And since we have been speaking of “Little Eva,” perhaps this is as good a place as any to state that Lillian had never, at any time, played that part. She might have done so, had there been any “Uncle Tom” combinations when she was a child trouper. “Uncle Tom” had died permanently, by that time. Interviewers, however, when they looked at her, could not believe, when she told them that she had played “Little Willie” in “East Lynne,” that she was not saying “Little Eva in ‘Uncle Tom,’” and they so often printed this statement that in time she almost believed it herself. I am making a special paragraph of this denial to set the matter straight—for all of us.
Busy days, these. Under one director and another, Griffith kept Lillian and Dorothy going, usually in different pictures, though sometimes, as in “The Sisters,” together. They made an attractive pair, but Griffith could not afford to waste them on small pictures—“program” pictures—besides, it was not easy to get stories—picture stories—to fit.
Dorothy became a star on her own account, with Walthall in “The Mountain Rat,” a Western; and in “The Mysterious Shot,” with Jack Pickford, who had joined the movie forces. Jack, apparently, had conquered his old infatuation, for we hear nothing further of it. “The Rat” was Dorothy’s first star part, and a very good one of its kind, being that of a red-light girl, considered then rather a daring portrayal for a girl of sixteen. All these were pot-boilers, while preparations for the great Civil War spectacle went forward.
They also kept the names and faces of Griffith’s stars before the public—an important matter, for the field was getting full of producers—stars were being created almost overnight. Nor did Griffith let them get into a rut by working always under one director. Lillian, alternately under Christy Cabanné and Jack O’Brien, was receiving liberal training.
“Which would you rather work under?” a reporter asked.
“Both. Their methods are entirely different; I learn a great deal from each.”
Interviews were very frequent, now, the reporters kind. They referred to Lillian and Dorothy as the “darlings of the screen,” and they rarely failed to remember Belasco’s verdict, which found its way even to Massillon. “MASSILLON GIRL CALLED THE MOST BEAUTIFUL BLONDE IN THE WORLD” made a three-column headline, with a picture of Lillian to prove it; as if everybody in Massillon hadn’t known that, long ago.
VII
“THE BIRTH OF A NATION”
David Wark Griffith was the son of a soldier, and had been brought up on war tales. He believed the time had come when the talk that had been so vivid to his childhood, should be given form and motion—that the bitter struggle of four years, with its rankling sequences, should be presented on the screen.