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!