The location was so remote, the climb so stiff, that once having made it no one was going down until the day’s work was over.
It was a heavenly day. Gazing off into the distances quite sufficed, until, whetted by clean, insistent breezes, little gnawings in the tummy brought one back to realities. It took more than dreamy seas and soft blue skies to deter a hungry actor from expressing himself around lunch time. And so, in querulous accents soon were wafted on the sage-scented air such questions as: “Gee, haven’t they sent for the lunch yet? Gosh, I’m hungry. Hasn’t the car gone? It’ll take a couple of hours to get food way up here. Hope they bring us enough—this air—I’m starved.”
Sooner or later lunch would be on the way. The car had to go for it as far as Venice. It was nearly three o’clock when the car returned and by that time every one was doggone hungry.
Mr. Griffith had tipped his two “leads” and Mr. Bitzer and myself to get off in a little group, for hot juicy steaks had been ordered for those select few—leading players must be well nourished—and it was just as well to be as quiet and unobtrusive about it as possible. For while it wasn’t exactly fair, sandwiches and coffee was all the lunch the company usually afforded for the extra people.
Mack Sennett, who always had a most generous appetite, was wild-eyed by now, for he was just an “extra” in “The White Rose of the Wilds.” And he was on to the maneuvers of the “steak” actors and so resentful of the partiality shown that he finally could contain himself no longer, and in bitter tones, subdued though audible, he spoke: “Steaks that way,” with a nod of his head indicating Griffith and the leading people, “and sandwiches this way”—himself and the supers. And though Mack sat off on the side, and from his point of vantage continued to throw hungry glances, they brought him no steak that day.
This winter it was that Mr. Sennett invested in a “tux” and went over to the Alexandria Hotel night after night, where he decorated the lobby’s leather benches in a determined effort to interest Messrs. Kessel and Bauman. (The Kay Bee Company.) His watchful waiting got him a job.
* * * * *
“The Battle of Elderberry Gulch” was a famous picture of those days. The star was a pioneer baby all of whose relatives had been killed by Indians. During the time the baby’s folks were being murdered another party of pioneers, led by Dell Henderson, was dying of thirst near by. With just enough life left in them to do it, they rescued the baby from its dead relations, staggered on a few miles, and then they, too, sank exhausted in the sand and cacti.
Another cornucopia sand-storm blew up.
Kind-hearted Dell Henderson, now sunk to earth, had protectingly tucked the baby’s head under his coat. But the tiny baby hand (in the story, and it was good business) had to be pictured waving above the prostrate figures of the defunct pioneers, to show she still lived. Otherwise, she might not have been saved by the second rescuing party, and saved she had to be for the later chapters of the story.