A desert caravan of the early days.
(See [p. 197])
From “The Last Drop of Water,” one of the first two-reelers, produced in San Fernando desert, with Jeanie Macpherson (seated, front row).
(See [p. 197])
The Griffiths were not the only thrifty ones. When Mary Pickford was getting one hundred a week, her mother wept because she wouldn’t buy pretty clothes. At Mount Beacon this happened. One of the perky little ingénue-ish extra girls appeared in a frock decidedly not home-made. You could count on it that it had come either from Macy’s or Siegel-Cooper’s Eighteenth Street store, and that it had cost a whole week’s wages. Not much escaped Ma Smith’s eagle eye, and so she wailed: “I wish Mary would buy clothes like the other girls.” But Mary, the same simple, unaffected Mary that a year since had said “thank you” for her twenty-five, was quite contented to continue wearing the clothes her mama made her, and at that a few would do.
Mabel Normand with Lee Dougherty, Jr., “off duty.”
(See [p. 204])
A few years after this time I met Mary in Macy’s one summer day and hardly recognized her. She had grown thin and had acquired style. I admired her smart costume and said: “Nice suit, Mary, I’m looking for one. Mind telling me where you found it?” But Mary, with a note of boredom, so unlike the Mary I’d known, answered: “Oh, my aunt brought me six from Paris.”