So this day Charlie and Arthur returned from lunch with a small
brown bottle containing spiritous liquor, with which they would ply
Joe Graybill surreptitiously in the men’s dressing-room in the hope
that they might incapacitate him. But Joe drank up, rehearsed, and
Mr. Griffith’s smile only grew broader. Better than ever was the
rehearsal. So Charles went out for another little brown bottle and Joe
disposed of it, and rehearsed--better still. Another bottle, another
rehearsal--better than ever--until in a blaze of glory the scene was
taken and Joe Graybill stood upon the topmost rung of the ladder,
leaving Charles and Arthur gazing sadly upward.
There was another reason why Mr. Griffith welcomed new faces. He had a
way of not letting an actor get all worked up about himself. When that
seemed imminent, new talent would suddenly appear on the scene to play
“leads” for two or three weeks so that the importance of the regular
could simmer down a bit.
Now that they had developed an affection for their movie jobs, the
actors didn’t like this so well. They’d come down to the studio, sit
around and watch, get nervous, and after drawing three or four weeks’
salary without working (things had come along apace), they wouldn’t
know what to make of it. They’d carry on something awful. They’d moan:
“When am I going to work? I don’t like this loafing--I wonder if
Griffith doesn’t like me any more--I’d like to know if he wants me to
quit and this is his way of getting me to make the overture.” Finally,
Eddie August, after suffering three weeks of idleness, on pay, got very
brave and told Mr. Griffith he wished he’d fire him or else, for God’s
sake, use him. Mr. August was quite relieved to have Mr. Griffith’s
explanation that in his case he was merely trying out new people, and
didn’t want him to quit at all, would be very glad to have him stay.
When the Black-eyed Susans had reached full bloom, we went back to
Greenwich, Connecticut, and did a picture called “What the Daisy
Said,” with Mary Pickford and Gertrude Robinson. We visited Commodore
Benedict’s place again, and again he brought out boxes of his best
cigars. A good old sport he was.
To the Civil War again, in the same old New Jersey setting, with
Dorothy West playing the heroine in “The House with the Closed
Shutters.” In her coward brother’s clothes she takes his place on the
battlefield, breaks through the lines, delivers a message, and is shot
as she returns. And, forever after, inside the darkened rooms of the
House with the Closed Shutters the brother pays through bitter years
the price of his cowardice.
All our old stamping grounds we revisited this summer. At the Atlantic
Highlands we did two pictures: one, “A Salutary Lesson,” with Marion
Leonard; and the other, “The Sorrows of the Unfaithful,” with Mary
Pickford.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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