Before she left the studio that day, every actor there had a “line” on Mary. In the dressing-room, the word went around:
“There’s a cute kid outside; have you seen her?”
“No, where is she?”
“She’s been sitting out there in a corner by herself.”
“Guess I’ll take a look.”
“She’s cute all right; they’re taking a test.”
Something was impending. There was excitement and expectancy in the air. America’s Sweetheart was soon to make her first screen appearance.
The test was O. K. and Mary was told to come to the studio on the morrow. David promised her five dollars a day for her first picture, and were her work good, he’d talk business with her. That satisfied Mary.
As “Giannina,” the pretty daughter of Taddeo Ferrari, in “The Violin Maker of Cremona” Mary Pickford made her motion picture début. She was ideally suited to the part, and had good support from David Miles as the cripple Filippo.
The studio bunch was all agog over the picture and the new girl, long before the quiet word was passed to the regulars a few days later: “Projection room, they’re going to run ‘The Violin Maker.’” After the showing, Mr. Griffith had a serious conversation with Mary and offered her twenty-five dollars a week for three days’ work. This Mary accepted. She felt she might stay through the summer.