Owen Moore got so querulous with the heat—he was playing one of those handsome, cruel officers who poke bayonets at the innocent and well-behaved exiles—that he nearly killed us throwing tables and heavy furniture at us. I objected to the realism. We were all a bit peevish, what with the unseasonable heat and the last moment discovery that the costumer had sent our wrapper-like dresses in sizes miles too large.
The scene being set and rehearsals finished, there were left just the few moments while the property man added the finishing touches to the salt and flour snow (we had graduated from sawdust), to make the costumes wearable. So another girl and I grabbed the lot and rushed into a little Polish tailor shop in the basement next door and borrowed the Polish tailor’s sewing machines so that we could put in the necessary hems and pleats. Zip went the sewing machines—there was no time to lose—for we could not afford two days of Russian exiles at three dollars per day.
Nine o’clock was the morning hour of bustle and busyness at 11 East Fourteenth Street. But the actors in their eagerness to work were on the job long before nine sometimes. They straggled along from all directions. They even came by the horse-drawn surface car whose obliging and curious conductors stopped directly in front of No. 11.
And so curious became one conductor that he was not able to stand the strain, and he quit his job of jerking Bessie’s reins, and got himself a job as “extra.” Although the conductor’s identity was never fully established, we had strong suspicions that it was Henry Lehrman, an extra who had managed in a very short time to get himself called Pathé, which was good for an Austrian.
“Actors”—graduates from various trades and professions of uncertain standing, and actors without acting jobs, lounged all over the place, from the street steps where they basked on mild, sunny days, into the shady hall where they kept cool on hot days; and had they made acquaintance with studio life, they could be found in the privacy of the men’s one dressing-room shooting craps—the pastime during the waiting hours.
An especially busy hour 9 A.M. when we were to start on a new picture. What kind of a picture was it to be? The air was full of expectancy. Who would be cast for the leads? How keen we were to work! How we hoped for a good part—then for any kind of a part—then for only a chance to rehearse a part. In their eagerness to get a good part in a movie, the actors behaved like hungry chickens being fed nice, yellow corn, knocking and trampling each other in their mad scramble for the best bits.
This Mr. Griffith did enjoy. He would draw his chair up center, and leisurely, and in a rather teasing way, look the company over. And when you were being looked at you thought, “Ah, it’s going to be me.” But in a few minutes some one else would be looked at. “No, it was going to be he.” A long look at Owen, a long look at Charlie, a long look at Arthur, and then the director would speak: “Arthur, I’ll try you first.” One by one, in the same way the company would be picked. There would be a few rough rehearsals; some one wouldn’t suit; the chief would decide the part was more in Owen’s line. Such nervousness until we got all set!
Indeed, we put forth our best efforts. There was too much competition and no one had a cinch on a line of good parts. When we did “The Cricket on the Hearth,” Mr. Griffith rehearsed all his women in the part of Dot, Marion Leonard, Florence Lawrence, Violet Merserau, and then he was nice to me. Miss Merserau, however, portrayed May Plummer—making her movie début. Herbert Pryor played John Perrybingle, and Owen Moore, Edward Plummer.
Sometimes after rehearsing a story all day our director would chuck it as “no good” and begin on another. He never used a script and he rehearsed in sequence the scenes of every story until each scene dovetailed smoothly, and the acting was O. K. He worked out his story using his actors as chessmen. He knew what he wanted and the camera never began to grind until every little detail satisfied him.
There was some incentive for an actor to do his best. More was asked of us than to be just a “type,” and the women couldn’t get by with just “pretty looks.” We worked hard, but we liked it. With equal grace we all played leads one day and decorated the back drop the next. On a day when there would be no work whatever for you, you’d reluctantly depart. Sometimes Mr. Griffith almost had to drive the non-working actors out of the studio. The place was small and he needed room.