“Well, we’ve been offered five hundred dollars a week and we’re going to accept the contract, and you’ll be sorry some day.”
They could go ahead and accept the contract as far as Mr. Griffith was concerned. Indulging in his old habit of walking away while talking, he brought the interview to an end, calling back to the insistent mother, “Three hundred dollars is all I’ll give her. Remember, I made her.”
And so the Famous Players secured Mary Pickford for a series of features, the first of which was “In the Bishop’s Carriage.”
But whether Mr. Griffith has ever been sorry, nobody knows but himself.
Kate Bruce, the saintly “Brucie” to so many, pillowed in her lap or on her shoulder by turns, all the feminine heads of sufficient importance, and at times, with her arm about me, it was even “Oh, dear Mrs. Griffith.” But Miss Bruce was thoughtful, indeed, for her little room often made night lodging, when we had an early morning call, for the girl whose home was distant. Dorothy West, who lived in Staten Island, often accepted Miss Bruce’s hospitality.
For Lillian Gish, “Brucie” had an especially tender heart. Miss Gish, at this time, affected simple, straight, dark blue and black dresses. She had long ago reached the book-carrying stage, being one of Mr. Griffith’s most ambitious girls. Many times she’d arrive at the studio an hour or more ahead of time and have Billy Bitzer make tests of her with different make-ups.
With a tight little hat on her head, and a red rose on the side of it from which flowed veils and veils, and a soulful expression in her eyes, Miss Gish was even then, so long ago, affecting the Madonna.
But reclining in the arms of “Brucie,” purring “Brucie, do you still love me?”—that was the perfect picture of the fair Lillian those days. And Brucie’s reply came in honeyed words, “Oh, you sweet, little innocent golden-haired darling.” Then turning to the girl sitting next her on the other side, she’d say, “You know this girl needs to be protected from the world, she’s so innocent and so young.” She had a strong maternal complex, had the maidenly Kate Bruce.
Blanche Sweet and Kate Bruce in “Judith of Bethulia,” the first four reel picture directed by D. W. Griffith.