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!