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.