It was not long after his initiation that Mr. Kirkwood brought a fellow
Lamb, Mr. Walthall, to the studio. He had been one of the three “bad
men” with Mr. Kirkwood in “The Great Divide,” which play had just
finished its New York run. Mr. Griffith, an Italian costume picture
on the ways, was snooping around for an actor who not only could look
but also act an Italian troubadour. When he met Henry Walthall of the
dark, curly hair, the brown eyes, the graceful carriage, he rested
content. “The Sealed Room” was the name of the screened emotion that
put Mr. Walthall over in the movies. Wally’s acting proved to be the
most convincing of its type so far. He was very handsome in his silk
and velvet, and gold trappings, with a bejeweled chain around his neck,
and a most adorable little mustache.
It was foreordained that the Civil War should have a hearing very soon.
There was Kentucky, David Griffith’s birth state, calling, and there
in our midst was the ideal southerner, Henry Walthall. And so after a
few weeks the first “Stirring Episode of the Civil War”--a little movie
named “In Old Kentucky”--was rushed along. In the picture were Mary
Pickford, Owen Moore, Kate Bruce, and many lesser lights. It was a long
time back that Mr. Walthall started on his career of “Little Colonels.”
He portrayed many before he climaxed them with his great “Little
Colonel” in “The Birth of a Nation!”
A remarkable trio--Frank Powell, Jim Kirkwood, and Henry Walthall--such
distinct types. Though they all owned well-tailored dress suits,
Frank Powell’s was featured most often. Henry Walthall, suggestive
of romance, had fewer opportunities; and rugged Jim Kirkwood only
occasionally was permitted to don his own soup-and-fish and look
distingué.
With the acquisition of the ten-dollar-a-day actor, we seemed to
acquire a new dignity. No doubt about recruits fresh from Broadway
lending tone--although the original five-per-day actors, who were still
getting the same old five, looked with varying feelings of resentment
and delight at their entrance. We old ones figured that for all our
faithfulness and hard work, we might have been raised right off to
ten dollars, too. But at least there was hope in that ten per--the
proposition looked better now with salaries going up, and actors coming
to stay, and willing to forego the dazzling footlights and the sweet
applause of the audience.
Having reached ten-dollars-a-day, it didn’t take so long to climb to
twenty--undreamed extravagance--but good advertising along the Rialto
and at the Lambs Club. “Twenty dollars a day? It listens well--the
movies must have financial standing, anyway,” the legitimate concluded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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