rose of the Wilds.” - -The location was so remote, the climb so stiff, that once having made -it no one was going down until the day’s work was over. - -It was a heavenly day. Gazing off into the distances quite sufficed, -until, whetted by clean, insistent breezes, little gnawings in the -tummy brought one back to realities. It took more than dreamy seas -and soft blue skies to deter a hungry actor from expressing himself -around lunch time. And so, in querulous accents soon were wafted on the -sage-scented air such questions as: “Gee, haven’t they sent for the -lunch yet? Gosh, I’m hungry. Hasn’t the car gone? It’ll take a couple -of hours to get food way up here. Hope they bring us enough--this -air--I’m starved.” - -Sooner or later lunch would be on the way. The car had to go for it as -far as Venice. It was nearly three o’clock when the car returned and by -that time every one was doggone hungry. - -Mr. Griffith had tipped his two “leads” and Mr. Bitzer and myself to -get off in a little group, for hot juicy steaks had been ordered for -those select few--leading players must be well nourished--and it was -just as well to be as quiet and unobtrusive about it as possible. For -while it wasn’t exactly fair, sandwiches and coffee was all the lunch -the company usually afforded for the extra people. - -Mack Sennett, who always had a most generous appetite, was wild-eyed -by now, for he was just an “extra” in “The White Rose of the Wilds.” -And he was on to the maneuvers of the “steak” actors and so resentful -of the partiality shown that he finally could contain himself no -longer, and in bitter tones, subdued though audible, he spoke: “Steaks -that way,” with a nod of his head indicating Griffith and the leading -people, “and sandwiches this way”--himself and the supers. And though -Mack sat off on the side, and from his point of vantage continued to -throw hungry glances, they brought him no steak that day. - -This winter it was that Mr. Sennett invested in a “tux” and went over -to the Alexandria Hotel night after night, where he decorated the -lobby’s leather benches in a determined effort to interest Messrs. -Kessel and Bauman. (The Kay Bee Company.) His watchful waiting got him -a job. - - * * * * * - -“The Battle of Elderberry Gulch” was a famous picture of those days. -The star was a pioneer baby all of whose relatives had been killed by -Indians. During the time the baby’s folks were being murdered another -party of pioneers, led by Dell Henderson, was dying of thirst near by. -With just enough life left in them to do it, they rescued the baby from -its dead relations, staggered on a few miles, and then they, too, sank -exhausted in the sand and cacti. - -Another cornucopia sand-storm blew up. - -Kind-hearted Dell Henderson, now sunk to earth, had protectingly tucked -the baby’s head under his coat. But the tiny baby hand (in the story, -and it was good business) had to be pictured waving above the prostrate -figures of the defunct pioneers, to show she still lived. Otherwise, -she might not have been saved by the second rescuing party, and saved -she had to be for the later chapters of the story. - -For though in the end of the story the baby became the lily-white -Blanche Sweet, it was, as matter of fact, a tiny, lightly colored, -colored baby from a Colored Foundling Home, whom we often used for the -photographic value of its black eyes, and Dell must see to it that the -tiny pickaninny was in no way hurt, even though he had surreptitiously -to wave the baby hand from under his rough outer garments. - - * * * * * - -Having succeeded so well at Santa Monica, we decided to work other -beaches this year. We became acquainted with them all--Redonda, Long -Beach, Venice, and Playa del Rey. - -The No. 2 company became especially familiar with the beaches, for -they did numbers of bathing pictures. Frank Powell was still directing -the comedies, with Dell Henderson and Mack Sennett occasionally trying -their hands at it. - -It was in these bathing pictures that Mabel Normand began winning -admirers both on the screen and off. Even Mack Sennett began to take an -interest in the beautiful and reckless Mabel, a slim figure in black -tights doing daredevil dives or lovely graceful ones. Mabel was always -ready for any venturesome aquatic stunt. But her work was equally -daring on land, for she thought nothing of riding the wildest bucking -broncho bareback. It took more than bucking bronchos to intimidate the -dusky-eyed Mabel. - -All of this Sennett was noting--clever kid was Mabel--and if he ever -should be a director on his own----! - - * * * * * - -On the beach by the old Redonda Hotel, which the passing years had -changed from a smart winter resort patronized by Easterners to a less -stylish summer one patronized by Angelenos, one balmy winter day, some -bathing scenes were being taken. This type of stuff was new to me and -I was all eyes. Working only with the Griffith company, there were lots -of things I didn’t see. - -But this day there were two companies working on the same location, and -that was how I first saw Margaret Loveridge, of lovely Titian hair and -fair of face, sporting the most modern black satin bathing suit, and -high-heeled French slippers. Imagine, right in the seashore sand! - -I was interested in this Loveridge girl, for she was pretty, and had a -rather professional air about her. - -Sometimes when rehearsing we’d suddenly find ourselves in need of -a little two- or three-year-older, which need would be supplied by -Mr. Griffith or Mr. Powell or Dell Henderson calling right out at -rehearsal: “Who’s got a kid?” Margaret Loveridge on one such occasion -had replied affirmatively. And so we came to use her small son -occasionally; and when Margaret was working and we needed the child, -and Margaret couldn’t bring it or take care of it, she’d press her -little sister into service. - -For Miss Loveridge had also a little sister. And it was some such -situation that led little sister to the movies and to Redonda at this -time. - -Little sister was a mite: most pathetic and half-starved she looked -in her wispy clothes, with stockings sort of falling down over her -shoe-tops. No one paid a particle of attention to the child. But Mr. -Griffith popped up from somewhere and spied her, and gave her a smile. -The frail, appealing look of her struck him. So he said, “How’d _you_ -like to work in a picture?” - -“Oh, you’re just fooling--you mean _me_ to work in a picture?” - -“Yes, and I’ll give you five dollars.” - -No stage bashfulness in the hanging head, the limp arms, and the funny -hop skip of the feet. - -“Oh, you couldn’t give me five dollars.” - -“Oh, yes I can.” - -“You sure you’re not fooling?” - -“No, you come around some time, and you’ll see, I’ll put you in a -scene. What’s your name?” - -“Mae Marsh.” - -“I’ll remember, and I’ll put you in a movie some day.” - -Right about now Dell Henderson was directing a picture in which Fred -Mace was playing the lead and Margaret Loveridge had a part. It was -understood about the studio that Mr. Mace was quite taken with the -charms of the fair Margaret. Now Margaret couldn’t get out on location, -and she wanted to send a message to Fred Mace, so she sent little -sister, and little sister looked so terrible to Mr. Mace that he said -to her, “Don’t let Griffith see you or your sister will lose her job.” - -When Mace saw Margaret again he said, “Don’t have your sister come -around the studio looking like that.” - -And Margaret answered, “Well, I will, for Mr. Griffith is going to -use some children at San Gabriel and she is going to be one of the -children.” - -“All right,” answered Mace, “take your chance.” - -And at San Gabriel Mae did a little more of the funny hop skip, and she -talked up rather pert to the director, “You think you’re the King” sort -of thing, and he liked it, and he said to Dell, “The kid can act, she’s -great, don’t you think so?” - -Dell answered “yes,” but he didn’t think so. No one thought so but Mr. -Griffith. - -A few weeks later when little Mae Marsh came to the studio carrying a -book and the boys made jokes about it, Dell said to himself, “When she -puts that down, I’m a-going to see.” The book was Tennyson’s poems. -The boys knew when a new actress came with such literature that Mr. -Griffith was already seeing her bringing home the cows, or portraying -some other old-fashioned heroine of the old-fashioned poets. - - * * * * * - -As intended, our stay in California this second year was much longer -than the first. The three months lengthened to five, and it was May -when the company returned East. - -It did seem a pity to close up the new studio, for it was the last word -in organization. Why, we’d even a separate department for finances. The -money end of things had grown to such proportions that David could no -longer handle it as he had the first year. And Mr. Dougherty was along -too, in charge of the front office. - - * * * * * - -With Mabel Normand and Blanche Sweet well started on their careers, the -second winter’s work in California ended. Another milestone had been -passed, the birth of the two-reeler, which having been tried was not -found wanting. - -What otherwise came out of the winter’s work as most important was -Biograph’s acquisition of the little hop-skip girl, Mae Marsh. She -played no parts this season, made very few appearances even as an -insignificant extra girl, and when the company returned to New York -they left little Mae behind them. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - -MARKING TIME - - -The serious students of the motion picture, for they had arrived, were -at this time writing many and various articles in the trade papers. -Epes Winthrop Sargent was a-saying this: - - _The Moving Picture World_ more than advocates the ten cent - theatre. It looks forward to the time when the dollar photoplay - theatre will be an established institution following the advance in - quality of the films. But there will always be five cent theatres - in localities that will not support the ten cent houses and ten - cent houses for those who cannot afford fifty cents or a dollar. It - is the entertainment for the whole family. - -And W. Stephen Bush, the reviewer, this, of a Biograph: - - “The Battle” is a perfect picture in a splendid frame. I cannot - close without a well-deserved word of praise regarding the - women’s dresses and coiffures of the wartime period. It is in the - elaboration of such details that the master hand often betrays - itself as it does here to the last chignon on the young girls’ - heads. - -And an unsigned article is headlined: - - Will Moving Pictures Save Madison Square Garden? - -And the late Louis Reeves Harrison in his “Studio Saunterings” in _The -Moving Picture World_: - - I did not meet the mighty Griffith until after I had had an - opportunity to study some examples of his marvelous work--he is the - greatest of them all when he tries--but I found him to be keenly - alive to the future possibilities of the new art to which he has so - materially contributed.... His productions show lofty inspirations - mixed with a desire to help the world along, a trend of thought - that is poetic, idealistic with a purifying and revivifying - influence upon the audience that can best be excited through - tragedy. - -The inquiry department of magazines published replies of this sort -almost every week: - - Since the lady is in the Biograph, we premise her name is Jane Doe. - ’Tis the best we can do. - -Or this: - - No, John Bunny is not dead, report to the contrary notwithstanding. - Miss Turner, Miss Lawrence, Miss Pickford, Miss Gauntier, and Miss - Joyce are all alive, and there have been no funerals for Messrs. - Costello, Delaney, Johnson, Moore, or others. - -Or this: - - Questions about tall, thin girls two years old are barred. Keep up - to date. - -Or this: - - All Biograph players are either John or Jane Doe. - -So while Biograph players were still nameless, Vitagraph, Lubin, Kalem, -Edison, Essanay, Melies, and Selig not only gave out players’ names but -offered exhibitors trade photos at twenty cents each, and stereoptican -slides of all players. Ambitious actors were getting out post-cards -with their photos to send the fans. - -The flow of Biograph players into the ranks of the Independents left -the Biograph Company temporarily weakened. So much so that when “His -Daughter” was released in the spring of 1911 a critic said: - - The picture has something of the spirit and character of the _old_ - Biograph stock company’s work. - -And another speaking for an open market said: - - The best argument that I can offer for an open market is the - well-known fact that when Biograph was supreme, a mere sign of - “Biograph to-day” would draw the crowd. Yes, folks would rather pay - a ten cent admission and be satisfied with only two reels as long - as there was a Biograph than to visit the neighbor house with three - reels and four vaudeville acts and no Biograph. Everybody knows - what a magnet was the word “Biograph.” - -But other good actors were coming to the front and the loss of the old -ones made but a brief and shallow dent in the prestige of Biograph. -On a June day in 1912 arrived little Gertrude Bambrick. She came on -pretty sister Elsie’s invitation--just to look. Sister Elsie liked the -movies, liked it at Biograph, but to get Gertrude down to the place had -required considerable coaxing. Gertrude didn’t like the place when she -finally got there. “How terrible,” said she; “why, they haven’t even -chairs, what an awful place!” She was almost ready to beat it before -she had had a good look around. - -A tall, angular man had noticed the pretty little girl, and he kept -passing and repassing before her, giving her a searching look each -time. Then, one time, when directly in front of her he made an abrupt -stop and a significant beckoning of his right forefinger plainly said, -“Youngster, I would speak with thee.” - -But Gertrude paid no attention to the beckoning finger. She only -thought what a funny thing for any one to do. If the man wanted to -speak to her, why didn’t he speak? Sister Elsie gave her a poke and -whispered to her secretly that it was the “great Griffith” who was -beckoning, and when he beckoned the thing to do was to follow. So, -somewhat in a daze, Gertrude started off and as she did so the actors -and others in the studio cleared a way for her much as they might for a -queen. - -Mr. Griffith led the way into the ladies’ dressing-room, which, when -the actresses were out on the stage, was the only place of privacy -in the studio. There his eagle eye scrutinized the girl some more. -Gertrude now figured, being in the studio and having no business there, -she was in for a call-down, and quick on the defensive she let it be -known she was only visiting her sister--she didn’t want to work in the -pictures--she had a good job as a dancer in vaudeville with Gertrude -Hoffman--dancing was what she loved most of all, and, well---- - -“Well, who are _you_?” asked Gertrude. - -“I’m the director down here, I’m Mr. Griffith.” - -As far as Gertrude was concerned, Mr. Griffith was entirely without -honor even in a picture studio. - -“So you dance,” said he, “and you don’t want to work in pictures. Well, -come down to-morrow anyhow, I want to make a test of you. And I am -going over to-night to see your show.” - -“Well, all right,” said Gertrude with tolerance, “but I must get on -home now. I have to have dinner with my family.” (If one so young could -be bored, Gertrude Bambrick was just that thing.) - -“I’ll send you home in my car,” said Mr. Griffith, which frightened -little Gertrude almost to pieces and which would have frightened her -more had she known that the car was a gorgeous white Packard lined with -red leather. But in she hopped, nevertheless, and when she arrived -home, and her mother opened the door, and saw a huge touring car of -colors white and red, in the days when any kind of a touring car -was a conspicuous vehicle, mother said, “Now don’t you ever do that -again--come home here in a car like that for all the neighbors to talk -about.” Gertrude promised she wouldn’t. - -That evening she went to her show like a good little girl and did her -bit, and Mr. Griffith and Eddie Dillon sat out front. To show how much -he liked her work, D. W. Griffith’s big white touring car next morning, -entirely unexpected, drove up again to the Bambrick home. Gertrude had -to forego her morning sleep that day--the neighbors must not see that -rakish motor car outside the house again any longer than was necessary. -“What kind of girls will the neighbors think I have, anyhow?” said Mrs. -Bambrick, very much annoyed at the insistent person who had sent the -car. - -To such extremes Mr. Griffith went to land a new -personality--particularly if that personality was so wholly indifferent -to him and his movies as Miss Gertie was. But Gertie was pretty and -graceful, and pictures were just arriving at the place where it was -thought dancing could be photographed fairly well and cabaret scenes -might be introduced to liven things up, now that picture production was -advancing toward the spectacle. - -The next day little Gertrude had her “test” and sat around, and looked -on, and felt lonesome, until she suddenly spied an old friend who had -been with her in Gertrude Hoffman’s dancing chorus. Gertrude called -out, “Oh, hello, Sarah.” But Sarah Sweet, since become Blanche Sweet, -only looked blankly at the new girl. Oh, the fear that gripped at -the possibility of a new rival! Mr. Griffith was “getting it,” and he -wasn’t going to stand for it, so emphatically he spoke, “Blanche, you -know Gertie Bambrick,” at which Blanche capitulated. - -“Little Mary” returned to Biograph. From “Imp,” in the fall of 1911 -she had gone over to the Majestic, where she and Owen put in a brief -season. Then back to Biograph she came, but without Owen. He went to -Victor with Florence Lawrence. - -Mary Pickford was now so firmly entrenched that she had no fear of -bringing other little girls to the studio. And so, on her invitation, -one day came a-visiting two sisters, one, decidedly demure; the other, -decidedly not. Things were quiet in the theatre and Mary saw no reason -why, when they could find a ready use for the money, her little friends -shouldn’t make five dollars now and then as well as the other extra -people. - -Mr. Griffith rather liked the kids that Mary had brought--they were -little and slinky. He liked the elder the better of the two, she was -quiet and reserved. Dorothy was too forward. She even dared call the -big director “a hook-nosed kike,” disregarding completely his pure -Welsh descent. - -The little Gish sisters looked none too prosperous in mama’s home-made -dresses. - -I’ll say for the stage mamas of the little Biograph girls that they -did their bit. Mrs. Smith would sometimes make her child a new dress -overnight, and Mary would walk in on a bright morning sporting a new -pink frock of Hearn’s best gingham, only to make Gertrude Robinson feel -so orphaned, her mama seemingly the only one who had no acquaintance -with a needle. - -Lillian and Dorothy Gish just melted right into the studio atmosphere -without causing a ripple. For quite a long time they merely extra-ed in -and out of the pictures. Especially Dorothy--Mr. Griffith paid her no -attention whatever, and she cried because he wouldn’t, but he wouldn’t, -so she just kept on crying and trailed along. - -But she let out an awful howl when Gertie Bambrick was put on a -guaranty and she wasn’t. Their introduction to Biograph had happened -the very same day. Lillian didn’t mind so much, as she was still full -of stage ambitions. When the company left for California, Lillian went -back to the stage as a fairy in “The Good Little Devil” with Mary -Pickford. Dorothy paid her own fare to the coast. That was how popular -she was just then. - -It was going to be a “big time” for Gertie Bambrick and Dorothy Gish -in Los Angeles, away from home and mothers. They ducked to the Angelus -Hotel to be by themselves, and not to be bothered by elders and -fuss-budgets. They had an idol they would emulate, and wanted to be -alone where they could practice. The idol was Mabel Normand. Could they -be like Mabel Normand, well, then they would be satisfied with life. -So bright, so merry, so pretty; oh, could they just become like Mabel! -Perhaps cigarettes would help. They bought a box. And at a grocery -store, they bought--shush--a bottle of gin. Almost they would have -swallowed poison if it would have helped them to realize their youthful -ambition. But their light had led them only as far as gin, and this -they swallowed as a before-dinner cocktail, a whole teaspoonful which -they drank right out of the teaspoon. - -[Illustration: A corner of Biograph’s stylish Bronx studio. A scene -from “The Fair Rebel,” with Clara T. Bracy, Linda Griffith, Charles -Perley, Dorothy Gish and Charles West. - - (_See p. 225_) -] - -Yes, Mabel Normand was the most wonderful girl in the world, the most -beautiful, and the best sport. Others have thought of Mabel Normand as -these two youngsters did. Daring, reckless, and generous-hearted to -a fault, she was like a frisky young colt that would brook no bridle. -The quiet and seemingly demure little thing is the one who generally -gets away with things. - -[Illustration: The beginning of the Griffith régime at 4500 Sunset -Boulevard. A tense moment in comedy. From left to right: D. W. -Griffith, Teddy Lampson, Mae Marsh, Donald Crisp, W. E. Lawrence and -Dorothy Gish. - - (_See p. 248_) -] - -The gay life of Dorothy and Gertrude was short-lived. Their first night -of revelry on Los Angeles’ Gay White Way was their last. Up in their -room, the night of arrival, they had planned their evening: dinner in -the grill, the movies afterward, the grill again as a finish. They put -up their hair, they slipped their skirts to the hip, the jacket just -covering the lowered waistline, and the lengthened skirt the legs. So -they sallied forth. - -Their program was well-nigh fulfilled; they finished with two-thirds of -it. As they were leaving Clune’s big movie palace they were apprehended -by two men, David Griffith and Dell Henderson, who, having been out -scouting for the youngsters all evening, were just beginning to get -seriously worried over their disappearance. - -Mr. Griffith had made Mr. and Mrs. Henderson responsible for the girls, -and at his suggestion they had already found an apartment for them, -not only in the same house with themselves but on the same floor, -and--adjoining. All the fun was gone out of life. This arrangement -would be worse than boarding school. - -But it got worse still. Sister Lillian, at Mary Pickford’s suggestion, -decided she’d return to the movies, and so she and mother came on to -Los Angeles. That meant Dorothy and Gertrude would be transferred to -Mother Gish’s care, where their bubbling spirits and love of noisy -innocent fun would be frowned upon by the non-approving eyes of the -more sober elder sister. - -Things became more complicated when Marshall Neilan began paying -ardent attentions to little Gertrude. Marshall had fallen in love with -Gertrude from seeing her on the screen, and he told Allan Dwan with -whom he had worked at the American Film Company in Santa Barbara that -he was going to marry the cute little kid. - - * * * * * - -In the fall of 1912 the funny little hop-skip girl had arrived on the -scene in New York. When he got back to the City, Mr. Griffith had found -need for her, and he fussed; and finally Mr. Hammer told him to send -for her. Two tickets were accordingly rushed west to Los Angeles, one -for Mae and one for Mae’s mama. In due time two members of the Marsh -family arrived. The day they reached the East the company was working -outside at some place with a meaningful name like “Millville,” where -we took small country-town stuff. The two Marshes were so excited when -they got off the train in New York and dashed to the studio at 11 East -Fourteenth Street and found the company working outdoors that they -departed immediately for “Millville.” They must get right on location. -So to “location” they hied. And when they had fluttered on to the -scene, and Mr. Griffith looked up and saw his Mae, and not his Mae’s -mama, but the fair Margaret, Mae’s sister, he was pretty mad about it. - -Margaret Loveridge, as soon as sister Mae’s star began to rise in the -movie heavens, changed her name to “Marguerite Marsh”; but to her -intimates she became “Lovey Marsh.” - -Little Mae Marsh back on the job, did a lot of extra work before she -got a part. Mr. Griffith worked hard with her, especially when a scene -called for a sudden transition from tranquillity to terrible alarm. But -a bright idea came to him. He had noticed in battle scenes that young -Mae became terribly frightened; so when he didn’t have war’s aid to get -the needed expression of fright, without her knowledge he would have a -double-barreled shotgun popped off a few feet from her head, and the -resultant exhibition of fear would quite satisfy the exacting director. - -Mae Marsh’s first hit was in “Sands O’ Dee,” a part that Mary Pickford -had been scheduled to play, and there was quite a to-do over the change -in cast. But it was the epochal “Man’s Genesis” that brought her well -to the front, as it did also Bobby Harron. In the parts of _Lilly -White_ and _Weakhands_ their great possibilities were discerned, with -no shadow of doubt. - -“Man’s Genesis” was produced under the title “Primitive Man,” and -Mr. Griffith and Mr. Dougherty had an awful time because Doc said he -couldn’t see the title and he couldn’t see the story as a serious -one--as a comedy, yes! But Mr. Griffith was determined it should be a -serious story; and he did it as such, although he changed the animal -skin clothing of the actors to clothes made of grasses. For if the -picture were to show the accidental discovery of man’s first weapon, -then the animal skins would have had to be torn off the animal’s body -by hand, and that was a bit impossible. So Mae and Bobby dressed in -grasses knotted into a sort of fabric. - -“Man’s Genesis” wrote another chapter in picture history. It _was_ -taken seriously by the public, as was meant, and every picture company -started right off on a movie having some version of the beginning of -man. For Mr. Griffith it was the biggest thing he had yet done, and one -of the most daring steps so far made in picture production. - -Again, against great opposition David had put it over, not only on his -studio associates, but on the entire motion picture world. Besides -“Man’s Genesis,” our most talked of picture of the winter--our biggest -spectacle--was “The Massacre.” - -It was taken at San Fernando. There were engaged for it several hundred -cavalry men and twice as many Indians. A city of tents, as well as -the two large ones, similar to the ones of the year before, was built -outside the borders of the town. - -There was so much preparation, due to the magnitude of the production, -that the secrecy usually attending a Biograph picture did not hold in -this case, and the village of San Fernando, two miles away from the -place of the picture, declared a holiday. - -The townspeople having found out just when the raid on the Indian -village and the slaughter of the men and women of the tribe was to take -place, closed up shop and school, and swarmed out to within a safe -distance of the riding and shooting incidental to Custer’s Last Fight, -and spent the day in the enjoyment of new thrills. - -There was a two weeks’ fight over a sub-title in “The Massacre”--the -scrappers Mr. Griffith and Mr. Dougherty. - -David never used a script, and a sub-title never was written until -he was convinced that one was necessary to elucidate a situation. A -picture finished, at its first running we would watch for places where -the meaning seemed not sufficiently clear; where we doubted if the -audience would “get” it. And in such a place in the film, a title would -be inserted. So “The Massacre” finished, and being projected, this -scene was reached: - -Horses with riders dashing madly down the foreground, the enemy -in pursuit, then the riders dismounting and using the horses as a -barricade, shooting over them. - -Here arose the disagreement about the sub-title. Mr. Griffith wanted to -insert a caption “Dismounting for Defense.” Mr. Dougherty said, “The -audience will know that is what they are doing.” But Mr. Griffith was -not so sure about it, so he said: “Now I think, I’d just like to have -the title; they may not know what I am trying to show.” - -“Yes, they will,” said Doc. - -Even Mr. Kennedy was swept into the debate. As the argument continued -his morning greeting became, “Well, are you still at it, you Kilkenny -cats?” - -The title went in. How it would improve some pictures in these days to -have two weeks of conversation over a sub-title. How a good old row -with the whole force would perk things up for some directors, for too -many of them, poor things, have had their pictures yes-ed to death by -the fulsome praise of their assistants; the “yes-sirs” who, grouped in -friendly intimacy about their director, have only one answer when he -says: “Do you like that scene?” - -“Oh, yes, sir, the scene is wonderful.” - -“Do you like that title?” - -“Oh, yes, sir, the title is great.” - -But that is how the “yes-sirs” hold their jobs! - - * * * * * - -Before the year 1912 ended, Lionel Barrymore had been acquired. His -plunge movie-ward was inauspicious. - -“Who’s the new man?” - -“That’s John Barrymore’s brother.” - -“Never heard of him--is he an actor?” - -“No, he’s an artist, just back from Paris, been studying painting,” -answered the wise guys. - - * * * * * - -On the return trip east this winter, a stop-over was made at -Albuquerque to secure legitimate backgrounds for some Hopi Indian -pictures. One, especially atmospheric, was “A Pueblo Legend” with Mary -Pickford. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - -THE OLD DAYS END - - -It was being hinted in the spring of 1913 that Biograph was having a -change of heart about the secrecy regarding their players, and that -they might end it. Contrary to the policy of other companies, their -scheme was not to give the popular players the first publicity, but -the directors and camera men. D. W. Griffith would thus head the honor -list--his name to become identified with a certain class of strong -and highly artistic drama; Dell Henderson next--farce comedies; Tony -O’Sullivan--melodrama; Billy Bitzer--photography; lastly--the actors. - -The Biograph had always held to the policy that they were an -“institution,” and as such, the value of their pictures did not depend -on an individual. Sufficient that it was a “Biograph.” Apparently, they -now felt they had reached a place so firmly fixed in public esteem -through the fine quality of their pictures, that giving credit to -individuals could not in any way react on them. - -So D. W. Griffith became the first Biograph star. Biograph’s policy he -afterwards took to himself. He is still the “star” of his productions. -His actors continue as “leading people” as long as they stay with him. -And when they go on to bigger money and names in bigger type with other -companies and under other directors, some succeed and some do not. Mary -Pickford was one who did. - -In the picture world, especially abroad, big things were now happening. -“Quo Vadis,” a great spectacle, splendidly acted, had been produced in -Italy by the Societa Italiana Cines, in three acts of four reels. It -came to America and had a run in a Broadway theatre. - -From France, this same time, April, 1913, the steamer _La Touraine_ -arrived in America bringing “Les Misérables” in four sections and -twelve reels. - -“The Miracle,” which Morris Gest presented in the year of 1924 in the -Century Theatre, New York, as a pantomime, had been filmed by Joseph -Mencher and was shown at the Park Theatre, New York, in February, 1913. -It was a “filmed pantomime” (not a moving picture drama), based on the -Wordless Mystery Play which, under the direction of Max Reinhardt, had -had a wonderful run at the Olympic, London. - -A reviewer said of it: - - What was seen and heard last night only went to emphasize that the - moving picture under certain conditions, conditions like those that - prevailed last night, may be capable of providing entertainment to - be taken seriously by audiences which have never seen the inside of - an electric theatre. - -Eugene Sue’s “Wandering Jew” came over, the work of the Roma Film -Company. - -In our own country, Helen Gardner in her own productions was appearing -as _Cleopatra_ and like characters. - -The Vitagraph started on a trip around the world with Clara Kimball -Young to do a picture in each country visited, but that rather fell by -the wayside; Miss Young, however, had somewhat contented herself with -having charming “still” photos taken in costume in each country on -their route; when the company reached Paris, Vitagraph cabled for the -actors to come home. - -Kalem had already made some beautiful pictures in Ireland, and in Egypt -had made “From the Manger to the Cross,” under Sidney Olcott. - -Vitagraph answered an inquiry as to when they made “Macbeth” by saying -they “made it so long ago they wanted to forget it in these days (1913) -of high art production.” - -Keystone Comedies were coming along, directed by Mack Sennett, -featuring the two famous detectives, Mack Sennett and Fred Mace. In -these comedies Mabel Normand began to daredevil. Henry Lehrman joined -Sennett. - -Hal Reid, Wally Reid’s father, was directing Reliance pictures. - -“Traffic in Souls,” written by Walter McNamara and directed by George -Loane Tucker, opened at Weber’s Theatre, Twenty-ninth Street and -Broadway, at twenty-five cents the seat. People clamored for admission, -with thousands turned away. - -So Biograph, concluding to get into the march of things, ordered -posters for twelve of their players whose names they would make public. - -“David Belasco Griffith” became Mr. Griffith’s nom-de-moving-pictures. -It was a time of tremendous ambitions to him. In California, during -that winter, was filmed his “masterpiece”--“Mother Love”--seven hundred -feet over one reel. Mr. Griffith refused to have it the conventional -length, refused to finish it in a stated time, refused to consider -expense, introducing a lavish cabaret scene, costing eighteen hundred -dollars exclusive of salaries. Miss Bambrick arranged the dances and -coached the dancers. Mr. Griffith said of it, “If it serves no other -use, it will teach café managers in the interior how to run a café.” - -There was also “Oil and Water” in which Blanche Sweet surprised both -exhibitors and fans by her splendid work in an unfamiliar rôle. It was -strange that the one woman in whom Mr. Griffith had seen the least -promise came to play the most important rôles in his Biograph pictures. -Strange also that Mary Pickford, who had played in so many more -pictures than any of his stars, and was by far the most popular of them -all, never played in a big Griffith picture. - -Before the end of the season, much curiosity was abroad as to what -David Griffith was up to. Way out to the wilds of Chatsworth he was -beating it day by day--this remote spot having been chosen to represent -the Plains of Bethulia. For the story told in a book of the Apocrypha -of Judith and Holofernes was the big thing Mr. Griffith was doing, and -being so secretive about it, he had aroused everybody’s curiosity. - -Blanche Sweet played the lead in this picture--“Judith of -Bethulia”--Mr. Griffith’s most pretentious movie so far, and his “Old -Biograph” swan song. Henry Walthall and the late Alfred Paget were the -male leads. - -How hard and how patiently the director worked with the temperamental -Miss Sweet. For hours one day he had been trying to get some feeling, -some warmth out of her, until the utter lack of response got his goat. -So with bended knee he went after the fair lady and he gently but -firmly kicked her off the stage--just politely kneed her off. Then, -as was his wont, he burst forth in song, apparently oblivious of the -situation. - -It was now Blanche’s turn to worry. She backed up on to the stage -and over to her discouraged director. He escaped her--stretching his -arms and singing louder than ever he took large strides away from her. -Finally, the penitent reached him, and on her bended knees begged: -“Please, Mr. Griffith, please take me back.” When he thought she had -begged hard enough he took her back, and he got results for the rest of -that day. - -“Judith,” owing to expensive sets, cost thirty-two thousand dollars, -but that was not advertised as a point of interest in the picture. Much -excitement prevailed over “Judith,” D. W. Griffith’s first four-reeler. -It was shown to financiers. Wall Street was to be brought into intimate -conversation. - - The old days and the old ways of 11 East Fourteenth Street, how - brief they had been! Those vital Biograph days under the Griffith - régime, how soon to pass! For when, late in the winter of 1912, the - company left for the West coast studio, they said good-bye to the - nursery, and to the intimate days and the pleasant hours of their - movie youth. - -The big new studio up in the Bronx was now finished, with two huge -stages--one artificially lighted, and one a daylight studio. There -was every modern convenience but an elevator. Of course, one director -couldn’t utilize so much studio; so while Mr. Griffith was still in -California and without saying anything to him about it, the Biograph -made a combine with Klaw & Erlanger by which all the K. & E. plays -were to be turned over for Biograph production in three-, four-, and -five-reel pictures. - -Mr. Griffith didn’t fancy the idea; he felt also that Biograph might -have consulted him before closing the deal. There was nothing to -interest David in supervising other directors’ movies or in giving -them the “once over” in the projection room. After watching the other -fellow’s picture for a while, even though he’d be considering it very -good work, he’d yawn and declare, “Well, it’s a hell of a way to earn -a living.” But that slant never occurred to him when watching his own -pictures. - -But a growing restlessness was noticeable; threats to leave were in the -air; rumors floated all about. - -However, he lingered through the summer, a busy one, as in those -introductory months the new studio had to be got thoroughly into a -moving and functioning affair. - -Among the many to whom it gave opportunities was Marshall Neilan. For -his years young Mr. Neilan hadn’t missed much. At the age of fourteen -he had run away from Los Angeles, his home, to Buffalo. There he washed -cars for a living--which he probably didn’t mind much, for it enabled -him to satisfy somewhat his fascination for mechanics. Then, back in -Los Angeles once more, he got a job as chauffeur for a kindly person, a -Colonel Peyton, who also sent him to the Harvard school in Los Angeles. - -From chauffing to the movies was then but a natural step. For Marshall, -a nice-looking Irish boy with Irish affability, soon had a “stand” at -the Van Nuys hotel, which was a wonderful way to meet the movie people. -Alice Joyce it was who enveigled him. She kept asking him, “Why don’t -you come on in?” It was just like an invitation to go swimming. So he -took the plunge via Kalem, but not until after he had become manager of -the Simplex Automobile Company in Los Angeles. - -When the Biograph Company returned East after that winter in which -young Neilan had met his heart’s desire, he wrote to New York to ask -Mr. Griffith for a job. Mr. Griffith asked Miss Bambrick if it was her -wish to have Marshall come on, but Gertrude wasn’t so anxious. David -had him come just the same. - -The K. and E. pictures, especially “Men and Women” and “Classmates,” -gave Marshall Neilan his big chance. He soon fell into the producing -ranks, where recognition came quickly. - -And he married his Gertrude. Marshall Neilan, Jr., is now nine years -old. But they didn’t live happily forever after. Many years ago they -parted. Just recently Mr. Neilan married Blanche Sweet. - -By fall, with four and five companies working, there were so many -actors that it wasn’t interesting at all any more. There was Millicent -Evans and Georgie O’Ramey, Louise Vale, Travers Vale, Louise Orth, Jack -Mulhal, Thomas Jefferson, Lionel Barrymore, Franklin Ritchie, Lily -Cahill, Donald Crisp, Dorothy Bernard, Edwin August, Alan Hale, William -Jefferson--oh, slews and slews of new ones, besides the old guard minus -Mary Pickford. - -From Chatsworth’s lonely stretches and prehistoric atmosphere to the -spic-and-span-ness, and atmosphere-less Bronx studio came “Judith of -Bethulia” to receive its finishing touches. “Judith” was about the last -of Blanche Sweet in anything as pretentious directed by Mr. Griffith. - -Mae Marsh was coming along and so was Lillian Gish. Lillian was -beginning to step some, and it was interesting to watch the rather -friendly rivalry between the three, Blanche, and Mae, and Lillian. - -Dorothy Gish was still a person of insignificance, but she was a good -sport about it; a likable kid, a bit too perky to interest the big -director, so her talents blushed unnoticed by Mr. Griffith. In “The -Unseen Enemy” the sisters made their first joint appearance. - -Lillian regarded Dorothy with all the superior airs and graces of her -rank. At a rehearsal of “The Wife,” of Belasco and De Mille fame, in -which picture I played the lead, and Dorothy the ingénue, Lillian was -one day an interested spectator. She was watching intently, for Dorothy -had had so few opportunities, and now was doing so well, Lillian was -unable to contain her surprise, and as she left the scene she said: -“Why, Dorothy is good; she’s almost as good as I am.” - -Many more than myself thought Dorothy was better--for she was that rare -thing, a comedienne, and comediennes in the movies have been scarcer -than hen’s teeth. She proved what she could do when she got her first -real chance as the bob-haired midinette in “Hearts of the World.” - - * * * * * - -Four or five companies working on the big stage these days made things -hum like a three-ring circus. From the dressing-rooms a balcony opened -that looked down on the studio floor, and here Blanche Sweet could -often be seen, her feet poked through the iron rails of the balcony, -her elbows resting on the railing, her chin cupped in the hollow of her -hands, her eyes bulging as she watched every move the director made. -For Blanche was worried. Would Lillian or Mae be chosen to play in the -next big picture? - -Mr. Griffith kept all the girls worried. All but Mary Pickford. She -was the only one who dared demand. With Mother, Mary came up to the -new studio to see what she could put over in the way of a job. She’d -now a legitimate reason for making herself costly. In January, 1913, -Miss Pickford made a second appearance on the dramatic stage under -David Belasco’s wing. On her opening, the papers said that the success -of Miss Pickford as the little blind princess was so marked that it -practically precluded her return to the screen. - -Adolph Zukor had followed up his first Famous Players picture, the -four-reel “Queen Elizabeth” with James K. Hackett in “The Prisoner of -Zenda” and Mrs. Fiske in “Leah Kleschna.” Astute business man that he -was, as soon as “The Good Little Devil” closed, he secured the play for -the screen with the dramatic company intact and Mary as a Famous Player. - -No, her dramatic success would not preclude her return to the screen. -It would merely fortify her with great assurance in making her next -picture contract. I am told it happened thus: - -Mother and Mary bearded the lion in his den. - -“Well, what are you asking now?” queried Mr. Griffith. - -“Five hundred a week,” answered Mrs. Smith. - -“Can’t see it. Mary’s not worth it to me.” - -“Well, we’ve been offered five hundred dollars a week and we’re going -to accept the contract, and you’ll be sorry some day.” - -They could go ahead and accept the contract as far as Mr. Griffith was -concerned. Indulging in his old habit of walking away while talking, he -brought the interview to an end, calling back to the insistent mother, -“Three hundred dollars is all I’ll give her. Remember, I made her.” - -And so the Famous Players secured Mary Pickford for a series of -features, the first of which was “In the Bishop’s Carriage.” - -But whether Mr. Griffith has ever been sorry, nobody knows but himself. - -Kate Bruce, the saintly “Brucie” to so many, pillowed in her lap or on -her shoulder by turns, all the feminine heads of sufficient importance, -and at times, with her arm about me, it was even “Oh, dear Mrs. -Griffith.” But Miss Bruce was thoughtful, indeed, for her little room -often made night lodging, when we had an early morning call, for the -girl whose home was distant. Dorothy West, who lived in Staten Island, -often accepted Miss Bruce’s hospitality. - -For Lillian Gish, “Brucie” had an especially tender heart. Miss Gish, -at this time, affected simple, straight, dark blue and black dresses. -She had long ago reached the book-carrying stage, being one of Mr. -Griffith’s most ambitious girls. Many times she’d arrive at the studio -an hour or more ahead of time and have Billy Bitzer make tests of her -with different make-ups. - -With a tight little hat on her head, and a red rose on the side of it -from which flowed veils and veils, and a soulful expression in her -eyes, Miss Gish was even then, so long ago, affecting the Madonna. - -But reclining in the arms of “Brucie,” purring “Brucie, do you still -love me?”--that was the perfect picture of the fair Lillian those -days. And Brucie’s reply came in honeyed words, “Oh, you sweet, little -innocent golden-haired darling.” Then turning to the girl sitting next -her on the other side, she’d say, “You know this girl needs to be -protected from the world, she’s so innocent and so young.” She had a -strong maternal complex, had the maidenly Kate Bruce. - -[Illustration: Blanche Sweet and Kate Bruce in “Judith of Bethulia,” -the first four reel picture directed by D. W. Griffith. - - (_See p. 224_) -] - -In need of a gown for a picture at this time (the Biograph was just -beginning to spend a little money on clothes for the women), Miss -Gish spied Louise Orth one day wearing just the very thing her little -heart craved. - -[Illustration: Lillian Russell and Gaston Bell, in a scene illustrative -of her beauty lectures, taken in Kinemacolor. These lectures were a -headline act in vaudeville. - - (_See p. 247_) -] - -[Illustration: Sarah Bernhardt, the first “Famous Player,” as Jeanne -Doré, and little Jacques. - - (_See p. 105_) -] - -“Oh, what a lovely gown you have on. Where did you buy that?” - -Madame Frances then had a tiny shop on Seventh Avenue, near the Palace -Theatre: Polly Heyman had Bon Marché gloves on one side and Frances had -gowns on the other. Frances had just made some thousands of dollars’ -worth of gowns for Valeska Surratt’s show, “The Red Rose,” which were -so beautiful they won Mme. Frances prestige and recognition from Al -Woods. Miss Orth had been a member of the Eltinge show for which Mme. -Frances had made the dresses, which is the long story of how Lillian -Gish got her first Frances gown. - -The K. & E. pictures were going to be “dressed up,” and we were being -allowed about seventy-five dollars for gowns. Miss Gish’s selection at -Mme. Frances’s was price-tagged eighty-five dollars; so back to the -studio flew Miss Gish. With as much pep as she had, which wasn’t so -much, she slunk up to her director and coaxingly said: - -“Mr. Griffith, I must have that dress, it’s just beautiful; it’s just -what I must have for the part, and it costs eighty-five dollars.” - -“Who in the world ever heard of eighty-five dollars for a dress?” - -“I don’t care--now--I’ve _got_ to have it.” - -“Don’t bother me--it’s too expensive--we cannot afford it.” - -Then growing bolder, as she followed him about she reached for his -coat-tail, and twisting it and shaking it she implored: - -“Oh, please, Mr. Griffith, buy me that dress.” - -“Will you get away?” - -“Well, I won’t play in the picture if you don’t get me that dress--I’ve -_got_ to have it.” - -“All right, for heaven’s sake, get the dress--but don’t bother me.” - -Lillian got the dress. - -Occasionally, Miss Gish took advantage of a beauty sleep. On such -occasions she seldom arrived before eleven in the morning. And when -she went to a party she played the rôle of the sphinx, and all evening -long never spoke. But little Mae Marsh made up for her; she chattered -incessantly. - -Lillian’s dope was to come and go without being noticed. She appeared -one time at a midnight performance of “Shuffle Along” done up in black -veils to the tip of her nose and a fur collar covering her mouth, with -only little spots of cheek showing. Dorothy, on the other hand, acting -like a real human being, was calling out to her friends, “Hello there, -hello, hello,” but Lillian, passing an old acquaintance, merely said, -“Forgive me for not stopping and speaking; I don’t want any one to know -I am here.” But as everybody was awfully busy having a good time and no -one seemed to be particularly disturbed by Miss Gish’s hiding away, she -finally took her hat off and revealed herself. - -But she came out of her seclusion that time she preached in answer to -the Rev. John Roach Straton at his church on Fifty-seventh Street. -Some one was needed to answer the Rev. Mr. Straton’s knocks on the -theatre and its people. Lillian came forward, and she so impressed her -brother-in-law, James Rennie, Dorothy’s husband, that he arrived late -at a Sunday rehearsal of a George Cohan show. In perfect Sunday morning -outfit, striped pants and gloves and cane he burst upon the rehearsal -and quite breathlessly spluttered, “Please forgive me for being late, -but I have just heard my sister-in-law preach a sermon, and never in -my life have I heard anything so inspiring in a church. Don’t go very -often. More in Lillian than one suspects.” - -Mr. Cohan gave himself time to digest Mr. Rennie’s outburst, and then -went on with the rehearsal. - - * * * * * - -Inevitable the parting of the ways. Though the last word as to modern -equipment, the new studio merely chilled. That atmosphere of an old -manse that had prevailed at 11 East Fourteenth Street, did not abide -in the concrete and perfect plumbing and office-like dressing rooms -at East 175th Street. The last word in motion picture studios brought -Biograph no luck. For as a producing unit, after a few short years they -breathed their last, and quietly passed out of the picture. When the -doors at the old studio closed on our early struggles, when Biograph -left its original nursery of genius, was the proper time for Mr. -Griffith to have left the company. In the fall, less than a year later, -he did. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - -SOMEWHAT DIGRESSIVE - - -From the old Biograph Stock Company they graduated, scenario writers as -well as actors; and here and there they went, filling bigger jobs in -other companies, as actors, directors, and scenario editors. - -And as manager and head director of the Kinemacolor Company went David -Miles. Directly upon leaving Biograph, Mr. Miles had spent a short time -at the “Imp” with Mary Pickford and her family, King Baggott, George -Loane Tucker, Gaston Bell, Isabel Rea, and Tom Ince. Leaving “Imp,” he -had gone over to Reliance. While at Reliance, and in need of a handsome -young juvenile, there came to mind his friend Gaston Bell. - -Mr. Bell already was signed up for a ten weeks’ stock season in -Washington, D. C.; with “Caught in the Rain” by William Collier and -Grant Stewart, as the opening bill; Julia Dean, the leading lady; Mr. -Bell’s part that of the dapper Englishman, the Grant Stewart part. Mr. -Miles suggested that Gaston play the needed juvenile in the Reliance -Company’s movie while rehearsing the opening bill of his Washington -stock season in New York, and promised a good movie job when the -Washington season ended. Said he’d rush him through at odd hours, so as -not to interfere with rehearsals, and finish with him in time for the -opening. - -Well, everything went along fine, and for the last scene Gaston -reported beautifully arrayed in a new spring suit purchased especially -for his stock opening. - -Suavely spoke the director, “Now, Gaston, we have saved this scene for -the finish--we must take you out somewhere and run you over.” - -“Take-me-out-and-run-me-over?--in my beautiful new suit? Oh, no, you -can’t.” - -But no one heeded Gaston’s distress. - -Everybody piled in the automobile--after a couple of turns it landed on -a quiet street. “All out.” The car emptied--camera was soon set up and -Mr. Bell shown the place where he was to be run over. - -These were amateur days in fake auto killings and injuries, but they -did the “running over” to the director’s satisfaction and Gaston’s, as -he escaped with no damage to his clothes or himself. - -But Gaston had reckoned without a thought of static. How many hours -of anguish “static” caused us--static, those jiggly white lines that -sometimes danced and sometimes rained all over the film. Early next -morning his ’phone rang--Mr. Miles on the wire. “Awfully sorry, Gaston, -but we’ll have to take you out and run you over again because there -was static.” So they did it again, and again was Gaston dismissed as -finished. It came close on to train time: another ’phone--ye gods, -static again! He’d be bumped from juvenility to old age in this one -running-over scene, first thing he knew, and hobble onto the stage -with cane and crutch, which would never do for his precious little -Englishman in “Caught in the Rain.” - -Well, they ran him over again. This was Saturday. The following Sunday -the company was to leave for Washington. Thinking to cinch things, Mr. -Miles offered, should anything be wrong with the scene this last time, -to pay Mr. Bell’s fare to Washington and his expenses if he would stay -in New York over Sunday. “Wildly extravagant, these picture people,” -thought Mr. Bell, as he departed for Washington with the company. - -But no sooner was he nicely settled in his hotel, “static” and “being -run over” quite forgotten, and all set for his opening--when a long -distance came. Mr. Miles on the wire: “Awfully sorry, Gaston, but there -was more static and we will have to take you out and run you over -again.” And before Gaston had time to recover from the shock, the movie -director and his camera man were right there in Washington! - -“Good night,” said Gaston, despairingly, to himself. But to Mr. Miles -he said, “Now I’ll tell you what you have to do, you must have another -actor handy to go on for me to-night, for I cannot take any more -chances.” - -Well, they took the scene another time, ruining neither Mr. Bell nor -his grand new suit, and as this time the scene was static-less, the day -was saved for Gaston. But “never again” vowed he. And “never again” -vowed the director. - -David Miles kept good his promise and when Gaston’s season in -Washington closed, he joined Reliance. There he and George Loane Tucker -soon became known as the “Hall Room Boys.” For in an old brownstone -they shared a third floor back--also a dress suit. And if both boys -happened to be going out into society the same night, whoever arrived -home first and got himself washed up and brushed up first, had the -option on that one tuxedo. - -The hall-room days of George Loane Tucker were brief. “Traffic in -Souls,” the white-slave picture that he produced for Universal, put him -over. An unhappy loss to the motion picture world was Mr. Tucker’s -early death; for that truly great picture, “The Miracle Man,” his -tribute to the world’s motion picture library _de luxe_, promised a -career of great brilliance. - -Mr. Tucker had come rightfully by his great talent, for his mother, -Ethel Tucker, was an actress of note and a clever stage director also. -As leading woman in stock repertoire at Lathrop’s Grand Dime Theatre -of Boston, she had a tremendous popularity in her time. And long years -afterward, she too went into “the pictures” in Hollywood, for a very -brief period. - -Mr. Tucker’s “Miracle Man” brought stardom to its three leading -players, Lon Chaney, Betty Compson, and Tommy Meighan. - -Tommy Meighan’s leap to fame was surprising to both friends and family. -For Tommy had been considered, not exactly the black sheep of the -family, but rather the ne’er-do-well. During the run of “Get-Rich-Quick -Wallingford,” both being members of the cast, Frances Ring, sister to -the lustrous Blanche of “Rings on My Fingers” and “In the Good Old -Summertime” fame, had married Mr. Meighan, Tommy becoming through this -matrimonial alliance the least important member of the Ring family of -three clever sisters, Blanche, Frances, and Julie. An obscure little -Irishman, Tommy trailed along, with a voice that might not have taken -him so very far on the dramatic stage. - -Like weaving in and out the paper strips of our kindergarten mats is -the story of the Ring sisters and Tommy. For Los Angeles beckoned, with -Blanche headlined at the Orpheum, Frances in stock, and Tommy playing -somewhere or other. - -Blanche and her husband, Charles Winninger, a member of her company, -were invited by Louise Orth for a week-end out Las Palmas way. The -week-end proved very significant in results; for through their hostess, -who was leading woman at the Elko Studios, a meeting between Mr. -Winninger and Mr. Lehrman was arranged the next week which led directly -to Charlie’s signing on the dotted line at the fabulous salary of two -hundred and fifty dollars a week--to do comedies. But Charlie’s pale -blue eyes did not register well enough on the screen, and the comedy -note in his characterizations thus being lost, the good job just -naturally petered out. - -Then Miss Ring, who had now taken over one of Los Angeles’s show -places, on the Fourth of July gave a party--a red, white, and blue -party at which were gathered more notables than had as yet ever been -brought together at a social function in Los Angeles. It was Broadway -transplanted. There were David Belasco, Laura Hope Crews, Charlie -Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Julian Eltinge, Geraldine Farrar, Jesse -Lasky, Mr. Goldwyn, Wallace and Mrs. Reid, Mr. Morris Gest, then -representative for Geraldine Farrar and Raymond Hitchcock, who viewing -from the back piazza the distant lights of Los Angeles was supposed to -have said something when he remarked, “This reminds one of a diamond -bar pin.” - -It was an illustrious and patriotic party. Before the festivities were -over, Mr. Gest unwound the maline scarf from Miss Orth’s neck while -Charlie Chaplin sang the Spring Song, and Mr. Gest danced on the lawn -waving the scarf and crushing the slimy snails that in droves were -slowly creeping up to the house. - -The party was illustrious in that it was here voted that Tommy Meighan -would photograph well in pictures, and Mr. Lasky invited him to the -studio and offered him, perhaps, fifty dollars a week, and he made a -hit in his first picture with Geraldine Farrar and was then given a -substantial raise. At which Blanche, the astounded sister-in-law said, -“And to think that at times I’ve had to support that Irishman.” There -had been enough job uncertainty to discourage her, so that she had -wondered sometimes whether she would have him on her hands for the -rest of her life. Even after Mr. Tommy Meighan’s advent into pictures, -sister Blanche rather expected, every now and then, that he would be -“canned.” - -And so Tommy evolved from a liability into an asset, and became the -idol of innumerable feminine hearts. It was a colorful paper mat the -Ring family wove. - - * * * * * - -While out at the Elko studio Charlie Winninger, with all his brilliant -and sustaining background, had so disastrously flopped, at Mack -Sennett’s studio another Charlie was very busy thinking out stunts that -would make people laugh. For the more people laughed, the more dollars -could Charlie Chaplin add to the savings for the rainy day, against -which, if he ever got the chance, he would make himself fool-proof. - -For, so I have been told, Charlie Chaplin had known rainy days even -when a youngster. He was only seven when, in a music-hall sketch, he -made his first theatrical appearance. Later, he toured for some time -through the United Kingdom as one of the “Eight Lancashire Lads.” There -was an engagement with “Sherlock Holmes,” and then the association -with Fred Karno in “The Mumming Birds.” To America with Mr. Karno he -came, appearing as _Charlot_ in the now famous “A Night in an English -Music-hall.” When he debarked he was far from being the richest man on -the boat. - -The movies claimed him. He was discovered by Mack Sennett in this -way. Mr. Sennett at this time was busy on the lot out in Los Angeles. -He heard of a funny man in an act called “A Night in an English -Music-hall” playing at Hammerstein’s Victoria Theatre, which used to -stand at Broadway and Forty-second Street, now replaced by the Rialto -Motion Picture House. Mr. Adam Kessel and Mr. Bauman, the firm for whom -Mack Sennett had nightly warmed the Alexandria’s leather benches in -the hope of landing a job, and for whom he was now producing comedies, -were both in California, and so in September, 1913, a wire was sent to -Charles Kessel, brother of Adam, to go over to Hammerstein’s and get a -report on the comedian about whom Mr. Sennett was so anxious. - -Mr. Charles Kessel, the secretary of the company, heartily approved of -the comedian, who was none other than Charlie Chaplin. He thought so -well of him that he sent a letter asking Chaplin to come in and see -him. This Mr. Chaplin did. Mr. Kessel asked him how’d he like to go -into moving pictures. Mr. Chaplin answered that he had never given them -any thought. - -Said Mr. Kessel: “I’ve seen you act and like you, but you needn’t make -any assertions now, nor any answers, but go out and make inquiries as -to Kessel and Bauman and if you think well enough of them, well then -we’ll talk.” - -Mr. Chaplin found out that the firm was O. K. So Mr. Kessel said: “I’ll -give you a contract for a year and gamble with you--I’ll give you the -same salary that you’re getting on the stage.” - -“One hundred and fifty dollars,” said Mr. Chaplin quickly. He really -was getting sixty dollars. “All right,” said Mr. Kessel so quickly that -Charles as quickly swallowed his Adam’s apple, and regretted he hadn’t -said more. - -“But I don’t think I care to change from the stage to the pictures.” - -“Well, our contracts are for fifty-two weeks, no Sunday work, no -intermissions between pictures; in vaudeville you get thirty-two weeks -and you pay your own traveling expenses.” - -Mr. Chaplin said he’d make up his mind and let Mr. Kessel know. - -So in about six weeks a letter came from Mr. Chaplin from Omaha saying -he was ready to start. The contract was mailed December 19, 1913, and -signed January 2, 1914. - -“Mabel’s Predicament,” a one-reeler, was Charlie Chaplin’s first -picture. “Dough and Dynamite” the first two-reeler. Mr. Chaplin’s -success was instantaneous. It also must have been tremendous, for the -Keystone Company (Kessel and Bauman) within five months dared to do a -comedy five reels in length. When the five-reel comedy was announced, -there were many who thought that now surely the picture people were -going cuckoo. No one believed an audience would stand for a _five-reel -comedy_. - -They did. The picture was “Tillie’s Punctured Romance,” adapted -from the Marie Dressier play, “Tillie’s Nightmare.” Marie Dressier -was engaged for the picture and for fourteen weeks she received the -unbelievable salary of one thousand dollars weekly and fifty per -cent of the picture, which, released in June, 1914, was one of the -sensations of the picture world. - -All sorts of offers now began coming to Mr. Chaplin. Carl Laemmle -was one who was keen to get Charlie under contract; he kept himself -informed of Mr. Chaplin’s activities even to the social side of his -life so that he would know when and where best to set the bait. - -Out at Sunset Inn, a place by the ocean where movie people then -made merry, Charlie Chaplin was to be one of a party. Mr. Laemmle -being wised up to it, gave a party of his own the same night, a most -expensive and grand party. Well, he would have Charlie’s ear for a -moment anyhow, and one never could tell. - -The party in full swing, Mr. Laemmle invited Mr. Chaplin over to his -table, and after a few social preliminaries said, “Let’s talk business; -I want you to come and work for me.” But Mr. Chaplin, always a clever -business man, answered, “I’m enjoying myself--I don’t want to talk -business to-night, I’m on a party.” - -Mr. Laemmle was all set to secure the services of the rising young -comedian, so he would not be daunted. Charles could talk “party,” but -_he_ would talk “business”; Mr. Laemmle offered a little better salary; -promised to advertise Chaplin big, and make him a tremendous star. - -But Mr. Chaplin was too clever for Mr. Laemmle. With a most sweet smile -he turned to one of Mr. Laemmle’s guests, Louise Orth of the corn -yellow hair, and said, “Gee, that’s great music; I like blonds, and I -am going to dance with a blond, may I?” - -It _was_ great music, about the first syncopated music with a saxophone -heard in that neck of the woods. There was a great horn into which -the dancers, if they desired an encore, threw a silver dollar. There -needed to be five particularly anxious dancers to get the expensive -orchestra to repeat an orchestration. The dollars clicked down the horn -into a sort of tin bucket on the floor below, and the loud jangle of -the silver money could be easily heard by the dancers who would listen -attentively for jangle number five, and then “On with the dance.” - -As the music finished for the first dance this night, the dancers -stopped and with much excitement waited for the click of the silver -dollars. Charlie Chaplin was out for a big time; also he wanted to -worry Mr. Laemmle, and, one thing sure, he was not going to talk -business this night. So he was the first to say, “This dance is worth -an encore,” and he threw a silver dollar into the horn. - -It was perhaps the first time Mr. Chaplin had been known to spend money -in public either for food or music, for every one was so tickled and -flattered to have him as a guest that he never was given a chance to -spend money. So Charlie’s Chaplin’s silver dollar nearly caused a riot -on that dance floor. The guests hooted and screamed and those who knew -him well enough and had been given stray bits of confidence, called -out, “You cannot plant your first dollar now because you’ve spent it.” -And Mr. Chaplin answered, “Oh, don’t you worry, I planted my first -dollar some time ago.” - -Mr. Chaplin could never squander money; memories of lean days inhibited -him from doing that. But he must hold off Mr. Laemmle; and he was -enjoying the dance. - -Two other dollars had joined Charlie Chaplin’s first one, and clicked -their way down the yawning chasm of the brass horn, and then a pause, -but just for a second. Grabbing his blond partner, Mr. Chaplin threw -the two needed dollars into the horn’s hungry maw, and the moaning -saxaphone started off again while Mr. Laemmle looked sadly on. He never -did secure the screen’s greatest funny man. - -In six months Charlie Chaplin’s rise to fame and fortune was -phenomenal. Not only had a kind Providence richly endowed him, but he -worked very hard, as genius usually does. Even back in those days, Mr. -Chaplin often began his day making excursions with the milkman. From -the cold gray morning hours of three and four until seven, the two -would ramble through the poor districts, and while the milkman would -be depositing his bottle of milk, Mr. Chaplin would hobnob with drunks -and derelicts, and in the later hours, talk with the little children of -the slums, drawing out a story here, getting a new character there, and -making the tragic humorous when finally the story was given life on the -screen. The story of “The Kid” as Mr. Chaplin and Jackie Coogan told -it, was nearer the truth than any audience ever guessed. - - * * * * * - -The ups and downs of the movie world! - -Mack Sennett all dressed up and grouching on a leather settee in the -hotel lobby, waiting for his prey! He would not be handed dry, old -sandwiches all his days. He was out for steak, red and juicy. He got -there and has stayed put. - -Henry Lehrman patting his inflated chest! He got there, but stayed put -the littlest while. - -Charlie Chaplin, who topped them all, working while others slept, out -on excursions with the milkman! - -Tommy Meighan of the genial smile and Irish red-bloodedness. He got a -chance, and the ladies liked him. Nice personality, and good actor, -even so. - -Not alone in the movies is it easier to get there than to stay there. -Chance sometimes enters into the first, but to stay there means ears -attuned, feet on the ground, and heaps and heaps of hard work. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII - -“THE BIRTH OF A NATION” - - -Late in the summer of 1912 the Kinemacolor Company of America, a -subsidiary of the English company, started the production of movies in -color at a studio in Whitestone, Long Island. The year of Kinemacolor’s -endeavor also marks Mr Griffith’s last year with Biograph, for he went -to the Mutual with Harry Aitken while I became leading woman with the -Kinemacolor. - -Messrs. Urban and Smith had rather startled the world with their color -pictures of the Coronation of George the Fifth of England, and the -Durbar Imperial at Delhi; and even though their pictures were a bit -fringy, they were becoming ambitious for honors in color movies along -dramatic lines. - -Great things were achieved in America in the movies, and great things -might have been achieved in America in Kinemacolor, but it was destined -otherwise. Kinemacolor was fated to be but a brief though fruitful -interlude in color-photography in the movies, which, for some seemingly -mysterious reason, is so long in arriving. - -Sunshine being imperative for Kinemacolor, southern California’s staple -brand could not be denied, and soon the company left its studio in -Whitestone and repaired to the modest little town of Hollywood where it -took over the Revier Laboratories at 4500 Sunset Boulevard. - -That the place had been used as a studio was not discernible from the -front. It was a pretty corner on which, some distance apart, stood two -simple cottages, Middle Western in character. They represented office -and laboratory. Dressing-rooms and stages of a crudeness comparable to -the original Biograph studio were at the back. - -No fence gave privacy from passers-by, but a high board fence, -decorated with pictures of foxes and the words “Fox Pictures,” -protected the lot in the rear. It was not the William Fox of to-day who -thus sought to advertise his trademark and his wares. Another Mr. Fox -it was of whom we seem to hear nothing these days. - -Here Kinemacolor moved in, with David Miles at its head, Jack Le -Saint director of the No. 2 company, and our old friend Frank Woods -making his movie-directing début as teacher to the actors of the No. -3 company. For Mr. Woods having tasted movie blood through his little -Biograph scenarios and his position as chief reviewer of the movies, -had grown anxious to plunge more deeply into the swiftly moving waters -of reel life. So Mr. Miles opened the way for him. And although -Kinemacolor opened up financially to a salary of only seventy-five -dollars a week, the Woodses made the most of it, for from that humble -beginning in less than ten years they have come to own a town near -Barstow, California. They have named it “Lenwood.” Charles H. Fleming, -who was assistant to David Miles, afterwards became a director and -tastefully executed a number of pictures. - -When the Kinemacolor Company was gathering in what youth and looks -and talent it could afford, Mr. Miles, remembering a little deed of -kindness, recalled Gaston Bell and took him to Hollywood, and when -the much-loved and generous-souled Lillian Russell came out to do -some pictures in Kinemacolor, Mr. Bell was rewarded by being made her -leading man. Mahlon Hamilton loaned his good looks to the same films. -The Russell pictures were used to illustrate “Beauty Talks” in an act -in which Miss Russell was headlined on big vaudeville time throughout -the United States. - -Mahlon Hamilton and Gaston were the company’s two best “lookers.” As to -“acting,” Mahlon made not a single pretense. He and the company quite -agreed as to his dramatic ability. To be so perfectly Charles Dana-ish, -and histronic also, was not expected of one man in those days. We had -not reached the Valentino or Neil Hamilton age. Mr. Mahlon Hamilton, of -late, not quite so Gibsonesque, has become a surprisingly good actor. -So do the years take their toll and yield their little compensations. - -The wonderful possibilities of Kinemacolor had not even been -scratched when the American subsidiary was formed, for the foreign -photographers--English, French, and German--who had “taken” the -Coronation and also some picture plays that were produced in southern -France, insisted that the close-up was impossible in color. But Mr. -Miles, having had Biograph schooling, insisted contrariwise, and -after a long and hard scrap with his photographers, he succeeded in -inducing them to do as he said. The result proved his contention. The -Kinemacolor close-ups were things of great beauty. - -During its short life, Kinemacolor made some impression; for Dan -Frohman after seeing some of the pictures said that “The Scarlet -Letter” was the most artistic movie he had seen up to that time. Many -distinguished visitors stopped at its Hollywood studio to see the -new color pictures. Madame Tetrazzini, the opera singer, among many -others, was tremendously enthusiastic. - -It has been stated in error that the Kinemacolor pictures were never -released. They were very much released, being shown at the New York -Theatre Roof, besides many other theatres in New York, and contracts -for their service all through the country were made by the Kinemacolor -Company. Things started off with such a bang, we never did get over the -shock of the sudden closing. - -It was one exciting year with Kinemacolor, but it ended suddenly and -tragically with the death of the president, Mr. Brock. While preening -our wings for a flight to southern France, a telegram arrived from -the New York office announcing the finish of picture production in -Kinemacolor. - -The sudden disruption of the Kinemacolor Company sent a flock of actors -and a few directors scouting for new jobs. Frank Woods took up with -Universal, only to suffer a six weeks’ nightmare. Being unable to turn -out the class of stuff wanted, and anticipating what was coming, he -resigned, dug up the return half of his Kinemacolor round-trip ticket, -and was not long in New York before he got busy as a free-lance; and -not so long after that a telephone from D. W. Griffith asked him to -become his scenario writer. With great joy he accepted, filling the -position with Mr. Dougherty, who was now back at Biograph after a short -spasm with Kinemacolor. - -Right away Mr. Woods and Mr. Griffith got busy on “Judith of Bethulia,” -for having produced such a classic, Mr. Griffith wanted some special -titling for it. He turned it over to Frank Woods, who phrased the -captions in the style of language of the day--the first time that was -done. However, it proved too much of a strain for the exhibitors, for -they afterward fixed the titles up to suit themselves in good old New -Yorkese. - -Mr. Griffith’s connection with the Mutual Film organization and his -association with H. E. Aitken resulted in the production of such -eventful and popular pictures as “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “Home, Sweet -Home,” “The Escape,” “The Avenging Conscience,” and “The Battle of the -Sexes.” The Clara Morris home out on Riverdale Road served as a studio -until the 29 Union Square Place was acquired. - -Billy Bitzer, D. W.’s photographer, went with him in his new -affiliation, as also did Frank Woods and Christy Cabanne. As Mr. -Griffith’s work with the Mutual became organized, one by one he took -over his old actors, but he left them working with Biograph until he -could put them directly into a picture. So they trailed along; Henry -Walthall, Blanche Sweet, James Kirkwood, Mae Marsh, Lillian and Dorothy -Gish, Eddie Dillon, and many others. - -After a short time at the Mutual studio, Mr. Griffith and his company -went to California. At the old Kinemacolor lot they encamped, the -Mutual having taken over that studio. The carpenters got busy right -away, and soon little one-story wooden buildings crowded to the -sidewalk’s edge, and the place began to look like a factory. The -sprinkling can that had given sustenance to red geraniums and calla -lilies was needed no more. - - * * * * * - -Now before the Kinemacolor Company had started work at Whitestone -they had held a contract with George H. Brennan and Tom Dixon for -the production in color of Tom Dixon’s “The Clansman.” The idea was -that the dramatic company touring through the Southern States in -“The Clansman” would play their same parts before the camera. In -these Southern towns all the Southern atmosphere would be free for -the asking. Houses, streets, even cotton plantations would not be too -remote to use in the picture. And there was a marvelous scheme for -interiors. That was to drag the “drops” and “props” and the pretty -parlor furniture out into the open, where with the assistance of some -sort of floor and God’s sunshine, there would be nothing to hinder work -on the picture version of the play. - -But the marvelous scheme didn’t work as well as was expected; and -eventually the managers decided that trying to take a movie on a -fly-by-night tour of a theatrical company was not possible, so the -company laid off to take it properly. They halted for six weeks and -notwithstanding the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars was spent, -it was a poor picture and was never even put together. Although Tom -Dixon’s sensational story of the South turned out such a botch, it was -to lead to a very big thing in the near future. - -Frank Woods, after several others had tried, had written the continuity -of this version of “The Clansman,” and had received all of two -hundred dollars for the job. That the picturizing of his scenario had -proved such a flivver did not lessen his faith in “The Clansman’s” -possibilities. - -Mr. Griffith was doing some tall thinking. His day of one- and -two-reelers having passed, and the multiple-reel Mutual features -having met with such success, he felt it was about time he started -something new. So, one day, he said to Frank Woods: “I want to make a -big picture. What’ll I make?” With his Kinemacolor experience still -fresh in mind Mr. Woods suggested “The Clansman.” With the Dixon story -and the play Mr. Griffith was quite familiar as he had heard from his -friend Austin Webb, who had played the part of the mulatto _Silas -Lynch_, about all the exciting times attending the performance of the -play--the riots and all--and more he had heard from Claire MacDowell, -who was also in the show, and more still from Mr. Dixon himself. - -So David Griffith said to Frank Woods: “I think there’s something to -that. Now you call Mr. Dixon up, make an appointment to see him, and -you talk it over, but say nothing about my being the same actor who -worked for him once.” - -So the meeting was arranged; the hour of the appointment approached; -and as Mr. Woods was leaving on his important mission Mr. Griffith gave -final parting instructions, “Now remember, don’t mention I’m the actor -that once worked for him, for he would not have confidence in me.” - -So while Tom Dixon nibbled his lunch of crackers, nuts, and milk, -Mr. Woods, without revealing his little secret, unfolded the mighty -plan, “We are going to sell Wall Street and get the biggest man in the -business.” - -“Who?” - -“D. W. Griffith.” - -“Oh, yes, I’ve heard a lot about him--he used to work for me.” - -Mr. Dixon was greatly interested and evinced no hesitation whatever -in entrusting his sensational story of the South to his one-time -seventy-five dollars a week actor. He’d already taken one sporting -chance on it, why not another? Yes, Mr. Griffith could have his -“Clansman” for his big picture. - -H. E. Aitken, who had formed the Mutual Film Company, had had on his -Executive Committee Felix Kahn, brother of Otto Kahn, and Crawford -Livingston. They had built the Rialto and Rivoli Theatres. The -Herculean task of financing the “big picture,” Mr. Aitken presented -to Mr. Kahn, and he genially had agreed to provide the necessary -cash--the monetary end was all beautifully settled--when the World War -entered the arena and Mr. Kahn felt he could not go on. So Mr. Aitken -had to finance the picture himself. He financed it to the extent of -sixty thousand dollars, which was what “The Birth of A Nation” cost -to produce. With legal fees and exploitation, it came to all of one -hundred and ten thousand dollars. Mr. Felix Kahn and Mr. Crawford -Livingston afterwards offered to help out with fifteen thousand dollars -but there were fifteen directors on the executive committee of the -Mutual Film, and they over-ruled the fifteen thousand dollars tender, -leaving Mr. Aitken as sole financier. - -Mr. Dixon received two thousand five hundred dollars cash and -twenty-five per cent of the profits. He wanted more cash--wasn’t so -interested in the profits just then. But afterwards he had no regrets. -For it happened sometimes in later days, when the picture had started -out to gather in its millions, that Mr. Dixon casually opening a drawer -in his desk, would be greeted by a whopping big check--his interest in -“The Birth of A Nation,” and one of these times, happening unexpectedly -on one such check, he said, “I’m ashamed to take it”--a sentiment that -should have done his soul good. - -Well, Mr. Dixon is one who should have got rich on “The Birth of A -Nation,” but the one whose genius was responsible for the unparalleled -success of the epoch-making picture says he fared like most inventors -and didn’t get so rich. However, it probably didn’t make Mr. Griffith -so very unhappy, for so far he has seemingly got more satisfaction out -of the art of picture making than out of the dollars the pictures bring. - -Had the Epoch Company not sold State Rights on the picture when they -did, Tom Dixon’s interest would have been fabulous. But as the State -Rights’ privilege was not for life, only for a term of years, now soon -expiring, or perhaps expired now, and as up to date the picture has -brought in fifteen million dollars, it seems as though there’s nothing -much to be unhappy about for any of those concerned. - -One of the State Rights buyers who took a sporting chance on the -picture was Louis B. Mayer, who had begun his movie career with a -nickelodeon in some place like East or South Boston, borrowing his -chairs from an undertaker when they weren’t being used for a funeral. -Mr. Mayer managed to scrape together enough money to buy the State -Rights for New England and he cleaned up a small fortune on the deal -after the owners had figured they had skimmed all the cream off Boston -and other New England cities. - - * * * * * - -Oh, well, what’s money anyway? A little while and we all will rest -in good old mother earth, and if we’re lucky perhaps pink and white -daisies may nod in the soft spring breezes overhead. Or we may be grand -and have a mausoleum, or a shining shaft of stone, or a huge boulder -to mark our spot, or perhaps we may just rest in a neat little urn--a -handful of ashes. - -And what then of the fêted days of Mary and Doug? Of the peals of -laughter that rocked a Charlie Chaplin audience? Of the suspenseful -rescue of a persecuted Griffith heroine on the ice-blocked river? Of -the storm-tossed career of Mabel Normand? - -Of the magic city of Hollywood? And the Hollywooders? Of the exotic -and hectic life of the beautiful stars? Of the saner careers of the -domestically happy? Who was greatest? Who produced the best pictures? -Who was the most popular? Who made the most money? - -All this will be told of in books reposing on dusty library shelves. -Possibly a name alone will be left to whisper to posterity of their -endeavor, or tinned celluloid reels shown maybe on special occasions, -only to be greeted by roars of laughter--even scenes of tender -death-bed partings--so old-fashioned will the technique be. - -But David Wark Griffith’s record may yet perhaps shine with the steady -bright light of his courage, of his patient laboring day by day, of his -consecration to his work; and of his faithful love for his calling, -once thought so lowly. - - * * * * * - -And so eventually “The Birth of A Nation” was finished. At the Liberty -Theatre in West Forty-second Street, New York--1915 was the time--it -had its première--one wholly novel for a moving picture--for it was the -first time a movie was presented bedecked in the same fashion as the -more luxurious drama, and shown at two dollars per seat. It was not -the first picture to be given in a legitimate theatre, however, for -Mr. Aitken had previously booked at the Cort Theatre “The Escape,” the -picture made from the Paul Armstrong play of the same name. - -At this first public projection of “The Birth of A Nation,” an audience -sat spellbound for three hours. The picture was pronounced the -sensation of the season. From critics, ministers, and historians came -a flood of testimonials, treatises, and letters on the new art and -artists of the cinema. - -“The Birth of A Nation” remains unique in picture production. It -probably never will be laid absolutely to rest, as it pictures so -dramatically the greatest tragedy in the history of America, showing -the stuff its citizens were made of and the reason why this nation has -become such a great and wonderful country. - -Through the success of “The Birth of A Nation” the two-dollar movie was -born. But here let there be no misunderstanding: the two-dollar-a-seat -innovation in the movies was H. E. Aitken’s idea. He was opposed in it -by both Mr. Griffith and Mr. Dixon, Mr. Dixon becoming so alarmed that -he type-wrote a twelve-page argument against it. However, Mr. Aitken -persisted and the result proved him right. The public will pay if they -think your show is worth it. - -Through the success of “The Birth of A Nation,” the sole habitat of -the movies was no longer Eighth Avenue, Sixth Avenue, Avenue A and -Fourteenth Street; the movies had reached Broadway to stay. D. W. -Griffith had achieved that, and had he stopped right there he would -have done his bit in the magical development of the motion picture. -For though “Bagdad Carpets” fly, and “Ten Commandments” preach, and -“Covered Wagons” trek--miles and miles of movies unreel, and some of -them awfully fine, they must all acknowledge that the narrow trail that -led to their highway was blazed by Mr. Griffith. - -Whoever might have had a dream that the degraded little movie would -blossom into magnificence, now was beginning to see that dream come -true. The two-dollar movie was launched; tickets were obtainable at the -box office for what future dates one pleased; there were surroundings -that made the wearing of an evening dress look quite inconspicuous; -serious criticism and sober attention were to be had from the -high-minded--these were the first stages of the dream’s fulfillment. - -But little we then dreamed that to-day’s picture world was to be like -an Arabian Night’s tale! Kings and Queens and Presidents interested! A -University proposed for the study of the motion picture alone! James -M. Barrie consenting to “Peter Pan” in the movies and selecting the -_Peter_ himself!--Any one who had made such suggestions then would have -been put where he could have harmed no one! - -The wildest flights of fancy hardly visioned a salary of one thousand -dollars a day for an actor. But it came, as every one now knows, and -with the approach of dizzy salaries departed the simple happinesses and -contentment, and the fun of the old days, when thirty or fifty dollars -weekly looked like a small fortune. - -We had to grow up. It was so written. I, for one, am glad I served my -novitiate in a day when we could afford to be good fellows, and our -hearts were young enough and happy enough to enjoy the gypsying way of -things. - - -THE END - - - - -Transcriber’s Notes - - -Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a -predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they -were not changed. - -Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation -marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left -unbalanced. - -Except as noted below, the spellings of names and the titles of movies -in the original book are unchanged here. - -Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs -and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support -hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to -the corresponding illustrations. - -Page references in the captions of some illustrations did not seem to -lead to relevant text. - -Page 249: “Tell-tale Heart” was misprinted as “Tell ale Heart”; the -correction here is not definitive. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN THE MOVIES WERE -YOUNG *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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