Across from Macy’s, Mary’s first bus was parked and young brother Jack
was chauffing. When we hopped into the car, we found a very disgruntled
youth who, having waited longer than he thought he ought to have, gave
me a stony stare and never spoke a word. As far as young Jack Smith was
concerned, I’d never been on earth before.
We wondered about Mack Sennett. Would he ever buy a girl an ice
cream soda? Marion Leonard said it would be his birthday if he ever
did. But the day arrived when Mack Sennett did open up. He bought a
seventy-five-dollar diamond necklace for Mabel Normand, and then after
some misunderstanding between himself and Mabel, proving he had a head
for business, he offered it to different members of the company for
eighty-five dollars.
Spike Robinson, who used to box with Mr. Griffith and who now boxes
with Douglas Fairbanks, looms up as the one generous member of the
company, being willing always to buy the girls ice cream sodas or
lemonade or sarsaparilla--the refreshments of our age of innocence.
* * * * *
The fall of 1909 brought to the studio a number of new women who
proved valuable additions to our company. Stephanie Longfellow, who
was a _bona fide_ niece of the poet Henry, was one of them. Her first
pictures were released in August. They were “The Better Way” and “A
Strange Meeting.” Miss Longfellow was quite a different type from
her predecessors and her work was delightful. She was a refreshing
personality with unusual mental attainments. “_She’s_ a lady,” said the
director. Some ten years ago Miss Longfellow retired to domestic life
via a happy marriage outside the profession.
Handsome Mrs. Grace Henderson became our grande dame of quality,
breezing in from past glories of “Peter Pan” (having played _Peter’s_
Mother) and of the famous old Daly Stock Company.
Another grande dame of appearance distinguished, drawing modest pay
checks occasionally, and with a cultural family background most unusual
for a stage mother, was Caroline Harris. Miss Harris, otherwise Mrs.
Barthelmess, and mother of ten-year-old Dicky Barthelmess, was one
stage mother not supported by her child. Only when home on a vacation
from military school did Dicky work in a picture. He made his début
with Mrs. Tom Ince, and his little heart was quite broken when he
discovered his only scene had been cut out.
Miss Harris’s first stage appearance had been with Benjamin Chapin
playing _Mrs. Lincoln_ in “Lincoln at the White House,” afterwards
called “Honest Abe.” Her first part in the movies was in De
Maupassant’s “The Necklace,” in which Rose King played the lead. Miss
Harris had learned of the Biograph through a girl who jobbed at the
studio, Helen Ormsby, the daughter of a Brooklyn newspaper man.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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