IT COMES TO PASS
There were no social engagements during these Biograph years. Our
dinner parties, which were concerned with nourishment mostly, were with
our co-workers. As we never knew when we would be allowed to eat, it
was impossible to dine with friends. There was no time for anything but
work--a good, hard steady grind it was, and we liked it.
The one, lazy, lenient affair of the week was breakfast on Sunday
morning. From ten to twelve it stretched, and it was so restful to eat
at home and not have to look at a menu card or talk to a waiter, even
though the conversation would be all about the movies.
“What are people interested in?” said he, one Sunday.
“Well, men like to make money, and women want to be beautiful.”
“That would make a good movie. Why don’t you write it?”
“Glad to, if you think it’s any good.”
So she wrote it, the part about the women wanting to be beautiful, and
called it “How She Triumphed,” and in it Blanche Sweet evolved from an
ugly duckling with no beaux to a very lovely bit of femininity with
sighing swains all around her. In the picture she did calisthenics
according to Walter Camp as one way of getting there.
After the leisurely Sunday morning hours had crept their way, to the
studio David would hie himself to read scripts with Mr. Dougherty. And
Sunday night would mean a movie show somewhere. And Monday morning it
began all over again.
From “Wark,” to “work,” only the difference of a vowel, so what an
appropriate middle name for David Griffith! What infinite patience he
had. If we got stuck in the mud when going out to location--we were
stuck, and we’d get out, so why worry? No cursing out of driver or car
or weather; no, “What the ----? Why the ----couldn’t you have taken
another road?” Instead would suddenly be heard baritone strains of
“Samson and Delilah” or some old plantation negro song while we waited
for horses or another car to pull us out.
And it did happen once when on location perhaps twenty miles out in
the wilds, that the leading man suddenly discovered he had brought the
wrong pair of trousers. Nothing to do but send back for the right ones.
Mr. Griffith was not indifferent to the time that would be lost, but
getting himself all worked up would not make the picture any better.
He’d sing, perhaps an Irish come-all-you, or, were he out in the
desert, get out the automobile robe and start a crap game.
Arthur Marvin never ceased to marvel at his chief’s agility and
capacity for hard work. Mr. Marvin had a sort of leisurely way of
working.
Up and down a stubble field Mr. Griffith was tearing one day--getting
a line on a barn, a tree and some old plows. Arthur was having a
few drags on his pipe--the film boxes being full and everything in
readiness to put up the tripod wherever the director should decide.
David’s long legs kept striding merrily all over the cut harvest
field--most miserable place to walk--Arthur musing as he looked on.
“There goes Griffith, he’ll die working.” In a few moments Mr. Griffith
right-about faced and with not a symptom of being out of breath said,
“Set her up here, Arthur.”
That winter we lost our genial Arthur Marvin, but David Griffith is
still hitting the stubble field. Well, he took good care of himself.
He did a daily dozen, and he sparred with our ex-lightweight, Spike
Robinson. The bellboys at the Alexandria Hotel called him “the polar
bear” because he bought a bucket of cracked ice every morning to make
the Los Angeles morning bath more tonic-y.
One could not have better equipment for the trying experiences of movie
work than patience, and a sense of humor. And the “polar bear” is well
equipped with both.
But there were times when even a sense of humor failed to sustain
one. Nothing was funny about the uncertain mornings when we’d gather
at the 125th Street ferry for the 8:45 boat, having watched weather
since daylight through our bedroom window, only to cross and recross
the Hudson on the same boat, the cumulus clouds we delighted in for
photographic softness having turned to rain clouds even as we watched
from the ferry slip. Back to the studio then to begin another picture
and to work late. And oh, how we’d grouch!
But when it rained while we were registered at some expensive place
like the Kittatiny at the Delaware Water Gap, there was need for
anxiety, with the actors’ board bill mounting daily and nothing being
accomplished.
Yes, we had worries. But we were getting encouragement too. The
splendid reviews of our pictures in _The Dramatic Mirror_ helped
a lot. The way our pictures were going over was a joy. With their
first announcement on the screen, what a twitter in the audience! A
great old title page Biograph pictures had. Nothing less than our
National emblem, our good old American eagle, sponsored them. He
certainly looked a fine bird on the screen, his wings benignly spread,
godfathering the Biograph’s little movie children.
Exhibitors were certainly getting keen about “Biographs”; the public
was too. People were becoming anxious about the players as well, and
commencing to ask all sorts of questions about them.
Stacks of mail were arriving daily imploring the names of players, but
of this no hint was given the actor. How surprised I was that time my
husband said to me, “You know we are getting as many as twenty-five
letters a day about Mary Pickford?”
“Why, what do you mean, letters about her?”
“Every picture she plays in brings a bunch of mail asking her name and
other things about her.”
“You’re not kidding?”
“Of course not.”
“Did you tell her?”
“No. I don’t want her asking for a raise in salary.”
Biograph found it a difficult job sticking to their policy of secrecy.
Letters came from fans asking about their favorites; the pretty girl
with the curls--the girl with the sad eyes--the man with the lovely
smile--the funny little man--and the policeman. What tears of joy
Sennett would have wept had he known!
In bunches the postman soon began to leave the “who” letters at 11
East Fourteenth Street. “Who played the tall, thin man in ‘The
Tenderfoot’?” “Who played the little girl in the Colonial dress and
curls who danced the minuet in the rose garden at midnight in ‘Wilful
Peggy’?” “Who was the handsome Indian who did the corn dance on the
mountain top in ‘The Indian Runner’s Romance’?”
Other picture concerns than Biograph had not as yet made the actor’s
name public. But they did give him his mail when addressed with
sufficient clarity. Arthur Mackley, the famous _Sheriff_ of Essanay,
was receiving, those days, ten letters a day. They came addressed.
The Sheriff
Essanay Company
Chicago
Some boy, the Sheriff, getting ten letters a day!
It remained for English exhibitors first to name the Biograph players.
For Biograph, long after all the other picture companies had made
the actor’s name public, still refused to come out into the open.
Over in London the fans were appeased with fictitious names for their
favorites. Beautiful names they were, so hero-ish and so villain-ish,
so reminiscent of the old-time, sentimental, maiden-lady author. I
recall but one and a half names of our players. Dell Henderson was
given the beautiful soubriquet of “Arthur Donaldson” and Blanche Sweet
became “Daphne ----” something or other.
But the yearning American youths and maidens continued to receive the
cold, stereotyped reply, “Biograph gives no names.” The Biograph was
not thinking as quickly as some of its players.
Our friends from Cuddebackville, the Goddefroys, being in New York one
time this summer, Mr. Griffith thought it would be rather nice to
arrange an evening. They were interested in our California pictures,
as they were planning a trip there. We fixed up the projection room
and ran the better of the Western stuff. Afterward with our guests
and a few of the leading people we repaired to Cavanaugh’s on West
Twenty-third Street.
Busy chatter about the pictures, every one raving over Mary Pickford’s
work in “Ramona,” when Mary, quietly, but with considerable assurance
said, “Some day I am going to be a great actress and have my name in
electric lights over a theatre.”
I turned pale and felt weak. We all were shocked. Of course, she never
meant the movies, that would have been plumb crazy. No, she meant the
stage, and she was thinking of going back. The thought of losing Mary
made me very unhappy. But just how had she figured to get her name in
electric lights? What was on her mind, anyway?
This summer of 1910 Mr. Griffith signed his third Biograph contract.
This contract called for a royalty of an eighth of a cent a foot on all
film sold and seventy-five dollars per week, but the name “Lawrence”
which had been signed on the dotted line the two preceding years, was
this time scratched out and “David” written in.
“David” had gone into the silence and decided that the movies were now
worthy of his hire, and couldn’t dent his future too badly, no matter
what that future might be. David W. Griffith and Mary Pickford were
certainly growing bold.