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?