Later, when Carl Laemmle had bucked the General Film Company with the organization of his independent company, the “Imp,” he enticed Mary away from the Biograph by an offer of twenty-five dollars a week over her then one hundred weekly salary. Mary was still under legal age, so Owen Moore, to whom Mary had been secretly married, had to sign the contract. He with several other “Biographers” had gone over to the “Imp.” Mrs. Smith with Lottie and Jack still clung to the Biograph. Mid anguished tears Mrs. Smith showed me the contract, and in a broken voice said: “What’s to become of Mary at that awful ‘Imp’ with no one to direct her? How could she have been influenced to leave Mr. Griffith for only twenty-five dollars extra and not even consult her mother? What good will the twenty-five dollars do with her career ruined?”
But the break did not hurt Mary. It helped her. She soon sued the “Imp,” claiming that her artistic career was being ruined as she was being forced to act with carpenters. That was the story according to the dailies. Shortly afterward she was back at Biograph with another twenty-five dollar weekly advance in her salary.
CHAPTER XV
ACQUIRING ACTORS AND STYLE
Through conflicting emotions and varying decisions and an ever-increasing interest and faith in the new work, Biograph’s first movie actors stuck. With Mary Pickford pictures winning favor, David Griffith became ambitious for new talent, and as the right sort didn’t come seeking, he decided to go seeking. He’d dash out of the studio while the carpenters were putting up a new set, jump into a taxi, call at the different dramatic agencies, and ask had they any actors who might like to work in moving pictures at ten dollars a day!
At one of these agencies—Paul Scott’s—he arrived just as a good-looking manly sort of chap was about to leave.
“That’s the type I want.”
Mr. Scott replied, “Well, I’ll introduce you.”
Mr. Griffith lost no time in telling the personable Frank Powell about the movies, and offering the new salary, secured his services.
With his fair bride, Eleanor Hicks, who had been playing “leads” with Ellen Terry, while he stage managed, Mr. Powell had just returned from England. But Miss Terry and London triumphs were now of the past, and Mr. Powell was glad enough to end the tiresome hunt for a job, and his temporary money worries by becoming the first actor to be engaged by Mr. Griffith at the fancy price of ten dollars a day. Mr. Powell was well worth the ten for he had good presence, clean-cut features, and wore good clothes. He became our leading aristocrat, specializing in brokers, bankers, and doctors—the cultured professional man. David soon saw that he could take over little responsibilities and relieve him of many irksome details not concerned with the dramatic end. So he became the first assistant, and then a director of comedies—the first—under Mr. Griffith’s supervision.
In time he went with William Fox as director. He discovered the screen’s first famous vamp, Theda Bara. Against Mr. Fox’s protests—for Mr. Fox wanted a well-known movie player—Frank Powell selected the unknown Theda from among the extras to play Mr. Kipling’s famous lady in “A Fool There Was,” because she was a strange-looking person who wore queer earrings and dresses made of odd tapestry cloths. The picture made William Fox his first big money in the movies, and established his place in the motion picture world.