“I work such long hours. Sometimes I don’t even see Mother for days. Can you imagine us living in the same house and hardly seeing one another?
“I must go to the studio, now, to have what I hope will be my last interview for years. I certainly was not made to be famous, it is beginning to get on my nerves.”
Somewhat later, she wrote:
Nell, we don’t belong to that set where they think they buy happiness with dollars. I think that is why I didn’t like New York, this time—though of course I shouldn’t say that, as they were wonderful to me, both the press and the people....
The studio gave a party for Mr. Griffith, Saturday night; all the stage-hands, electricians and working men, their wives and families, and of course the actors, and such. It reminded me of Massillon—was just such a party as we would have there—bright studio, all decorated with lanterns, and music playing, dancing, sandwiches, baked beans, ice-cream.... Madam (the colored lady who cleans the place) sang and danced. Dick, Dorothy and Bobby acted the fool—it was just a foolish party.
Her taste was for her friends, her work—the simple, daily round. Did she sometimes stop to look back over the way she had come, and along a royal road that stretched before? I think not often. She was not a dreamer in that sense. When fan letters praised her to the skies, when the newspapers labeled her “The World’s Darling,” she was pleased, no doubt, but kept her balance; and sometimes, about three in the morning, she found it no trouble to remember that “the world’s darling” was just a frail, little figure, huddled in the dark, trying to get to sleep.
XVI
DIRECTOR LILLIAN
Griffith now took an important step. He removed himself and his players from California to New York, really to Mamaroneck, on Long Island Sound, where he had leased the old Flagler mansion and grounds, and contracted for a studio, soon to be completed. The mansion itself would serve for the executive offices, possibly for occasional scenes of grandeur. Lillian and her mother made the transcontinental journey with Harry Carr, now Griffith’s right-hand man. Their train passed through Massillon, but at lightning speed. Carr remembers that all the way across the country, Lillian looked forward to this splendid moment, and though very late, refused to go to bed until it had passed.
She was greatly excited, and kept trying to point out things to me, though you couldn’t see anything but the ticket office. I was impressed by how much of the child she had.
Lillian, with her mother and Dorothy, established themselves at the Hotel Commodore, to be handy to the Grand Central Station, and thus within thirty minutes of Mamaroneck. It was costly, and sometimes they planned to have a farm near the studio: “five acres, with pigs, cows, chickens, horses.” At least, it was something to dream about, for Spring.