Life and Lillian Gish

by Albert Bigelow Paine

“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.