“Lillian directed Dorothy in the best picture Dorothy ever made. I knew

she could do it, for whenever we were making a picture I realized that

she knew as much about it as I did—gave me valuable ideas about lights,

angles, color, and a hundred things. She had brains, and used them, and

she did not lose her head. You see what confidence I had in her to go

off to Florida and leave her to direct a picture in a new studio, with

all the problems of lights and sets, and a thousand other things a

director has to contend with. I know how her lights failed on her, and

all the complications that came up, and how she handled them, and how,

out of it, she got that fine picture. One of the best. She didn’t tell

me, but Carr did.”

XVII

“WAY DOWN EAST”

Griffith now began work on his greatest melodrama. “Way Down East” had

been successful as a book and a play, and was precisely the sort of

thing he could do best. From William A. Brady, for a large sum, he

secured the picture rights, and plunged into production. There were to

be two great outdoor scenes: a blizzard, in which the heroine, who has

been inveigled into a mock marriage—and is, therefore, under the New

England code, fallen and outcast—is lost; and the frozen river, which,

blinded and desperate, she reaches, to be carried to the falls on a cake

of ice. There was very little that was artificial about such scenes, in

that day: the blizzard had to be a real one, the ice, real ice—most of

it, at any rate. Griffith began rehearsing some scenes at Claridge’s

Hotel, in New York, continuing steadily for eight weeks; but all the

time there was an order that in case of a blizzard, night or day, all

hands were to report at the Mamaroneck studio. Lillian had taken

Stanford White’s house on Orienta Point. Reading the play, she knew it

was going to be an endurance test, and went into training for it. Cold

baths, walks in the cold against the wind, exercises ... she had faith

in her body being equal to any emergency, if prepared for it. In a

magazine article, a few years later, she wrote:

The memorable day of March 6th arrived, and with it a snow-storm

and a ninety-mile-an-hour gale. As I was living at Mamaroneck,

near the studio, I quickly reported, and was made up as Anna

Moore, ready but not eager for the work to be done. The scene to

be taken was the one just after the irate Squire Bartlett turns

Anna out of the house into the storm. Dazed and all but frozen,

she wanders about through the snow, and finally to the river.

The Griffith studio was on a point or arm well out in Long Island Sound.

The wind swept this narrow strip with great fury. The cameras had their

backs to the gale. She had to face it.

She had been out only a short time when her face became caked with snow.

Around her eyes this would melt—her lashes became small icicles.

Griffith wanted this, and brought the cameras up close. Her lids were so

heavy she could scarcely keep them open.

No need of spectacular “falls.” The difficulty was to keep her feet. She

was beaten back, flung about like a toy. Her face became drawn and

twisted, almost out of human semblance. When she could stand no more,

and was half-unconscious, they would pull her back to the studio on a

little sled and give her hot tea. A brief rest and back to the gale.

Griffith had invested a large sum in the picture, and she must make

good. One could not count on another blizzard that season. Harry Carr

writes:

That blizzard scene in “Way Down East” was real. It was taken in

the most God-awful blizzard I ever saw. Three men lay flat to hold

the legs of each camera. I went out four times, in order to be a

hero, but sneaked back suffocated and half dead. Lillian stuck out

there in front of the cameras. D. W. would ask her if she could

stand it, and she would nod. The icicles hung from her lashes, and

her face was blue. When the last shot was made, they had to

_carry_ her to the studio.

A week or two later, they were at White River Junction. Vermont, for the

ice scenes. Griffith took a good many of his company, and they put up at

an old-fashioned hotel, a place of hospitality and good food.

White River Junction is at the confluence of the White and the

Connecticut rivers. There is no fall there, but the current moves at the

rate of six miles an hour, and the water is deep. The ice was from

twelve to sixteen inches thick, and a good-sized piece of it made a

fairly safe craft, but it was wet and slippery, and _very cold_. It was

frozen solid when they arrived; had to be sawed and dynamited, to get

pieces for the floating scene. Lillian conceived the idea of letting her

hand and hair drag in the water. It was effective, but her hand became

frosted; the chances of pneumonia increased. To the writer, recently,

Richard Barthelmess, who had the star part opposite Lillian, said:

“Not once, but twenty times a day, for two weeks, Lillian floated down

on a cake of ice, and I made my way to her, stepping from one cake to

another, to rescue her. I had on a heavy fur coat, and if I had slipped,

or if one of the cakes had cracked and let me through, my chances would

not have been good. As for Lillian, why she did not get pneumonia, I

still can’t understand. She has a wonderful constitution. Before we

started, Griffith had us insured against accident, and sickness.

Lillian, frail as she looked, was the only one of the company who passed

one hundred percent perfect—condition and health.

“No accidents happened: The story that I missed a signal and did not

reach Lillian in time, and that she came near going over the falls,

would indicate that she made the float on the ice-cake but once. As I

say, she made it numberless times, and there were _no falls_. Lillian

was never nervous, and never afraid. I don’t think either of us thought

of anything serious happening, though when I was carrying her, stepping

from one ice-cake to another, we might easily have slipped in. I would

not make that picture again for any money that a producer would be

willing to pay for it.”

[Illustration: “ANNA MOORE”]

At the end of the ice scene, there is an instant when the cake, at the

brink of a fall, seems to start over, just as Barthelmess, carrying

Lillian, steps from it to another, and another, half slipping in before

he reaches the bank.

The critical moment at the brink of the fall was made in summer-time, at

Winchell Smith’s farm, near Farmington, Connecticut. The ice-cakes here

were painted blocks of wood, or boxes, and were attached to piano wire.

There was a real fall of fifteen feet at this place, and once, a

carpenter went over and was considerably damaged. In the picture, as

shown, Niagara was blended into this fall, with startling effect.

Barthelmess remembers that Lillian kept mostly to herself. She took her

work very seriously—too much so, in the opinion of her associates. But

once there was a barn-dance at the hotel, in which she joined; and once

she and Barthelmess drove over to Dartmouth College, not far distant,

with Mr. and Mrs. Elmer Clifton, to a dinner given them by Barthelmess’s

fraternity. After dinner, they heard a great tramp, tramp, and someone

said to Lillian: “It’s the college boys, coming to kidnap you.” They

sometimes did such things, for a lark.

But they only wanted to pay their respects. They gathered outside the

window, which Mr. Clifton opened, and both Lillian and Barthelmess spoke

to them through it.

The summer scenes of “Way Down East” were made at Farmington and at the

Mamaroneck studio. Griffith had selected a fine cast, among them Lowell

Sherman, the villain; Burr McIntosh, as Squire Bartlett; Kate Bruce, his

wife; Mary Hay, their niece; and Vivia Ogden, the village gossip. The

scene where Squire Bartlett drives Anna Moore from his home, was

realistic in its harshness, and poor Burr McIntosh, a sweet soul who

long before had played Taffy in “Trilby,” and who loved Lillian dearly,

could never get over having been obliged to turn her out into the storm.

Often, in after years, he begged her to forgive him.

* * * * *

A few minor incidents, connected with the making of “Way Down East,” may

be recalled: Griffith had spent a great sum of money for the

rights—$275,000, it is said—and was spending a great many more thousands

producing it. He was naturally on a good deal of a tension. All were

working to the limit of their strength, but they could not hold the

pitch indefinitely. When Barthelmess, who is short, had to stand on a

two-inch piece of board, to cope on terms of equality with Lowell

Sherman, Sherman, who was a trained actor of the stage, could, and did,

make invisible side remarks which made Barthelmess laugh. Whereupon,

Griffith raged at the waste of time and film, and everybody was sorry,

the villain penitent. “Stop that laughing! Turn around and face the

camera,” were sharp admonitions perpetuated by a right-about-face in the

picture to this day.

It was harsh in form, rather than by intention. They did not resent

these scoldings. They believed in Griffith, knew something of his

problems, wanted him to make good.

There was one scene during which Griffith had no word to offer—the scene

in which Anna Moore (Lillian) baptizes her dying child. Harry Carr

writes:

The only time I ever saw a stage-hand cry was in the baptism scene

in “Way Down East.” It was made in a boxed-off corner, with only

D. W., Lillian, the camera-man, a stage-hand and myself there.

Everybody cried. It never made the same impression on the screen,

because it was necessary to interrupt the action with the

sub-titles. You saw her dripping the water on the baby’s head;

then a sub-title flashed on, saying: “In the Name of the Father,

etc.,” and the spell was broken.

Carr, Lillian and Griffith would sit far into the night, watching rushes

from the scenes made the day before. It was a drowsy occupation—so many

of the same thing—and after a day in the open, it was not surprising

that Carr should nod. Across a misty plain of sleep, Griffith’s voice

would come to him: “Which shot do you like best, Carr?”

It is noticeable in the baptism scene, that Lillian sits relaxed, her

knees apart; that when she leaves the house, she walks with a dragging

step, as one who had recently experienced the struggle and agonies of

child-birth. It has been suggested that she had visited a maternity

hospital for these details. When asked, she said:

“No, I did not do that. There was an old woman connected with the

studio, who had borne a number of children. She told me all that I

needed to know. I learned something, too, from pictures of the Madonna,

by old masters. I noticed in all of them that the Madonna sat with her

knees apart. I felt that there must be a good reason for painting her in

that way.”

She had studied out every detail of the scenes she was to play. Many

actors, even among the best, work by another method. They absorb the

feeling of the plot, fling themselves into a scene, depending upon an

angel to kindle the divine fire. This method never was Lillian’s. To

her, the bush never of itself became a burning bush. She lit the fire

and tended it. She knew the effect she wanted to produce, and found no

research too tedious, no rehearsal too long—no effort too great, to

achieve her end.

* * * * *

“Way Down East” was shown in October. Griffith, with Lillian and

Barthelmess, were present in person, in the larger cities. It was like a

triumphal tour. To present the “world’s darling” in scenes of actual

danger, on the screen, and then have her appear in person, was to invite

something in the nature of a riot. Reporters indulged in the most

extravagant language. And there was a freshet of poetry, and of

letters—love-letters, many of them, but letters, also, from persons

distinctly worthwhile. David Belasco, whose “most beautiful blonde”

verdict had long since gone into the discard, démodé, wrote:

_Dear Lillian Gish_,

It was a revelation to see the little girl who was with me only a

few years ago, moving through the pictured version of “Way Down

East” with such perfect acting. In this play, you reach the very

highest point in action, charm and delightful expression. It made

me happy, too, to see how you and your name appeal to the public.

Congratulations on a splendid piece of work, and good wishes for

your continued success.

Faithfully,

DAVID BELASCO

John Barrymore went even further, when he wrote:

_My dear Mr. Griffith_:

I have for the second time seen your picture of “Way Down East.”

Any personal praise of yourself or your genius regarding the

picture I would naturally consider redundant and a little like

carrying coals to Newcastle....

I have not the honor of knowing Miss Gish personally and I am

afraid that any expression of feeling addressed to her she might

consider impertinent. I merely wish to tell you that her

performance seems to me to be the most superlatively exquisite and

poignantly enchaining thing that I have ever seen in my life.

I remember seeing Duse in this country many years ago, when I

imagine she must have been at the height of her powers—also Madame

Bernhardt—and for sheer technical brilliancy and great emotional

projection, done with an almost uncanny simplicity and sincerity

of method, it is great fun and a great stimulant to see an

American artist equal, if not surpass, the finest traditions of

the theatre.

I wonder if you would be good enough to thank Miss Gish from all

of us who are trying to do the best we know how in the theatre.

Believe me,

Yours very sincerely,

JOHN BARRYMORE

Mrs. Gish, who was not a motion-picture enthusiast, made a single

comment:

“Well, young lady,” she said, “you’ve set quite a high mark for

yourself. How are you going to live up to it?”

[Illustration: THE RIVER SCENE IN “WAY DOWN EAST”]

“Way Down East” was one of the most popular and profitable pictures ever

made. Net returns from it ran into the millions. It has had several

revivals, and at the present writing (Winter, 1931), is being shown at

the Cameo Theatre, New York, “with sound.” Its day, however, is over.

Taste has changed—has become what an older generation might regard as

unduly sophisticated, depraved. This, with mechanical advancement—the

talking feature, for instance—tells the story. A picture of even ten

years ago—five years ago—is without a public.

“Way Down East” is a melodrama, but one that at moments rises to

considerable heights. Putting aside the spectacular features of the

picture—the blizzard and the ice-drift, where melodrama is raised to the

nth degree—the scene where the villain reveals to his victim that their

marriage was a mockery, the scene where Anna Moore, about to be turned

out into the storm, denounces her betrayer, and the baptismal scene,

already mentioned, are drama, and, as Lillian Gish gave them, worthy.

And, after all, what is, and is not, melodrama—and cheap. Cheap—because

it is human. That is why we have invented for ourselves a hereafter—a

place away from it all—of rest by green fields and running brooks. Very

well, let us agree that the play was cheap, especially the comedy, which

was low comedy and about the record in that direction. But if Lillian’s

acting was cheap, and poor, then there is very little to be said for any

acting, which, God knows, may be true enough, after all!

XVIII

SAD, UNPROFITABLE DAYS

Lillian to Nell, June 30, 1920:

Do you know that I am leaving Mr. Griffith? “Way Down East” that

we are on, will be my last. I go with the Frohman Amusement

Company, between the 1st and 15th of August. I am to make five

pictures a year, for two years. If I make successful pictures, I

shall make a lot of money. If I don’t, well, kismet—it’s all a

gamble, anyway.

It was more of a “gamble” than she knew. Strictly speaking, there was no

such thing as the “Frohman Amusement Company.” No Frohman—no _amusement_

Frohman—had anything to do with it. That was just a part of the gamble.

Griffith, apparently, thought it all right, and so did his brother, for

it was the latter who made the connection. Had Lillian made inquiries on

her own account, her eyes might have been opened sooner, and less

expensively.

Griffith and Lillian parted on the friendliest terms. Griffith said to

her:

“You know the business as well as I do. You should be making more money

than you can make with me.” He did not say: “Stay with me and share in

the prosperity which you have brought, and will bring me. No one can be

more successful than we two together.” To a simple-minded literary

person, this would seem to have been the wisest course. Lillian thinks

he had perhaps grown tired of seeing her around.

She did not make five pictures for the Frohman company, or even one. She

did begin one, “World’s Shadows,” by Madame de Grésac, who claims here a

word of introduction:

Somewhat earlier, Lillian had met this gifted French lady, god-daughter

of Victorien Sardou, wife of the singer, Victor Maurel, herself a

dramatist who had written French, English and Italian plays for Réjane,

Duse, Marie Tempest, and others of distinction. Familiar with the best

literary and art circles of Paris, considerably older than Lillian,

small, red-haired, quick of speech—French, in the best meaning of the

term—she was a revelation to the younger woman, who in spite of her

years on the stage and screen, was a good deal of a primitive as to

world knowledge, and art in its less obvious forms. The two were

mutually fascinated: Madame de Grésac, dazed and delighted by Lillian’s

gifts and innocence; Lillian, stirred and awakened, and sometimes

shocked, by the French-woman’s brilliant mentality, her knowledge of

life, her freedom of expression. In a brief time, they were devoted

friends, confidantes.

When the so-called Frohman company wanted a picture for Lillian, Madame

de Grésac agreed to prepare one. She did so, but about the time

rehearsal was under way, Lillian’s first (and only) salary cheque from

the company was returned from the bank, unpaid—“No funds.” They

explained to her that certain backers had disappointed them. It may be

so. At all events, there was a hitch somewhere, in this particular

gamble. Lillian carried on, as a number of players had come with her

from the Griffith staff, and as they seemed to be getting their money,

she could not leave them in the lurch. But, of course, the end came.

Their pay, also, stopped. The thing that had never really existed,

ceased to function. It was all a fiasco—a tragedy ... so many tragedies

in the show business.

“World Shadows” was discarded. It made no difference between the two

friends. If anything, they were closer than before. The day was coming,

not so many years ahead, when they would combine in another play—a

success.

Madame’s husband, Victor Maurel, besides being a singer, had a passion

for painting, and persuaded Lillian to pose for him. Lillian, with a

view of sometime going back to the stage, greatly desired voice culture.

They agreed that in exchange for half an hour’s posing, he would devote

half an hour to training her voice. She had then finished “Way Down

East,” which Maurel seemed to love. He watched it, time and again; then

he had her go into a separate room, a dark room, and convey the feeling

of it—paint the picture, as it were, with her voice. This was priceless

training. It gave her voice a quality and value it had not possessed

before. “From Maurel,” she said afterwards, “I got my consonants.”

* * * * *

Except for the triumph of “Way Down East,” a triumph not easy to

understand in this more crowded, more inattentive day, that year of 1920

was hardly a cheerful one. For one thing, Mrs. Gish was in poor health.

Dorothy had taken her to Italy, which might have been well enough but

for the circumstances of their return.

It was the tragedy of Bobby Harron that brought them back. On September

first, alone in his hotel room, Bobby shot himself. For years, he had

been as one of the family. From the days of the Biograph company, he had

taken part in pictures with both Lillian and Dorothy; he had shared the

hardships and dangers of those days and nights of bomb and shrapnel, in

London and France. He had been a brother to them—to Dorothy, for a time,

at least, something more. Now, he was dead.

Exactly what happened will always be a mystery. Lillian, in

Philadelphia, where they were opening “Way Down East,” wrote Nell:

These have been terrible days—the worst I have ever known. You

have heard about it by this time, I imagine—about Bob: He was in

his room, unpacking an old trunk, when a pistol fell out and

exploded, the ball going through his lung. That was Sept, 1st, at

10:30 in the morning. He was taken to Bellevue, where he seemed to

improve—we all held such high hopes—until Sunday morning, at 7:55,

he breathed his last. Mother and Dorothy were some place in

Italy—could get no word to them until Wednesday. They are taking

the first boat home, which leaves today.

Bobby had been a Catholic, and when his mother and sister arrived, not

knowing that he was dead, it fell to Lillian, with a priest, to meet

them and break the news. Later, she took them home and looked after them

for several weeks.

XIX

PICTURING THE REIGN OF TERROR

Lillian was in a position to make a new start. She made it with

Griffith, who was having troubles of his own getting a group of players

together for a production suited to his Mamaroneck studio. He wanted to

do “Faust,” but Lillian prevailed upon him to do “The Two Orphans,”

which would give Dorothy a good part, as Louise, the blind sister.

Griffith agreed, and rehearsing for the new picture was soon under way.

Lillian’s salary was now a thousand dollars a week. The bark of the

wolf, which had become noticeable, died away.

“Orphans of the Storm,” as it was finally called, began as a rather

close picture version of Kate Klaxton’s old play. Two sisters set out

for Paris by stage-coach, to obtain cure for the blind Louise. One of

them, beautiful Henriette, is kidnapped on arrival, by a dissolute roué,

the other is picked up by the terrible Madame Frouchard and compelled to

beg in the streets. In the picture, the rescue and reunion of the

sisters is brought about through a handsome young aristocrat who, under

revolutionary ban, is sentenced to death on the guillotine. Henriette

(Lillian) herself is involved, and narrowly escapes—being on the

scaffold with her head under the knife at the moment of rescue. The

revolutionary feature was a Griffith addition to the original play.

Griffith spent great sums on the settings of this picture. He was never

one to be sparing in such matters while his money held out, with the

result that he was likely to be brought up with a round turn, at the

end. For the guillotine scene, he required a great number of extras, and

he could not afford to assemble them more than once. One morning he

called up all the weather bureaus, and even an old man who had the

rheumatism, to find out if it was going to rain. All said that it would

not, and he got out the big crowd for the guillotine episode, as big as

he could afford. And it didn’t rain, but it was cloudy. Never mind, he

would make the picture anyway. He could not assemble that crowd again.

Interesting things happened during the making of the picture. Harry Carr

recalls that a certain actor, fresh from Broadway, with the tricks not

unfamiliar there, had the habit of easing back from the camera in his

scenes with Lillian, so that she would have to turn her face to speak to

him. She did not complain, but “Whitey,” head electrician, came to Carr,

pale with anger:

“You tell that kike,” he said, “that the next time he does that, us boys

will drop a dome light on his bean. Lots of accidents happen in studios,

and one is about to happen now.”

Carr passed along the information, with the result that the offender

made no more mistakes—was almost afraid to leave his dressing-room.

According to Carr, Frances Marion, the distinguished scenario writer,

once said: “There is plenty of real chivalry in motion picture studios,

but it’s all to be found among the juice-gangs.” Carr adds:

Griffith had a way of rehearsing plays until everybody wished

himself dead—chairs for horses—tables for thrones, etc. He

rehearsed with anybody who happened to be around. Kate Bruce was

rehearsed weeks on end, for a part that she very much wanted, but

which Griffith, with his dread of the irrevocable, had never

really assured her she could play. Lillian at last cornered him,

just before the picture actually began. He reluctantly said that

he supposed “Brucie” would get the part. “Then please let me tell

her,” pleaded Lillian. “All right,” assented D. W., and Lillian

ran to her like a little girl. Brucie was sitting in a chair on

the set. Lillian almost picked up her frail little body. I don’t

know what they said, but they stood there, crying in each other’s

arms. They both realized that it would probably be Brucie’s last

big part.

When Lillian got a new part, she flung herself into it completely.

She wanted to know what such a girl would eat; what she would do

on her holidays; what colors she would like. Making “Orphans of

the Storm,” Lillian turned herself into French. She read French

books, and did everything to avoid talking, even to us, who might

drag her out of the picture.

“Orphans of the Storm” was finished in time to open in Boston about the

end of the year 1921. Lillian and Dorothy accompanied Griffith to the

first showing; also, to other first showings in the larger cities—as far

South as New Orleans, as far West as Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Everywhere they were fêted and entertained; in New Orleans the railway

station was crowded when they arrived; the news correspondent says that

a procession with a “real, honest-to-goodness brass band led the way to

the City Hall, where the Mayor of New Orleans gave Lillian and Dorothy

Gish a warm welcome and the freedom of the city.”

Perhaps there were not brass bands everywhere, but always a crowd,

always entertainment, always a reception on the stage after the picture,

with demands for a speech, which Lillian had to make. In Washington,

they were given a special luncheon by President and Mrs. Harding, with

great boxes of flowers which, with Griffith standing between them,

Lillian and Dorothy were obliged to hold while they were being

photographed. The papers spoke of the “democracy of these two

celebrities, who were so cheerfully willing to meet in a ‘closeup,’ in

the lobbies, after their appearance on the stage, proving the bigness of

their characters.” True enough, but there was another side to it:

Lillian to Nell:

We have been going around the country on the “Orphans” tour. It is

all so nerve-racking. I would rather do anything else, but if it

helps Mr. Griffith, of course I could not refuse, and I suppose it

is a good experience. You can’t be a hermit all your life, though

I do not enjoy crawling out of my shell.... I was never made for

this life—if they would only let me go by unnoticed.

She could not hope for that. They had her back in Boston, to ornament

the hundredth showing, and the celebration was greater than ever. Miss

Crabtree, once the adorable “Lotta,” was there. Lillian went into a

stage box to see her. The little old lady, darling of a former

generation, kissed her affectionately, and taking her hands, sat

stroking them. Presently she said, softly: “Take care of your beauty,

dearest—it goes so soon—so very, very soon.”

In an interview, Lillian expressed a belief that colleges might give

moving-picture courses, thereby improving the standards of both acting

and morals in productions of the future. This was seized upon by the

Harvard Dramatic Club, and she was urged to speak at the Harvard Union.

She had spoken briefly at a number of churches, during her travels, and

presently we find her addressing an audience of several thousand, at the

Chelsea Methodist Episcopal Church, in 178th Street, New York. The

burden of her purpose, as to the pictures, she conveyed in these words:

“The industry needs the development that the people of the church and

the educators can give it. We players are doing our very best to get rid

of all objectionable elements, but we want outside help.

“The time is coming when educational pictures will fill library shelves,

exactly as books do now, and the universities should anticipate library

educational advance. This is a great reason why cinema courses should be

given in colleges.”

She did not write her speeches. She carried in her head a few main

points, and spoke extemporaneously. Her clear, trained voice, reached

every part of the great edifice—a treat for those who heard her. One of

them, a woman, wrote:

If I were a poet, I suppose I might make a lovely poem about you;

or I might, were I a painter, try to put on my canvas something so

glorious that it would speak to everyone of what an inspiration

and delight you are; but I am nobody at all—nobody except your

sincere admirer.

And it was another woman who wrote of “Orphans of the Storm”:

I cannot get over your acting: I never feel the reality of a

character so keenly as when you portray it. And there is no

raving. Why, I have watched you play emotional scenes in which you

scarcely moved a finger, and still, as someone said: “Your silence

is as golden as the voice of Bernhardt.”

Which brings us back to the picture itself.

It was a beautiful and successful production. Some of the sets were

especially fine: The garden picture, for instance, with its setting of

palace and fountain and richly costumed guests, its magnificent outer

gates.

The court scene, the sinister tribunal of the Revolution, was terribly

realistic; the ghastly guillotine climax was quite as horrible as it was

intended to be, with only the usual fault of such picture episodes, that

the suspense was too prolonged—prolonged to a point where the horror

evaporated.

The finest scene in the picture is where Dorothy, as the blind Louise,

is singing in the street, while Lillian, in a room above, absorbed in

the narration of Louise’s mother, hears and gradually recognizes her

sister’s voice, and then is unable to reach her. The awakening

recognition, gradual, tender, startled, in Lillian’s face, compares with

the best of her screen work.

* * * * *

The old stage-coach in which Lillian and Dorothy drove to Paris ...

whatever became of it? It was too good to go the way of old properties.

“Orphans of the Storm” was worthy of Griffith and of Lillian. It seems

fitting that their long association should finally end in this

distinguished and happy way.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

PART THREE

I

ITALY

Life, always a serious matter to Lillian, became more so. Mrs. Gish

underwent a major operation—was in grave danger. Lillian, at work on the

set in Mamaroneck, was likely at any moment to be summoned to the

Presbyterian Hospital in New York. When the patient was able to be

moved, they brought her by ambulance to a house they had taken in New

Rochelle. Later to an apartment on Park Avenue—three moves within a

year, seeking comfort for the sufferer.

Spring was saddened by the death of Victor Maurel, who had done so much

for her voice. His funeral services were held in New York. Lillian

attended with his widow, Madame de Grésac, and there met Madame Calvé,

who had been his pupil. In the carriage on the way to the grave, Madame

Calvé told the others how she had been in Boston, knowing nothing of his

danger. Suddenly she had felt that something was wrong with him. The

feeling was so strong that she had taken the train for New York. He was

dead when she arrived.

A few weeks after the funeral, Calvé asked Madame de Grésac and Lillian

to come to her apartment, a beautiful place in the Hôtel des Artistes,

on Central Park. She sang for them. Her voice was so enormous that it

seemed as if it might burst the walls. She said that Victor Maurel’s

training had made it what it was. She danced for them—the peasant

dances—until the people downstairs sent up word that their chandeliers

were about to come down. She was so eager to divert the little widow.

Too eager for her own good: she danced so hard, that night, and so long,

that next day she could not start on her tour.

Lillian was unsettled as to what she should do. Again, Griffith agreed

with her that she should be making more money, and perhaps it did not

seem to either of them that any picture they could do together would

make enough for both. He was an extravagant producer, and her financial

obligations had become very heavy. In March she wrote:

“My next picture, if all goes well, will be made by myself, so if it

makes money I may get some of it.”

She had been negotiating with the Tiffany Company, considering an offer

of $3,500.00 a week, to make four or five pictures a year, when her

representative, Frederick Newman, was approached by the president of a

new producing company, a meeting which marked the beginning of an

episode wholly different from anything she had known.

Her old fellow-player, “Dick” Barthelmess, was already with the new

company, and had produced “Tol’able David,” directed by Henry King, a

success of which all his friends were proud. Lillian had not been much

impressed by the Tiffany offer, mainly for the reason that they seemed

to be doing circus pictures, and she did not fancy the idea of being

cast for something with a slack-wire, or a trapeze, in it. She agreed

with Newman to meet the chief official of the new company, and a few

days later, lunching at the Ritz, the three discussed picture

possibilities and terms. The new producer was a convincing talker.

Lillian was favorably impressed, especially as he agreed to take

Dorothy, who would play with Barthelmess in two pictures, with Lillian

in two pictures, after which she would be given a contract of her own.

Lillian’s contract, which she signed that summer (1922), gave her

$1,250.00 a week, and an added 15% after a certain amount had been

earned. She thought this a highly satisfactory arrangement, as it made

her returns depend largely upon the quality and success of the pictures.

Recently, she said:

“All that summer I was looking for material for my first picture. We had

two women read all the heap of things submitted. Whenever they found

something they thought Dick or I might use, we read it. I nearly read my

eyes out. One of the women, Lily Hayward, one day brought me Marion

Crawford’s ‘White Sister.’ It struck me immediately as good picture

material.

“Ever since my winter at the Ursuline School in St. Louis, I had thought

of the nuns as earnest women, hard-working and kindly. My memory of them

was an affectionate one—romantic. There had been a time when I fancied I

might have a vocation for the veil. The cloister has appealed to so many

who later became actresses. I have regretted, sometimes, that I did not

follow that early inclination.

“There was another special reason why the book appealed to me as picture

material: I saw a chance to get in a scene showing the ceremony of

taking the veil—a scene not really in the book at all.”

She met with plenty of opposition. Everybody, it seemed, objected to the

story, on the ground that it was a religious picture, “the one thing

motion pictures would be wise to let alone”—everybody but Griffith, in

whose studio she made some tests. Griffith thought it a beautiful story.

Her producer also believed in it, because, as he said, he had faith in

her judgment. Henry King, who had directed Barthelmess, was not

enthusiastic, at first, but warmed to the prospect of a trip to Italy.

By October they were ready to go—all the players engaged except the

leading man. James Abbe, a photographer, gave up a good business in New

York to become their “still” man, and to assist in other ways. Abbe was

valuable. One morning, quite excitedly, he called up Lillian, saying he

believed he had found a man for the lead. His name, he said, was Ronald

Colman, playing with Henry Miller and Ruth Chatterton, in “La

Tendresse.”

They arranged to have a test made in Abbe’s studio, that same afternoon.

Lillian went down; King directed the test. All privately agreed that

Colman was what they wanted; next morning, when they saw the tests, they

were sure of it. Colman declared himself willing to go, and everybody

voted “Yes—if we can get him.” Henry Miller, when he learned the

situation, generously agreed to release him from his part, which, though

not the lead, was important. This was not only to oblige them, but to

give Colman the opportunity he wanted. It was on Thursday morning that

they saw the tests. On Saturday of the same week they sailed—twenty-four

of them—on a Fabre Line steamer, bound for Naples.

“It was raining when we left Brooklyn,” Lillian remembers, “and very

dismal and disheartening, especially as I was leaving Mother and Dorothy

behind—Mother being still in the Catskills. Dorothy and Mary Pickford

came with me to the ship—a great comfort.”

It was hardly a lazy voyage. Colman knew nothing about playing before

the camera. Director King rehearsed him in his parts with Lillian, and

with the whole company, as soon as they got their sea-legs. The

Providence has a little after-deck, which the captain ordered enclosed

in canvas for their use. It was a very busy place during several hours

of every day. The Providence was a good ship, and the Southern route is

nearly always delightful. It was never too cold to rehearse, and

afterwards, one could sit drowsily in a deck chair and pretend to read,

or lean over the side, looking at the bluest of blue water, or watching

bits of skimming silver that were flying fish, and the big, black,

graceful bodies that were porpoises. One never ought to cross by that

friendless Northern route.

On the ship with them, by great good luck, was Monseigneur Bonzano, high

prelate of the Church, then on his way to Rome to be made a Cardinal.

Lillian quickly became acquainted with him. They put in much of their

spare time discussing the picture she was to make—ways and means for its

accomplishment. It was easy to realize that the churchman was won to the

idea when he mentally associated the face before him with the part of

the White Sister. And Lillian, regarding Bonzano, was infinitely

impressed. His personality, his attainments, his human understanding,

went far beyond anything she had ever known.

“I think he had the most beautiful face I have ever seen. He had

traveled in many countries, and lived a long time in China. He spoke

Chinese and any number of other languages and dialects. He had an

understanding of all races. It was destiny that he should have been on

that boat. Without him, we could hardly have made our picture. We were

between the Church and the Fascisti. Through him, later, the doors of

all Catholic Institutions were opened to us. When we stopped at Palermo,

he took us through the great church where the mosaics are. He had us

shown the treasure, and the jeweled robes. It was early November in

Palermo, and very lovely. We landed at Naples.”

Italy! All the way to Rome, Lillian looked out the window. She was

tired, but no matter. It was evening, there was a mist on the field—the

vines trailing from tree to tree, Italian fashion, were like wonderful

great spiderwebs. She would never forget that vision. It was eleven when

they reached Rome.

Rooms had been engaged at two hotels, the Excelsior and the Majestic.

Lillian and her companion, Mrs. Marie Kratsch, of Massillon, were at the

former. Very tired, they went promptly to bed. Then it seemed that

almost immediately they were awakened by an astonishing sound—the bells

of Rome! Never in her life had she heard anything like that. Why, they

were right in the room!

* * * * *

In Rome they found a small studio—sunlight, and four little Klieg

lights, when they needed at least fifty, possibly a hundred. They

ordered them from Germany, but did not sit down to wait for them.

Lillian rehearsed the company while Director King looked for locations.

Now and again she visited convents, forty or more, to decide what Order

to use. She finally chose the Order of Lourdes.

“We also began building our sets.” [Lillian remembering.] “We used the

Villa d’Esti, as the convent, and built all the interiors, the chapel,

etc. We built the most beautiful interiors I had ever seen. Our library

walls were of solid carved wood, so beautiful that we wanted to put

walls around them, and live in them. I think no other moving picture

sets were ever as beautiful as those we built in Rome and Florence. This

had to be so, because they were to match up with a real hall or

corridor. Construction was far cheaper than in America, but that was not

all—oh, by no means! We got there a feeling that it is impossible to get

here: the workmen had a love for what they were doing and expressed it

in the carving, or whatever the work was.”

So many of the critics had likened her acting to that of Duse. Yet she

had never seen Duse ... hardly expected to, now. She was to have her

chance, however. Soon after her arrival in Rome, Duse was given an

engagement at the Constanta Theatre.

“I gave a party for the occasion—Mr. King and his wife, Mrs. Kratsch and

myself. The play was ‘Ghosts.’ You may remember Gordon Craig once

designed scenery for it, especially for her. Isadora Duncan tells of it

in her ‘Life.’ It saddened me to find the house not more than half

filled. I was told that this was not unusual in Italy, where the young,

fresh actress is always the favorite over one who has seen her best

days. She fascinated me. I could not get enough of her. And then, at the

end, a single white wreath, the flowers beginning to droop, was handed

over the footlights. It was like a funeral offering.

“Every night while she was there, I saw her, and through a mutual friend

we exchanged affectionate messages. I was to have called on her; but

then I heard that she was ill, and I said they must not let me come. A

year later, during her last visit to America—when she died in

Pittsburgh—I saw her, in New York. It was in ‘The Lady from the Sea,’

and they gave her an opening night at the Metropolitan Opera House. It

was a great triumph. It made up, I thought, for her neglect at home. I

have never seen any theatre so packed as that was. Every seat, every

standing-space ... Morris Gest had floored over the orchestra pit and

placed chairs there.

“I was very busy, and did not know that I could attend. When I found I

could get away, I telephoned to Mr. Gest and asked him if he could

possibly get me in, anywhere—in the wings—anywhere. He said that he

would take care of me, and when I got there I found that he had placed a

chair in front, on the floor he had built over the orchestra, so I got

to see her at that close range.

“Long after, in Pittsburgh, where I was playing in ‘Vanya,’ a newspaper

woman, Mrs. Parry, told me that if anyone ever died of humiliation, Duse

did ... her life had known so many heartbreaks. I have a very precious

souvenir. When Duse died, the King of Italy sent a wreath of white

roses, to be laid on her casket. John Regan, a ship-news reporter, one

of my good friends, obtained a bud from it, put it into a small Italian

box, of carved wood, with a little Botticelli reproduction, ‘The Three

Graces,’ on the cover, and sent it to me. It is one of my priceless

possessions. It always stays on a little table at the head of my bed.”

Lillian’s early weeks in Rome remain among her happiest memories. The

little girl who once had been dragged through a sordid succession of

one-night stands, with such interest as smoky towns and sodden fields

could provide, was having her innings at last. They visited the Pincio,

drove out the Appian way, and saw the Coliseum by moonlight. What a

night it was! There was music all about—at one place, someone was

playing a violin. Farther along, someone was singing.

And the churches—she tried to visit them all! There are said to be three

hundred and sixty-five churches in Rome, and if one makes a wish on

one’s first visit it is almost sure to be granted. She made wishes all

over Rome, and left candles burning for her mother’s health.

* * * * *

It was not very long after their arrival that the grand ceremony, where

Monseigneur Bonzano and others were made Cardinals, took place at the

Vatican. All the players were asked to attend, and were much excited.

They had to rise at five-thirty, to be there on time. The hour set for

the ceremony was six-thirty—ladies to be in black, high-necked dresses,

black veils over the head (not face), men in full evening dress, long

coats, white ties.

The guards were costumed in the dress designed by Raphael, the

ambassadors all in the most gorgeous array. Lillian thought them very

handsome, chosen, no doubt, for their physical appearance. Two

actors—Mr. Charles Lane, who played the part of Lillian’s father, and

Mr. Barney Sherry—Monseigneur in the picture—were so distinguished

looking, so imposing, with their white hair and fine faces and stately

figures, that they were mistaken for ambassadors and ushered into the

room where the ceremony took place. The Pope came in a golden chair,

carried by twenty-four men, accompanied by the Sistine Choir, the

gorgeous ambassadors, and the scarlet and ermine clad cardinals.

On Christmas Eve, she went with Mrs. Kratsch to Midnight Mass. That was

beautiful, too, and very strange. So many things in the church. Some of

the people had brought their dogs, or cats, even a goat. Two young

people were making love. Leaving the glory of the great altar for the

street, was to go to the other extreme. A little way along, was a

stable. Looking in, they saw a mother leaning against a donkey, nursing

her baby. It might have been the Manger at Bethlehem.

* * * * *

The lights came from Germany, but there was still trouble. All Rome

could not supply enough “juice” to run them. Mamaroneck over again.

Eventually an engine was brought from Civita Vecchia. They had expected

to finish the “White Sister” in three months, at the longest. It would

take double that time, or more.

II

“THE WHITE SISTER”

The story of “The White Sister” is not an unusual one. A beautiful young

girl, defrauded of her fortune, pledges her love to a young army

officer, who almost immediately goes to Africa, whence presently comes

the news that he has been massacred with a detachment of his men.

Broken-hearted, but clinging to hope, the bereaved girl becomes a lay

sister in a Catholic institution—a hospital—and after long years of

waiting, takes the vows of the Order, becomes a nun. Of course, at once,

the soldier, who all these years has been a caged prisoner, returns,

sees her, demands that the Church give her up, even kidnaps her,

temporarily in the belief that she will require her freedom at the hands

of the Pope. In the book, he gets her as a reward for unexampled bravery

in a catastrophe. In the picture, he is even braver, but has to rely on

Heaven for his reward, for Angela (Lillian) remains true to her vows,

and in any case, Giovanni (Colman) does not survive the catastrophe.

The tragic ending was thought better for the picture, with something

more spectacular than a mere explosion of a powder magazine for the

catastrophe. Henry King was for a flood; Robert Haas, art director, for

a volcanic eruption. In the end, they had both, also an earthquake—to

start the flood. Of course, that meant changing the scene of the story.

It was too costly, even for a motion picture magnate, to bring Vesuvius

to Rome, so they moved Rome to Vesuvius—that is to say, they moved

Angela’s convent to a town on the slopes above Naples, where the volcano

would be handy. A laboratory, an important feature in the picture, they

likewise built on the Vesuvian slope, but as Vesuvius could not be

counted on to erupt on schedule, Haas built a miniature and dependable

volcano in the studio.

“We worked very late,” Lillian remembers, “and I can still see Bob Haas,

those nights when we were all tired out, sticking his head from the

crater of his pet property, with some inane remark that would set us all

off in a gale of wild laughter.

“During our stay in Naples, I was given a room in the Excelsior Hotel,

with a window that looked out directly on Vesuvius. At that time of

year, the sun seemed to rise from the crater. It was a room that Duse

had once occupied.

“In Rome, our studio was on the outskirts. From my dressing-room, I

could see the dome of St. Peter’s in the distance. We ate our luncheon

in a little detached house, where the caretaker and his wife lived. The

room was small, and all gathered round one table ... simple food,

spaghetti, sardines, cheese, and always red wine with water. And then

the Italian bread! A sandwich of Italian bread and sardines, with red

Italian wine—nothing is better than that! We named our projection-room

‘The Catacombs,’ for it was a kind of cave, and had the same atmosphere.

Our studio being small, we occupied every corner of it.”

Soon after the first of the year, they began “shooting” the picture.

They had trouble at the start, getting extras, and workmen. Italians

will not drop what they are doing and come to a stranger, even at double

price. Finally, when they decided that the picture-makers were

reliable—and sane—they came in droves, and remained.

One day, Count and Countess Carlo Frasso (she had been American) came

out to see the work. It was where Giovanni is going to war: the lovers

embrace, and Angela weeps. The Count and Countess expressed surprise

that “Angela” shed real tears. They did not know that tears could be

turned on in that way. She was invited to their palazzo, to dine. A duke

of the royal house was there, a large, handsome man, to whom the ladies

made beautiful curtsies, after the custom of the Court. The room was

enormous, with many ambassadors in their splendid uniforms. Lillian was

much impressed by the height and grace and physical beauty of the upper

class Italians.

Through Cardinal Bonzano they secured the assistance of the Church.

Priests even came to the studio, to supervise the scenes, to see that no

mistakes were made in the appointments and ceremonies. The company was

given an audience with the Pope, and Lillian saw him several times

afterwards. All the things she wore in her part he blessed.

Lillian loved Rome, and tried to enter into the spirit of the people and

the Church, for the sake of her part. She studied Italian, and little by

little, learned to speak and understand, pretty well. She wanted to

think and feel as Angela would think and feel ... to know Rome as Angela

would have known it—its ancient monuments, its social aspects, its

religious ceremonies, its feast days. Rome at Easter Time ... the Sancta

Scala, where one ascends all the steps on one’s knees; Saint Paul’s on

Good Friday, for the Gregorian Chants; Saint Peter’s on Easter Morning,

where all the world goes by ... the spirit of the Church, of Rome, of

Italy, were in these—and in the market places, the streets, the beggars

... everywhere.

Henry King got up his flood at Tivoli, near Rome. There is a fall there,

and in some way the engineers held the water until the moment when the

volcano and the earthquake were supposed to cause a dam to break and

flood the little city that was on the slopes of Vesuvius.

The “eruption,” we made at the little town of Rocca di Papa, above Rome.

They took up great airplane propellers to make the wind. Before an

eruption, there comes a great hush—then wind with lightning, then the

earthquake. The people of the village were engaged to be the

panic-stricken crowd. They had no need of stage direction. When the big

propellers started, they were frightened enough without being told. The

wind those propellers made was terrific. The place became a bedlam of

swirling dust and frantic people. Dust flew that had not been moved for

five hundred years. A real eruption could hardly have frightened them

worse.

“That day, and the next, were killing days for me.” Lillian remembered.

“From eight-thirty in the morning, in the sun and dust, making scenes

and bits that were a part of the great eruption; then back to the

studio, and after a bath, make-up and costume, the great scene where

Angela takes the veil. I should have been in perfect condition for that

scene, and I was in about the worst possible. We kept at it steadily

through the night, until nine-thirty next morning, twenty-five hours at

a stretch, without sleep. Then I was allowed two hours and a half of

rest. I slept some of it, but right away jumped into work again, and

kept at it until eleven that night, when I was put into an automobile

with Mrs. Kratsch and motored to Florence, stopping for a brief rest at

Orvieto.

“At Florence I saw the studio, costumes, sets, etc., that had been

partly arranged for, to be used in ‘Romola,’ which we were going to do

the following winter. Nobody works harder than motion picture players—in

the heat and glare of blazing lights, in all kinds of weather—twelve,

fifteen, twenty-four hours on end.

“From Florence to Paris, and to Cherbourg. On the ship, I got into a

cabinet bath, and then went to bed. I did not know when we sailed, and I

slept the clock twice around without a break. I started with a terrible

cold, but the bath and the rest cured it.

“We had begun ‘The White Sister’ in November, and it was now June. In

New York King and I worked at the cutting, all through the summer, until

the last of August, getting twelve reels ready for the big theatres. At

the same time we were putting ‘Romola’ into shape to picture. King

presently went back to Italy to begin work on it, while I remained to

cut ‘The White Sister’ down to nine reels, for the road, a difficult and

anxious job.”

* * * * *

“The White Sister” made its first appearance, “World’s Premiere,” at the

44th Street Theatre, New York City, Wednesday evening, September 5,

1923. There was a special souvenir program, tied with a blue cord, with

Lillian’s picture on the outside and a message from Doug and Mary

within.

The crowd poured in. Behind the curtain, on a soap box, Lillian and

Dorothy anxiously waited the public verdict. Lillian wore a new ivory

velvet dress, ordered for the occasion. She had been going to wear one

of her old gowns, but Dorothy and the others had shamed her into buying

a new one. She was certain to be called on, they said, and what a

disgrace to appear at less than one’s best. So the new gown had been

made on short notice, and now draped itself around the soap box, while

the reels that told the story of Angela and Giovanni unwound, to lovely

music, and their figures flickered silently across the screen. Two

sisters, that twenty years before, night after night, had waited much in

the same way to “go on” in their childish parts. Did they remember that?

Probably not—they were too anxious, too expectant, and when presently

the applause came roaring through to them, they hugged each other, for

it seemed to mean success.

It was a long waiting, nearly two hours, but it was over at last, and

there came a great final uproar, Lillian was summoned, and in the glory

of her ivory velvet, appeared before the curtain, and when the deafening

burst of greeting had subsided, made a brief speech, and the great first

night was at an end.

She had arranged a small supper at her apartment in the Hotel

Vanderbilt, just the family. A telegram from Mrs. Gish, by this time in

California, had come:

“Mother wishes you all success possible in your new picture. I know that

you will be sweet and dear in it.”

Her health was much better. She would go with them to Florence, for

“Romola.” Probably the two years or more of Lillian’s Italian picture

episode would not show another night as happy as that one.

“The White Sister” proved an undeniable success. Lillian’s ethereal

presentation of her part would insure that, and even when some random

critic raised his voice in timid protest as to the artistic structure of

the edifice, his accents were drowned in the chorus of applause: The

picture was unique. It had been made with the sanction and aid of the

Church. The Vatican had fixed upon it its seal of approval. That settled

that.

* * * * *

Now that seven years and a day have gone by, one seeing “The White

Sister” again, as the writer of these chapters has seen it, rather

recently—may, perhaps, speak of it with a steadier pulse. There could be

no question as to Lillian’s part in it. At more than one moment in the

sequence she rose to great heights, and at no time was her performance

less than distinguished. At one instant—it is where she is prostrated by

the shock of Giovanni’s reported death—the spasmodic twitching of her

cheek—the result of long rehearsal—was hardly less than miraculous.

As a whole, however, she had done better work than in “The White

Sister.” In “Broken Blossoms,” for instance—and she has done

immeasurably better work since: in “La Bohême,” in “The Scarlet Letter,”

in “Wind,” in her part of Helena in Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,” her stage

play of 1930. Also, a good deal of her personality was lost in “The

White Sister”—had become mere costume. Of all people, Lillian is the

last to be standardized by uniform.

The picture itself was hardly a structural triumph. Briefly, its

beginning and its middle seem not very logical, its ending hopelessly

disproportionate. A volcanic eruption, an earthquake and a flood, for no

better reason, when all is said, than to kill a poor soldier who had

already spent five years shut up in a rabbit-hutch. Nothing he had done

warranted his being drowned like a rat in a flooded ditch. If all of us

who have been tempted to kidnap the woman we loved, in, or out of the

Church, deserve drowning, then it’s high time to invite a return

engagement of Noah’s flood. If Ronnie Colman—Giovanni, I mean—had,

perforce, to renounce his heart’s desire, surely a simpler and less

unbeautiful way than that might have been invented. A volcano, an

earthquake and a flood—such a rumpus, only to bring death and redemption

to one unhappy soldier! To have let him ride or sail out of the picture,

going back to Africa, would have been infinitely less expensive, and

even more heartbreaking, assuming that this was what the picture

intended to be. At any rate, it caused the shedding of many tears. In

Germany, it was immensely popular—in no other land are tears such a

luxury.

It had been Lillian’s wish to dedicate the picture to the Sisters of the

Ursuline Academy in St. Louis, her old school, and she hoped to go back

there and run it for them, but was never able to carry out this purpose.

* * * * *

From the Director of Entertainments at Sing Sing Prison, Lillian

received an invitation to appear before the prisoners, on the occasion

of a showing—not of the new picture, but of “Broken Blossoms,” which, it

appears, had strangely enough become their favorite picture—for five

years had been voted as such.

[Illustration:“THE WHITE SISTER”]

She hesitated. She thought it could only be a sad occasion, but she

could not refuse. A day was arranged, and she made the beautiful drive

through the free air and sunshine, to a community where the outer scene

was limited to prison walls. She was met by the Warden and one other

official. Then they left her, and the prisoners were assembled. She

found herself alone with them. At first, it was strange, uncanny, then

delightful. All were so courteous and interested. After the picture was

shown, she talked to them. She told them how the play was made. They

regarded her with deep attention, hanging eagerly on every word. When

she had finished, they gathered about her. One among them had been a

friend of Thomas Burke, who wrote the story. By the time she was ready

to go, she had forgotten they were prisoners, and at the door asked her

escort:

“Aren’t you coming with me?”

He smiled a faint, sad smile.

“Only so far, Miss Gish, and no farther.”

Speaking of it, she said:

“I believe criminals are only mentally and morally ill. The State

employs judges to send them to prison. Why not employ doctors, to

diagnose and treat them?”

III

“ROMOLA”

Reports from “The White Sister” showed that it was going to make record

runs—that returns from it would be very large. Catholics and Protestants

alike approved it. Father Duffy, of the Fighting Irish 69th Regiment, of

New York, wrote:

I wish to nominate “The White Sister” for a high place on the

White List of dramatic performances.... It is religion struggling

with human passions, as in real life, and gaining its victory

after storm and stress.

Chicago society deserted the opera on the opening night of “The White

Sister,” and similar reports came from elsewhere. Lillian’s personal

tribute—her “fan” mail—assumed mountainous proportions: offers of

engagements, protection, marriage, requests for loans ... what not?

Meantime, one must get on with the next picture. King was already in

Italy, making a pirate ship scene. Lillian finished cutting down “The

White Sister,” for road use, an arduous, delicate work, and with Mrs.

Kratsch, sailed in November. Dorothy was to be in “Romola,” and with her

mother had sailed a little earlier.

To Genoa, then Florence, where they put up at the Grand Hotel on the

Arno, with an outlook on the Ponte Vecchio, all that the heart could

desire, if the weather had only been a little more encouraging.

It began to rain, and it continued to rain—“about nineteen days out of

twenty,” Dorothy said. Dorothy thought the rain not very wet rain—not at

all like English and American rain—not so solid—light, like ether. But

one evening, the rain stopped, and when they woke in the night, there

was a strange silence. In the morning, there was another sound—also

strange—strangely familiar. Dorothy looked over at Lillian.

“If we were in America, I should say they were shoveling snow.”

They hopped out of bed, and to the window. It _was_ shoveling, and it

_was snow_. “Very unusual,” they were assured later. But then, winters

in Southern Europe quite often are unusual. Even sunshiny ones.

* * * * *

The picture of “Romola” follows the main incidents of George Eliot’s

novel. Lillian, of course, had the part of Romola, Dorothy that of

Tessa, Ronald Colman that of Carlo Bucelline. To William H. Powell was

assigned the part of Tito; Herbert Grimwood was given the part of

Savonarola, and looked so much like him that when he walked along the

streets of Florence, children would point him out. Altogether, the cast

was a fine one.

They had expected to use a number of real scenes in Florence—the Duomo,

the Piazza Signoria, etc., but found that modern innovations—telegraph

wires and poles, street car tracks, and the like—made this

impracticable. On their big lot in the outskirts of the city, they built

an ancient Florence, a very beautiful Florence, of the days of

Savonarola. They did use the Ponte Vecchio, the ancient bridge, though a

second story had been added a generation later than the period of their

picture. And they used the Arno in several scenes.

Rain or no rain, their lot became a busy place. They brought the “White

Sister” equipment from Rome, and a small army of artisans and laborers

began to work wonders. In a brief time, a quaint old street sprang

up—along it shops of every sort, just as they might have been four

hundred years before ... real shops, in which were made every variety of

paraphernalia required for the picture: costumes, harness, basketry,

hats, footwear, furniture—everything needed to restore the semblance of

a dead generation. They even set up a little restaurant, and ate their

luncheons there. Animals—dogs and cats—walked about, or slept in the

sun. Flocks of pigeons were in the air, or on the house-tops. During the

brief visit of the year before, they had asked that these be raised on

the lot. It was all realistic, and lovely. Wood-carvers were at work on

the rich interiors, some of them more beautiful, even, than those of

“The White Sister”: a great church interior, and a banquet hall, for

Romola’s wedding. At one side of the lot were small buildings, where the

distinguished artist, Robert Haas, with his staff, worked at the

drawings. For the great wedding feast, they could not get period glasses

in Florence, so sent a man to Venice, and had them specially blown.

Lillian remembers the banquet hall as very rich, exquisite in detail—the

scene as a whole, one of peculiar distinction.

“We had for it a lot of titled people of Florence, who were eager to be

in the picture. We had very little trouble to get anything we needed in

the way of extras. In some of the scenes, we had hundreds of them.

“One thing we did not get so easily: For the wedding, we needed 15th

Century priest robes. We heard of some up in the hills, but we could get

them only on condition that we engage four detectives to guard them, two

by day, two by night.

“We had to guard ourselves, for that matter. Florence has many

Americans, and they have not much to do. If we had let in all who

called, we should have had a perpetual sequence of social events, with

very little work. We had many invitations, but could not accept them. I

think we went out just once, for dinner. When we had a little time in

the afternoon, we liked to go to Doni’s, for tea, or to shop a little,

for linens and laces. Whatever of such things we have now, Mother bought

that winter in Florence.

“Every night we literally prayed that the next day would dawn clear and

bright, so that we might make up our lost time. But no! Maybe, as

Dorothy said, the Italian ‘dispenser of weather,’ didn’t understand

English.

“One cannot too highly praise the Italian workmen. Over and over, ours

would work on a set that it might be the exact replica of a 15th Century

design. Italian workmen are willing to be told, and possess an

astonishing ambition to do a thing exactly as it should be done.”

They began “shooting” the scenes. They had no regular scenario. They

worked, as it were, inspirationally. They did not know very exactly what

they were going to do when they began a scene, and they were not quite

sure what they had done when they finished it. The element of accident

sometimes produces happy results, but it is unsafe to count on it.

“Romola” developed into a kind of panorama—a succession of lovely

pictures, without very definite climaxes.

They worked hard. For one thing, they were experimenting with a new

film, the panchromatic, which had never been used for an entire picture,

and they did their own developing. One of the chief beauties of “Romola”

is the richness of its photography.

What with the weather and all, the making of “Romola” was hardly what

the French call “gai.”

There were lighter moments: In the scene where Dorothy is supposed to

drown in the Arno, she tried for an hour to sink in that greasy, unclean

river. She couldn’t swim, so it had to be done in shallow water. She

didn’t like to pop her head under, either, but they told her if she

would fill her lungs with air and hold her breath, there would be no

danger. She was plump, and her bones were small. Being filled with air

made her still more buoyant. Also, she had on a little silk skirt that

got air under it and ballooned on top of the water. Dorothy simply

couldn’t drown. When she popped her head under, the little skirt stuck

up in a point like the tail of a diving duck. Such an effect would never

do for a picture like “Romola.” From their window in the Grand Hotel,

Mrs. Gish and Lillian, watching through a glass, laughed hysterically at

Dorothy’s efforts to drown. Dorothy finally struck: she could stand no

more of the Arno water. The scene was finished one chilly day in

America—in Long Island Sound. Dorothy had a cold at the time, and they

thought she would contract pneumonia. But that was a poor guess. When

she came out of the water, the cold was gone. Clean, salt water, Dorothy

said.

In the picture, Dorothy, as Tessa, has a baby. They borrowed the cook’s

baby, the youngest of nine, a fat, robust bambino, strapped to a board,

Italian fashion; easy enough to carry, properly held, but not handy for

cuddling. Juliana was her name, and as lovely as one of Raphael’s

cherubs—lovely, even among Italian children, all of whom have little

madonna faces, because for generations expectant mothers have knelt

ardently before altars and wayside shrines. Lillian and Dorothy became

fond of Juliana, took walks with her, carrying her, board and all—a

burden which increased daily as Juliana got fatter and fatter. They

wished Juliana would not grow quite so fast; there were scenes where

they had to run with her. Italian babies are seldom warm, in winter. One

day, Juliana broke out with a rash, which at first they thought was

measles, but was only the result of the studio heat, heat from the great

Klieg lights.

Lillian had a maid named Anna, a large, lovely soul, but a menace. If

one got an ache or a pain, Anna came running with an enormous Italian

pill, the size of those on the Medici coat-of-arms. After a day at the

studio, in the strained “Romola” poses, Lillian once mentioned having a

back-ache. Anna commanded her to undress and lie down. A very little

later she came bringing a bath towel, and a flat-iron, the latter quite

definitely warm. Then, turning the world’s darling face down, she spread

the towel on her back and proceeded to iron her. It was drastic, but

beneficial. The ironings became a part of the daily program. Anna

decided that her mistress needed blood, and cooked for her apples in red

wine. They were delicious.

“Romola” was finished near the end of May. The last scene was the

burning of Savonarola, terribly realistic. Lillian got so near the fire

that she was scorched. A few days later they saw the rushes and she was

ready to go. The great Italian episode was over. It was unique, and

remains so. Big companies do not go on foreign locations any more. They

build Italy or any part of the universe on their lots in Hollywood.

Lillian in America found that she had been chosen by Sir James Barrie

for the picture version of “Peter Pan.” No one could have been better

suited to the part, and it greatly appealed to her. But there were

complications. Regretfully she put it aside.

Pleasant things happened: Dimitri Dirujinski and Boris Lorski modeled

busts of her; Nicolai Fechin did her portrait, as Romola. The last was

given a special exhibition in the Grand Central Art Galleries, with a

reception to Lillian and the artist under the patronage of Cecelia Beaux

and New York’s social leaders. It was bought by the Chicago Art

Institute and today hangs in the Goodman Theatre of that city.

* * * * *

“Romola,” released through the Metro-Goldwyn Company, had two great

premières: at the George M. Cohan Theatre, New York, on Monday, December

1st, 1924, and at the Sid Grauman Theatre, Hollywood, on the following

Saturday. Lillian and Dorothy, with their mother, managed to attend

both. The Los Angeles opening was so much more a part of the “picture”

world that we shall skip to it, forthwith.

It was unique. Manager Grauman had stirred up all Los Angeles and

Hollywood over the return of the Gish girls with a new picture.

They had anticipated no reception at the train. King was already in Los

Angeles; he might be there ... a few friends, maybe, not more. But when

the train drew in, they noticed a great assembly of expectant people,

most of them wearing badges—a rally of some sort, a convention. Lillian

and Dorothy stepped to the train platform, and were greeted with a

shower of rose-buds, thrown by gay little girls who had baskets of them;

a vigorous and competent band struck up; a siren began to blow;

everybody shouted and pushed forward; all those badges had on them the

word GISH; all the battery of cameras that began to grind was turned on

them; the rally was their rally—a welcome—welcome home to Los Angeles.

Producers and directors were there. Irving Thalberg, handsome,

youthful-looking, pressed forward. Mrs. Gish, thinking him from the

hotel, handed him her checks, and a moment later was apologizing. But he

said it was all right—he was always being taken for his own office boy.

John Gilbert was there, and Norma Shearer, and Eleanor Boardman, and

ever so many more. A crowd of students from the Military Academy rallied

around; also, a swarm of “bathing beauties” from the Ambassador, and a

fire engine came clanging up, for the Fire and Police Departments had

been called out. A news notice says:

A squad of motorcycle policemen and fast cars of the Fire

Department, made an escort for the automobile provided for Lillian

Gish, Dorothy and their mother, through the downtown district.

Sirens and bells added to the noise of welcome.

Not much like the old days, when with Uncle High Herrick, they had

landed with “Her First False Step” at a one-night stand.

They drove to the Ambassador Hotel. Mary Pickford had not been at the

train, but they found her standing in the middle of their “flower

embowered drawing-room”—never more beautiful in all her life, Lillian

thought.

By and by, Mary, Lillian and Dorothy, motored out to the old Fine Arts

Studio, where “The Birth of a Nation” and so many of Griffith’s other

pictures, had been made. They found the old place hidden behind a brick

building. “Intolerance” had been made there, and “Broken Blossoms.”

Douglas Fairbanks and many others had begun, there, their film careers.

They recalled these things as they looked about a little sadly, at what

had once been their film home.

* * * * *

Manager Sid Grauman had gone to all the expense and trouble he could

think of to make this a record occasion. “Romola” was following Douglas

Fairbanks’ “Thief of Bagdad.” It must not fall short.

“_A première without a parallel. A night of all nights. The most gala

festivity Hollywood has ever known. An opening beside which other

far-famed Egyptian premières will pale into insignificance._” These are

a few bits of Manager Grauman’s rhetoric, and he added: “Every star,

director and producer, will be there to pay homage to Lillian and

Dorothy Gish.”

They were there. The broad entrance to the Egyptian was a blaze of light

and gala dress parade. The crowds massed on both sides to see the

greatest of filmland pass. Doug and Mary (who had already run “Romola”

in their home theatre), Charlie, Jackie ... never mind the list, they

were all there. High above, the name of LILLIAN GISH blazed out in tall

letters. When she arrived, and Dorothy, and their mother, their cars

were fairly mobbed. Cameras were going, everybody had to pause a moment

at the entrance for something special in that line. Manager Grauman was

photographed between the two stars of the evening, properly set off and

by no means obliterated, small man though he was, by the resplendent

gowns.

After which, came the performance. Manager Grauman had fairly laid

himself out on an introductory feature. There were ten numbers of it,

each more astonishing than the preceding: “Italian Tarantella,”

“Harlequin and Columbine,” “The Eighteen Dance Wonders,” but why go on?

It was a gorgeous show all in itself.

After which, the beautiful processional effects of Romola’s story.

[Illustration: “ROMOLA”]

There was no lack of enthusiasm in the audience. When the picture ended

and the lights went on, and Lillian and Dorothy appeared before the

curtain, the applause swelled to very great heights indeed. And when a

speech was demanded, Lillian, in her quiet, casual way, said:

“Dear ladies and gentlemen, both Dorothy and I do so hope you have liked

‘Romola.’ If you have, then, dear, kind friends, you have made us very

happy, very happy indeed ... and you have made Mr. King, who directed

‘Romola,’ very happy, too.”

From the applause that followed, it was clear that there was no question

as to the importance of the occasion—all the more so, had they known

that, for Hollywood, at least, it was the last public appearance of

these two together.

The critics did not know what to make of “Romola”—did not quite dare to

say what they thought they felt. To William Powell, as Tito, nearly all

gave praise; some regretted that Ronald Colman did not have a better

part. Dorothy, as Tessa, had given a good account of herself, they said,

and Charles Lane, as Baldassare. Of Lillian’s spirituality and acting

there was no question, but there were those who thought the part of

Romola unequal to her gifts.

As to the picture, one ventured to call it “top-heavy,” whatever he

meant by that. One had courage enough to think it “a bit dull.” Another

declared that it contained all the atmosphere and beauty of the Florence

of Lorenzo de Medici. “Romola” was, in fact, exquisite tapestry, and the

dramatic interest of tapestry is a mild one.

IV

ALSO, THE INTELLIGENTSIA

A brief lawsuit in which Lillian was involved at this time added greatly

to her prestige. In October (1924), for what she felt to be just cause,

she had broken off relations with her producers. Suit for breach of

contract followed. At the trial, held in a small, crowded room of the

Woolworth Building, the chief executive of the picture corporation

testified to a number of remarkable things, among them that Miss Gish

had engaged herself to marry him, all of which notably failed to

convince Judge Julian W. Mack, who, on the second or third morning of

the trial, rose and summarily dismissed the case against Lillian, and

after a few well-chosen words to her accuser, held him “to bail in the

sum of $10,000” (I quote the minutes) “to answer to the charge of

perjury.” He was indicted, but Lillian, with no wish, as she said, to

send anyone to prison, declined to appear against him, and the case was

dismissed.

Lillian’s following was now enormous ... of the whole world, for in no

obscure corner of it was her face unfamiliar, or unwelcomed.

There was something almost magical about this universal homage. Men and

women alike paid tribute. Reporters ransacked dictionaries for terms

that would convey her elusive loveliness—likened it (one of them) to

“the haunting sadness of an old Spanish song, heard as the light fades

from the evening sky.”

What heaps of letters! And if, as has been said, she was wanting in

sex-appeal, why all the marriage proposals? Why so much poetry? Just one

young man wrote eleven little volumes of poetry—pretty good poetry, if

there is such a thing, even if not entirely sane (what poetry is?)—and

it was printed by hand with the utmost care and beauty.

Also, she was being discovered by the “intelligentsia,” whatever that

word means. If, as appears, it has to do with intelligence, it would

seem to apply to the great masses who had hailed her as an artist and

raved over her, almost from the beginning. Never mind—she was now

definitely recognized as an Artist—taken up by the elect, who in the

long run, have something to say about Art, and affix the official stamp.

And having discovered her, they proceeded to burn incense and chant

orisons to her as their special saint and _déesse_, just as the others

had been doing for a good ten years and more.

* * * * *

As early as 1921, Edward Wagenknecht, a young don of the Chicago

University, met her, and straightway hailed her as the “artist’s

artist.” Further he declared: “Words, especially prose, seem horribly

wooden in discussing her.... Hers is a personality which can be

adequately described only in terms of music, or poetry, which is a form

of music. In her presence one wants instinctively to talk blank verse.”

There was a great deal more to it which I should like to quote, for it

was sincere, and trimly phrased. Mr. Wagenknecht has since written a

whole chapbook on the subject of Miss Gish, a distinguished

performance.[2] My impression is that he was the advance guard of her

later “discoverers.”

I don’t know when Joseph Hergesheimer first came under the Lillian

spell, but probably about the time he used her as his model for

“Cytherea,” which I regard as something less of a compliment than his

article in the _American Mercury_, April, 1924. In this article, he is

supposed to be talking to Lillian.

“No one,” I told her, “who has worked with you, has the

slightest idea of what your charm really is. Two men, and not

unsuccessfully, have written about it, about you ... James

Branch Cabell and myself. James thinks it is Helen of Troy; and

if he is right, then you, too, are Helen. I mean that you have

the quality which, in a Golden Age, would hold an army about the

walls of a city for seven years.”

Hergesheimer was proposing a picture, in which, as he assured her, she

would be “like the April moon, a thing for all young men to dream about

forever ... the fragrant April moon of men’s hopes ... ‘No one, seeing

you, will ever again be deeply interested in other girls.’ I recalled to

her the legend of Diana—how a countryman, hearing Diana’s horn through

the woods, lost in vague restlessness his familiar content. ‘You will be

the clear and unforgettable silver horn.’”

It was in the guise of Jurgen that James Branch Cabell celebrated

Lillian, wrote of her as Queen Helen, “the delight of gods and men, who

regarded him with grave, kind eyes” ... whom, long ago, Jurgen had

loved, in “the garden between dawn and sunrise.”

Then, trembling, Jurgen raised toward his lips the hand of her who

was the world’s darling.... “Oh, all my life was a foiled quest of

you, Queen Helen, and an unsatiated hungering. And for a while I

served my vision, honoring you with clean-handed deeds. Yes,

certainly it should be graved upon my tomb, ‘Queen Helen ruled

this earth while it stayed worthy.’ But that was very long ago.

“And so farewell to you, Queen Helen! Your beauty has been to me a

robber that stripped my life of joy and sorrow, and I desire not

ever to dream of your beauty any more.”

Cabell, builder of magic phrases! His words look like other words, but

they assemble with a strange ardency, and they march to the pipes of

Pan. I am taking Hergesheimer’s word for it that it was Lillian who

inspired Cabell’s Helen, though I might have guessed that, anyway.

And then it happened that George Jean Nathan, hard-bitten dramatic

critic, hater of movies, suddenly became Lillian-conscious and proceeded

to do something about it—something rather special—in _Vanity Fair_.

Wrote Nathan:

That she is one of the few real actresses that the films have

brought forth, either here or abroad, is pretty well agreed upon

by the majority of critics. But it seems to me that, though the

fact is taken for granted, the reasons for her eminence have in

but small and misty part been set into print.... The girl is

superior to her medium, pathetically so.... The particular genius

of Lillian Gish lies in making the definite charmingly indefinite.

Her technique consists in thinking out a characterization directly

and concretely and then executing it in terms of semi-vague

suggestion.... The smile of the Gish girl is a bit of happiness

trembling on a bed of death; the tears of the Gish girl ... are

the tears that old Johann Strauss wrote into the rosemary of his

waltzes. The whole secret of the young woman’s remarkably

effective acting rests, as I have observed, in her carefully

devised and skillfully negotiated technique of playing always, as

it were, behind a veil of silver chiffon.... She is always

present, she always dominates the scene, yet one feels somehow

that she is ever just out of sight around the corner. One never

feels that one is seeing her _entirely_. There is ever something

pleasantly, alluringly missing, as there is always in the case of

women who are truly “acting artists.”

There was a good deal more in this strain. Widely quoted, it made quite

a stir. Later—as much as a year, perhaps—Nathan being a bachelor (about

the only one the intelligentsia could muster), it was reported from time

to time that he was to be married to Miss Gish; then, that they were

already married, privately, reports that have been recurrent, or

intermittent, or something, ever since. But Nathan was a bachelor,

apparently without much intention of becoming anything else, while

Lillian was far too occupied for domesticity, the kind of domesticity

she saw about her. She was satisfied with her circle as it stood—a

circle which included individualities: rude-handed old Dreiser, for

instance, and Mencken, and Sinclair Lewis, and Clarence Darrow. No

Madame Récamier ever had a more loyal following, ever accepted it with

such gratitude. And never a thing they said or did wrought a change in

her, touched that vanity which is a mortal possession, but is hardly her

possession, because, as I suspect, she is not altogether mortal, but a

visitant—a dryad, likely enough, who has strayed in from the Old Time

and is only puzzled a little, and saddened, maybe, by what she finds

here.

-----

Footnote 2:

“Lillian Gish, An Interpretation”: Number Seven, University of

Washington Chapbooks. Edited by Glenn Hughes (1927).

V

“LA BOHÊME”

When in February (1925) the break with her producer had been rumored,

telegrams with offers of engagements began to come.

Lillian was not at the moment in a position to consider a new

arrangement. When the press announced the conclusion of her suit, all

the offers came again, with others. Mary Pickford, as member of the

United Artists, fervently believed that Lillian’s salvation lay with

their company. “There is no question but this is where you should be,”

she telegraphed. Offers came from both the Schencks, and from many

others. By advice of her lawyers, Lillian finally accepted that of the

Metro-Goldwyn Company, at a figure larger than she had hoped for. Her

contract covered a period of two years, during which she was to make, if

required, as many as six pictures, for the sum of $800,000. It further

specified that she would not be required to attend anything in the way

of publicity dinners, press teas, and the like. She could see

interviewers in reasonable numbers, at her convenience. One day a

flaming banner, stretching from the Metro offices across the street,

announced that Lillian Gish had become a Metro-Goldwyn star.

* * * * *

She realized that she must begin with something important. To extend her

European audience, she hoped to do something with international appeal.

In Paris, she had discussed with Madame de Grésac and the musical

composer, Charpentier, the possibility of making a film from his opera,

“Louise,” but the element of free love in it was an objection, and

Charpentier declined to have it modified. The character of Mimi, in “La

Bohême,” had long been in the back of Lillian’s mind—Mimi of the opera,

rather than of Murger’s original. Madame de Grésac agreed that the part

was peculiarly suited to Lillian, and was eager to join in preparing the

script. In New York, now, they went over it all again, and presently

were in California, at the Beverley Hills Hotel, hard at work on it.

They had plenty of time. Production was to begin in June, but the

director and some of the players wanted were not yet free.

* * * * *

Lillian, with time on her hands, an unusual circumstance, spent some of

it at Pickfair, with Douglas and Mary. Once they went camping. They went

down the shore to a place called Laguna, a sheltered spot on the beach,

about three hours by motor from Los Angeles. It was very secluded—cliffs

behind them; nobody in sight anywhere. They had to leave the cars and

climb down a big cliff. Mrs. Pickford and little Mary (Mary’s niece)

were along, and about ten others.

It could be hardly be called roughing it, though it was real camping.

They had fourteen little tents, a real village—string-town on the sea.

They had servants to look after them, and a dining tent, a sitting-room,

a kitchen, and individual sleeping tents. The weather was perfect. They

were there from Thursday until Monday, and were in the open every

minute. They wore only bathing suits and bathrobes, and were in the sea

a good half the time. The tide came up to the doors of the tents.

“One always has a good time where Douglas is,” Lillian said. “He is like

a boy. I remember Princess Bibesco and Anthony Asquith once came to

Hollywood and were invited by Douglas and Mary to make a party to climb

the mountain behind Pickfair, and go down on the other side, for camp

breakfast. We had to start very early. I drove from the Beverley Hills

Hotel and it was still dark when I got to Pickfair. I dressed in Doug’s

riding clothes to do the climbing. The Asquiths were to go on horseback,

but Douglas made Mary and me walk.

“We were well up the mountain before daylight, and the going was

terribly scratchy. I had never climbed a California mountain. I did not

know they would scratch one up so. I was a sight when we got down on the

other side, and very happy to get breakfast.”

* * * * *

Irving Thalberg, head supervisor of the Metro-Goldwyn, Lillian said, let

her choose from the directors and people on their lots. After seeing a

number of scenes from “The Big Parade,” then in production, she selected

King Vidor, to direct, and asked to have John Gilbert and Renée Adorée.

Roy d’Arcy and Edward Horton were also chosen, and Karl Dane. Vidor

expected to finish “The Big Parade” very soon, but pictures have a way

of not getting finished, and it was August before they were ready for

rehearsal. Then she found that they did not rehearse any more—not in the

old way she had learned from Griffith—not at all until they were ready

to shoot the scene. Salaries had increased to a point where it was

cheaper to make the scene, time and again, than to rehearse it for days

in advance. Vidor said, however, that Lillian might do her scenes in the

old way. She tried it, but found the others so unused to it that she

gave it up.

King Vidor, in a recent letter to the author, tells of Lillian’s

familiarity with this method:

One of the things that comes to my mind is the amazing ability she

possessed of rehearsing a picture through without having any of

the sets, properties, and sometimes actors, before her. The first

time we tried this method of rehearsal, which was at her

suggestion, we chose a secluded spot on a patch of bare lawn in

the studio grounds. I asked Miss Gish to go ahead with the

rehearsal and, to my amazement, she started through doors that did

not exist, closing them behind her, picking up articles and using

them, opening drawers, taking out things and putting others away,

playing scenes with other members of the cast who were not there

at the time, walking up and down stairways that did not exist, and

even going out into the street and riding away in a bus, and

playing scenes with people in carriages as they moved along. This

showed a power of imagination that was almost mystifying. It

reminded me of times when I had seen little girls playing at

housekeeping, only in this case it was entirely useful and helpful

in the making of the picture.

The story of “La Bohême” is almost universally known—the play and the

opera have taken care of that. Lillian and Madame de Grésac stuck rather

closely to the latter. Little Mimi, _pauvre brodeuse_, living alone in a

cold, miserable place against the roof, meets and loves, and is beloved

by, one of the bohemians, a writer, of the adjoining attic. To advance

his fortunes, she gives her strength, her life, for him, wins success

for him, is cast off because he believes her unfaithful, then at the

end, when she knows that her death is near, drags herself back to him,

to die. There is no more heartbreaking story, and no story better suited

to Lillian’s gifts.

The scenic designers had made small pasteboard sets, miniatures, to give

the directors, electricians, camera-men, and all concerned, an idea of

the possibilities of each scene. When Lillian looked at the miniature of

Mimi’s attic, she said:

“But isn’t it rather large? Mimi lives in a very small corner under the

roof.”

“Ah, but this is in an old castle.”

“Why, yes, to be sure—only, there could hardly have been a castle in

that locality, and even so, Mimi and her friends would not have been

living in one. Just up under the roof of very old and rather poor

houses.”

“But you see, you have been in big productions, with very fine sets. We

don’t want to put you into anything small and poor-looking. The road

exhibitors would not feel they were getting their money’s worth.”

“Romola’s” elaborate background had worked on their imagination. They

gave up their old castle, though sadly. The matter of costumes offered

another surprise: A very expensive designer from Paris had been

engaged—French, of Russian origin—Lillian rejoiced in the thought that

she would get just the right thing. But, oh dear, when she came to see

them! Monsieur was a small, dainty man, and he seemed to have designed

them for himself. Also, it appeared to be his idea that Mimi was a vamp.

Phyllis Moir, Lillian’s secretary of that time, says that it was Lillian

herself who, in the end, planned Mimi’s costumes. Of this, Lillian only

said:

“Finally, the woman at the head of our wardrobe department took some of

the costumes I had—things I had picked up, here and there—and together

we got what I wanted. Mimi’s picnic costume was the only new one. Our

little designer was deeply offended. I was impossible to work with, he

said.

“All on the Metro lot were so kind to me. Little Norma Shearer dressed

next door, and helped me in many ways. Marion Davies was another who was

considerate and kind. They had been there several years before I came,

and were a great comfort. After ‘Bohême’ was produced, Marion Davies

wrote me a very beautiful letter.”

In _Picture Play_, Margaret Reid, an extra in “La Bohême,” has written a

luminous article, from which I am going to quote, trusting in her good

heart to forgive me:

Miss Gish arrived on the same day that the elaborate dressing-room

suite designed for her was rushed to completion.... After a polite

but systematic search of the studio I discovered her on the lawn,

talking to one of the heads. She wore a severely plain white coat

and a close hat of plain rose felt, and carried a heavy black book

in her arms. No make-up, not even powder, marred the healthy,

translucent, perfect complexion....

Lillian thinks that the first scene of “La Bohême” was made in Mimi’s

attic, which is doubtless correct, for Miss Reid speaks of something

having been done before she was called—before various of the ladies and

gentlemen were instructed to come out and be fitted for attire of the

year 1830.

I happened to be among the fortunate, and was soon gowned in a

lovely costume of hideous brown serge and a gray flannel cape. The

keepers of the M-G-M wardrobe are the nicest wardrobe women in

Hollywood, but even their elastic patience is tried on days when

the picture and scene require a mediocre costuming of extras.

Their sympathetic ears are deafened with cries of:

“But, Mother Coulter, I _can’t_ wear this—why, it’s awful! Can’t I

at least have a pretty cape to cover up this horror?” “Mrs. Piper,

you wouldn’t make me actually wear such an ugly dress!” Each feels

that anything less than the very best is not her type.

But today we were Parisiens of precarious means, offering up the

old wedding ring and Grandfather’s stick-pin in a dingy little

pawnshop in the Latin Quarter.... The magician, Sartov, Miss

Gish’s special camera-man, sat on his high stool by the camera,

pulling placidly at his meerschaum pipe. The last touches were

being applied to the dreary little set.... Miss Gish was called,

and we made our first acquaintance with Mimi. Such a sad and

thread-bare little Mimi ... faint shadows hollowed her cheeks, and

her eyes were haggard with fatigue and hunger. In her arms was

clasped a poor bundle which she timidly offered up. The coin

thrust at her was too small, and with tears in her eyes and

quivering lips, she tenderly placed her shabby, moth-eaten little

muff on the counter. The orchestra breathed faintly one of Mimi’s

gentle laments—oh, the pitiful little Mimi! I fumbled blindly for

a handkerchief, feeling I couldn’t stand it any longer without

doing something about it—anything to allay the misery of that

wistful face.

When the camera stopped, she peeped around it, the tears still

shining in her eyelashes.

“Was that all right, Mr. Vidor? Or shall we try it again?”

“Well, let’s try it this way, too, and see how it looks,” in Mr.

Vidor’s soft, lazy Southern accent.

So Mimi is unhappy this way and that way and several other ways,

until she receives her scanty loan and turns slowly and goes out

of the door. That was all of Mimi, for that time.

When next we saw her, it was at a picnic in the woods of “Ville

D’Avray” ... a place of orange groves at the foot of mountains

that stretch up into the lofty snow fields.

In a grassy meadow, sheltered by oak trees, the picnic was spread.

Miss Gish’s town car, with its shades drawn, was already parked at

one side. Through the back window of an expensive coupé, a black

head swathed in a towel indicated the transformation of John

Gilbert into Rodolphe....

When Miss Gish stepped out of her car and began to work, it was

like the arrival of a limpid, fragrant wood elf, so exquisite was

her costume and so beautiful was she herself....

When I start to write of Mimi as I last saw her, I am reminded of

the sensations I had as a child, when Mother used to tell me in

vain that whatever I was reading was only a play or a story....

Thus I keep assuring myself that Miss Gish is a young lady who

makes enough money to live on very comfortably, and that she has

beauty, fame and adoring friends.

Yet there keeps recurring the picture of our last work in “La

Bohême,” of the dying Mimi, struggling across Paris to Rodolphe.

Her miserable clothes are in rags, and illness has carved deep

hollows in her face. Clinging to the steps of a bus, fighting

weakly through crowds, falling into the gutter and crawling on

upon hands and knees, dragged holding to a chain behind a cart,

slowly making her way, her long, pale-gold hair falling down over

her shoulders and back.

Between shots you might have thought her still playing a bit in

the picture, so unpretentious was her manner. If her skirt had to

be dirty for a close shot, she did not hail a prop boy, but knelt

on the cobblestones and made it grimy herself....

Toward the end of the sequence—scratched and bruised from her

numerous falls and tumbles, her clothes ragged and mud-stained,

her beautiful hair tangled and dusty, she waited so patiently for

the lights to be arranged for each shot, now standing on the

rough, sharp cobbles, now collapsed on the step. Sitting in the

gutter, waiting for Mr. Vidor’s signal, she smoothed her apron—a

tattered piece of black cotton—with a delicate gesture.

The preservation of an illusion through reality is always a feat,

an illusion being of such a fragile, rarefied substance. Usually

we learn to be satisfied with treasured remnants. Thus, it is with

pride in my good fortune, and with gratitude to Lillian for being

what she is, that I present to you an illusion, not only intact

but even increased in value—Miss Gish!

With her usual thoroughness, Lillian had prepared for the difficult rôle

of Mimi, especially for the tragic end. Mimi’s illness was a malady of

the lungs, brought on through exposure, hunger and unremitting toil.

Before the great death scene, Lillian had gone to see a priest about

getting a chance to study the progress of the disease. Most of the

priests knew her, after “The White Sister,” and this one was especially

kind. He took her to the County Hospital. All were proud and eager to

help her. They told her the symptoms at the different stages. It was all

rather terrible.

Both Miss Moir—Miss Gish’s secretary—and Mr. Vidor, in letters to the

writer, have written of the result of this intense hospital study. Mr.

Vidor’s picture follows:

Another episode I shall never forget: The death scene was

scheduled for a certain morning, but because the set was

incomplete, it was postponed till the following day. Miss Gish had

not been told of this postponement, and had thought so much and

concentrated so vigorously to make this scene realistic, that she

arrived at the studio whiter than I had ever seen her and looking

at least ten pounds thinner. She was unable to speak above a

whisper; in fact, she talked very little. We tried to do other

scenes, but Miss Gish had lived that death so continuously during

the night before that I was unable to instill enough life into her

to make any other scenes that day. This terrific concentration

continued all that day and that night. Upon my arrival at the

studio next morning I was informed there would be another delay

until that afternoon on this particular set. Again we made quick

plans to switch, but when I saw Miss Gish we cancelled them. One

look at her and my fears began to rise. I began to think that if

we didn’t hurry and take this death scene we should never be able

to finish the picture, so thoroughly was she experiencing the

tortures of a tubercular death.

[Illustration: “LA BOHÊME” Mimi at the pawnshop]

That afternoon the set was complete and we hastened—with great

solemnity, I may add—to photograph Mimi’s death. I was jammed

between a camera and a slanting wall in a narrow attic corner.

Mimi was carried in by her friends, the bohemians, and placed upon

her little bed. After her friends had taken a last farewell,

Rodolphe entered the scene, and with him close to her Mimi

breathed her last. Rodolphe, played by John Gilbert, was supposed

to remain in the scene a few moments and then leave. In the

playing of the scene, however, some of the bohemians, and also Mr.

Gilbert, were so impressed that they completely forgot what they

were to do. I, myself, was in the same frame of mind.

I had noticed that when death overcame Mimi, Miss Gish had

completely stopped breathing and the movement of her eyes and

eyelids was absolutely suspended. This, even from the close view I

had. The moments clicked but still Miss Gish had not moved, nor

breathed. My mind immediately jumped to the great drama of this

situation. To me, Miss Gish had actually died in the portrayal of

a scene. I saw all the headlines in the newspapers of the

following day. I saw all the drama and the hush that would fall

throughout the studios when the news spread around.

The cameras ground on—the moments turned into minutes. Finally,

after an untold length of time, the other actors left the scene

and the cameras stopped. Everyone was breathless, fearful of what

might have happened. Miss Gish could plainly hear that the cameras

had stopped, and could now take breath and open her eyes. But this

she did not do. Not daring to speak I fearfully walked over to

where she lay and touched her gently on the arm. Her head turned

slowly, and her lips formed a faint smile.

I think we all broke into tears of great joy.

To me this is the most realistic scene I have ever known to be

enacted before a camera. I hope I shall never see a similar one

quite so well done. The inside of her mouth was completely dry,

and before she was able to speak again it was necessary to wet her

lips which had stuck to her teeth from dryness. The next morning

Miss Gish was as bright and cheery as ever, and we were able to go

ahead with the rest of the picture.

One last word: personal contact with Lillian Gish did not destroy

any of the idealism she created on the screen for me. To those who

have known her only in that way, I promise there is no

disappointment in meeting her face to face.

Miss Moir remembers that these final scenes of Mimi’s life lasted about

a week, and that everyone was relieved when they were over. Lillian

herself was so exhausted that her voice had sunk almost to a whisper,

and she had hardly sufficient strength to walk. “Poor Renée Adorée was

constantly coming back to her dressing room for a fresh supply of

handkerchiefs. During the sequence where Mimi is dragging herself back

to Rodolphe, to die—the bus, to the back of which she was clinging,

suddenly lost a wheel, and it was only by a miracle that she escaped

having both legs crushed under the heavy vehicle.”

* * * * *

It was near the end of December, 1925, that “La Bohême” was finished,

and it was two months later, February 24, at the Embassy Theatre, New

York, that it had its first showing. Lillian was not present. To this

day, she has never seen “La Bohême” given with its musical

accompaniment—not the original Puccini score, the cost of which was

prohibitive, but a very lovely adaptation expressing something of the

feeling and mood.

“La Bohême,” a picture of much sorrow and little brightness, was

sympathetically received and left a deep and lasting impression. Except,

possibly, in “Broken Blossoms,” Lillian had never appeared so

effectively—in a picture so suited to her gifts.

It was a big night at the Embassy. Social New York was out in force, and

all the picture people. The _Post_ next day said:

“Every movie player in New York, and there are many here just now, was

‘among those present,’ for the infrequent appearance of Lillian Gish on

the screen takes on the importance of an event.... The Gish can do no

wrong, in the opinion of many who subscribe to the art of motion

pictures....”

Approval of Lillian’s Mimi, though wide, was not unanimous. Certain

critics were inclined to hold her responsible for the departure from

Murger’s original. There was hot debate among the fans. Lillian, already

absorbed in another picture, gave slight attention to all this; much

less than did the interviewers, one of whom found her “not particularly

interested.” She merely asked absently: “Has someone been criticizing

me?” Which, declared Miss Glass, the interviewer, was as astonishing as

if she had looked at the Pacific Ocean and asked: “Is it wet?”

“Her manifest lack of resentment toward her critics confounded me....

She sat quietly toying with the folds of her dress, betraying no sign of

annoyance or concern.”

In itself, the Mimi of Madame de Grésac was a classic rôle. Not again in

her screen life would Lillian find a part more perfectly suited to her

personality and special gifts. Her portrayal of it warranted Pola

Negri’s verdict:

“Lillian Gish is supreme. That was my opinion when I first saw her. It

is still my opinion when I have seen all the other stars. She is sublime

in her genre.”

The New York première was not the picture’s first showing. There had

been a preview at Santa Monica, and one secured by Lillian for the

employees of the Beverley Hills Hotel, where she lived. These latter

sent her a joint acknowledgment, signed: “Thankfully your admirers, more

than a hundred strong.”

VI

“THE SCARLET LETTER”

Lillian had not found time to go to New York. Through no fault of hers,

the production of “La Bohême” had been delayed, and there was not a

moment to lose, now. “La Bohême” was finished on Saturday, and the first

shots of “The Scarlet Letter” were made the following Monday. She had

agreed to do as many as six pictures, and she had two years to do them

in. She was very anxious to fulfill her part of the contract.

Her mother was with her. She had come out with her in May, but in

September had gone back to London, where Dorothy was making “Nell Gwynn”

for an English company. Now again she was back, vainly, unwisely trying

to share herself with both daughters. In January, Lillian had taken Mrs.

Pickford’s house at Santa Monica, directly on the beach. She believed it

would be better for her mother—not always warm, but there was nearly

always sunshine, and the air was good.

Every morning Lillian went into the sea. The water was cold, but by six

she had put on her bathing suit, and plunged in. A dip, then out again,

a race to the house, a cup of hot water that Nellie, the maid, had

ready. Then quickly into a little roadster and away to the Culver City

lot, a brisk twenty-minute drive. Nellie there prepared breakfast while

her mistress was dressing and making up.

* * * * *

In her little corner of Beekman Terrace, the “den,” as she calls it,

overlooking the East River where a procession of water traffic moves

always up and down—stout, saucy tugs, with square-nosed barges or

droopy, submissive schooners in tow; swift Sound steamers; smudgy

freighters; private yachts—very romantic and expensive-looking; all the

motley parade of the marine register—Lillian not so long ago told of the

making of “The Scarlet Letter.” She said:

“It was while we were making ‘La Bohême’ that I worked with Frances

Marion on the story. Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne appealed to me, and I

thought the story had great picture possibilities. There was one

objection: the Church would oppose it—the Protestant Church, especially

the Methodist. ‘The Scarlet Letter’ was one of a list of proscribed

books—forbidden for picture use. I took the matter up with Will Hays,

and prominent members of the Clergy. Why should the Church prohibit a

great classic, like that? When I told them how I proposed to present it,

they gave their sanction. When they saw the picture, by and by, they

recommended it.

“My idea was to present Hester as the victim of hard circumstance, swept

off her feet by love. Of course, that was what she was, but her innate

innocence must be apparent. I said:

“I believe in ‘The Scarlet Letter,’ if we can get the right man for

Dimmesdale, the minister.” We considered several, but none would do.

“One day, Louis B. Mayer, business head of the Metro, said to me: ‘I

think I have found the minister for your “Scarlet Letter.”’ Mayer had

brought over Greta Garbo, and I had faith in him. Garbo had done a

picture of ‘Gosta Berling’ in Sweden, with Lars Hansen, and the Metro

had brought over a print of it. ‘Go into the projection room and have

them run it for you,’ said Mayer. ‘If you like Hansen for the part,

we’ll bring him over.’

“The moment Lars Hansen appeared on the screen, I knew he was the man we

wanted. And I knew that we must have a Swedish director. The Swedish

people are closer to what our Pilgrims were, or what we consider them to

have been, than our present-day Americans. Irving Thalberg selected

Victor Seastrom, a splendid choice. He got the spirit of the story

exactly, and was himself a fine actor, the finest that ever directed me.

I never worked with anyone I liked better than Seastrom. He was

Scandinavian—thorough and prompt. If Mr. Seastrom said we would start at

eight, or half-past, the camera was ready at that time, and so were we.

“His direction was a great education for me. In a sense, I went through

the Swedish school of acting. I had got rather close to the Italian

school in Italy, watching them at their theatres, and from being

associated with those who were with us in ‘The White Sister’ and

‘Romola.’ The Italian school is one of elaboration; the Swedish is one

of repression. Mr. Vidor’s method—of the American school, if there is

such a thing—leaned to self-expression, which has its advantages.

“We had some of the people used in ‘La Bohême’—Karl Dane, for one, who,

except for the brief scene where a scrap of my forbidden laundry creates

a situation and finally flares out on a currant bush—furnished about all

the comedy of that too sad picture. Henry B. Walthall, with whom I had

played so often in the old Griffith days, was engaged to do Prynne,

Hester’s husband. In the old days, he had been taller than I was. I was

amazed now to find it the other way about. I had grown a good deal in

the ten or eleven years since then. I suppose exercise, open air, health

and proper food, had been responsible. Joyce Coad, my little girl in the

play, was a sweet child, and a clever little actress. I became much

attached to her.

“Work on ‘The Scarlet Letter’ went off smoothly until we were within two

weeks of the end. Then, one day in April, I got a paralyzing cable from

Dorothy in London. Dorothy had been over for a brief visit during the

Winter, and Mother had presently followed her back to London. She had

not wanted to go—not really. She had not been well for years. Commuting

back and forth across six thousand miles, trying to be with both of us,

had been too much for her. That last time she would not let me go to the

train with her. Dorothy’s cable said that she was dying.

“I cabled and got the latest news of her; she had had a stroke. I said I

would take the first ship I could get from New York.

“I found that by leaving Los Angeles in three days, I could catch the

Majestic out of New York, which would put me in London the last day of

April. It was the 15th that she had been struck down.

“At the studio, Seastrom said that by working day and night we could do

the remaining two weeks on the picture in the three days I had left. I

asked the company if they would stay with me through it, and every one

said yes. They were all so fine.

“We didn’t waste a moment, and during those three days and nights there

was very little sleep for anyone. I remember scarcely anything of the

details, for of course I had Mother on my mind, too. When the last scene

was shot, I made a rush for the train, without stopping to change from

my costume. Mr. Mayer and Mr. Thalberg got special police on motorcycles

to escort me and clear the way, so that I could work to the last moment

and still get the train. Twelve days later I was in London.”

Characteristically, Lillian says nothing of that trip across land and

sea. Miss Moir, less reticent, writes:

I shall always remember the kindness and sympathy shown her during

those long wearisome days on the train ... the little Catholic

girl at Albuquerque who somehow or other managed to find her way

to our compartment and press into Lillian’s hand a little silver

cross which she said had been specially blessed and would surely

bring an answer to her prayers for her mother.

... At Topeka, Kansas, when the train pulled in, we noticed that

the platform was jammed from end to end with people. We supposed

that they must have come to welcome someone and pulled down the

blinds in the compartment to escape notice. Suddenly we heard raps

on the window and calls for Miss Gish. The conductor appeared,

smiling, to say that all these people had come to see Miss Gish,

some of them had even driven a hundred miles for the purpose.

Tired and heartsick as she was, Lillian went out on the platform

of the train. The moment she appeared, a sudden silence fell on

the crowd—they just stood and looked at her. Then a woman held up

a baby and asked her to touch it “for luck.” That broke up the

formality. They crowded round her, expressing their sympathy and

good wishes, and they were still in the midst of it when the train

pulled out leaving them cheering and waving.

We arrived in New York on the morning of the day the _Majestic_

sailed. When, late that night we went on board the boat, we found

our stateroom filled with people all waiting to see Lillian.

One pleasant young man with an ingratiating smile, insisted upon

bringing in his girl-friend to meet Lillian, who, tired as she

was, still managed to smile at them.

In London, Lillian learned just what had happened: Dorothy had been out

to a play, and had come in quietly and slipped into bed without turning

on the light. Mrs. Gish slept in the other twin bed. Presently, Dorothy

felt something touch her. She spoke softly, but got no answer. She felt

the touch again, and again got no answer. The third time, she snapped on

the light. Her mother could not speak—all her right side was helpless.

Fortunately, Dorothy’s bed had been at her left.

With Lillian’s arrival Mrs. Gish improved. Only the day before she had

not been expected to live. She seemed to recognize her—her eyes grew

large. Every paper had displayed in headlines Lillian’s race across the

world to her mother’s bedside, and the English are a kindly people.

Noble and commoner alike came forward with offered help—all ranks knew

and loved her. Cards, flowers, gifts, poured in.

What was to be done next? Lillian must return to California, or cancel

her contract. What must she—what could she—do? Miss Moir tells what

happened:

One night somebody suggested going to a famous little restaurant

in the Tottenham Court Rd. district for dinner. So Dorothy,

Lillian and I got into a taxi and drove to it, three very forlorn

females.... It was over that dinner that Lillian came to what

seemed at first her preposterous decision to take her mother back

with her to California, but as usual, she carried her point, and

within a week Mrs. Gish, with a good English doctor and nurse in

attendance, Lillian and I, were all aboard the _Mauretania_ en

route for New York.

Mrs. Gish bore the journey much better than we had expected and

the days passed quickly. The morning we arrived at Quarantine

Lillian and I were sitting up in bed eating breakfast when our

stewardess rushed in looking quite alarmed, to warn us to bolt all

the doors as our stateroom was shortly to be stormed by a mob of

reporters.

Lillian herself told of the hectic overland journey:

“In New York I chartered a private car and took Mother to Hollywood. I

was no longer so poor, and if ever there was a time when I was thankful

for money it was then. Across the blazing southern desert we had tubs of

ice, with fans going over them, night and day. The car was cool, and the

change, or the thought that she was going back to California, which she

always loved, was good for Mother. When we reached California, instead

of being on her back, she was sitting up. But she could not speak—she

knew all that we said to her, but she could not answer, and she could no

longer read. We were told that this condition might last three to six

months. That was five years ago. She has improved a great deal; she can

walk a little, but most of her right side is helpless, and her words are

very limited.

“At Santa Monica we lived in Mrs. Pickford’s house until September, then

moved up to the beautiful Millbank place on the cliff, with a lovely

garden, and all, away from the dampness and the sound of the waves,

which made Mother nervous. On her birthday, September 16, she seemed

suddenly to pick up, and we felt there was a chance for her to get well.

“She does not suffer, but must get very tired of always being obliged to

sit, or lie down. But she is sweet and patient. The nurse and I read to

her, and she enjoys working the picture puzzles, of which she has always

a supply. She likes motion picture magazines. She cannot read them, but

she loves the illustrations—many of them of people she knows. And

always, if the name ‘Gish’ is on any printed page, she can find it.”

* * * * *