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.