Mabel Trunelle had a rather crowded hour at the Biograph. She had had considerable experience at the Edison studio and was well equipped in movie technique. She had come on recommendation of her husband, Herbert Pryor, and she succeeded, even though a wife—which was unusual, for wives of the good actors were not popular around the studio. If an actor wanted to keep on the right side of the director, he left his wife at home; that meant a sacrifice often enough, for there were times without number when women were needed and a wife could have been used and the five dollars kept in the family, but the majority preferred not to risk it. Dell Henderson and George Nichols succeeded quite well with this “wife” business, but they seem to have been the only ones besides Mr. Pryor.
Florence Barker, a good trouper who had had stock experience in Los Angeles, her home town, now happened along to enjoy popularity, and to become Frank Powell’s leading woman. Through her Eleanor Kershaw, sister to Willette, and wife to the late Thomas H. Ince, happened to come to the Biograph.
Quite the most pathetic figure at the studio was Eleanor Kershaw Ince. In deep mourning for her mother who had just been killed in an accident, and all alone, with a tiny baby at home, she put in brave hours for her little five-dollar bills. When six o’clock came and her work was not finished, how she fretted about her little one. That baby, Tom Ince’s eldest child “Billy,” is now a husky lad and he probably doesn’t know how we all worried over him then. Miss Kershaw played sad little persons such as the maid in “The Course of True Love,” flower girls, and match girls, in wispy clothes, on cold November days, offering their wares on the streets of Coytesville and Fort Lee.
There was the blond and lily-like Blanche Sweet, an undeveloped child too young to play sweethearts and wives, but a good type for the more insignificant parts, such as maids and daughters. David wanted to use her this first winter in a picture called “Choosing a Husband,” so he tried her out, but finding her so utterly unemotional, he dismissed her saying, “Oh, she’s terrible.” Then he tried Miss Barker and had her play the part. But he directed Miss Sweet in her first picture, “All on Account of a Cold.”
Mr. Powell liked Miss Sweet’s work, and so did Doc, and so Mr. Powell used her in the first picture he directed, “All on Account of the Milk.” Mr. Powell was rehearsing in the basement of No. 11 while Mr. Griffith was doing the same upstairs. Mary Pickford played the daughter and Blanche Sweet, the maid, and in the picture they change places.
On the back porch of a little farmhouse a rendezvous takes place with the milkman. It was bitterly cold, and even though the girls wore woolen dresses under their cotton aprons, they looked like frozen turnips. The scenes being of tense love, the girls were supposed to be divinely rapturous and to show no discomfort—not even know it was winter. But the breathing was a different matter, for as young Blanche uttered endearing words to her lover, a white cloud issued from her mouth. Now that would look dreadful on the screen. So in the nervousness of the situation Mr. Powell yelled at her, “Stop talking, just look at him, this is supposed to be summer.” She obeyed, when from her delicate nostrils came a similar white line of frosted breath at which the director, now wholly beside himself, yelled, “Stop breathing, what kind of a picture do you think this will be, anyhow.” So little Blanche proceeded to strangle for a few moments while we secured a few feet of summer.
In “The Day After”—four hundred and sixty feet of a New Year’s party picture, showing what a youngster she was, Blanche Sweet played Cupid.
Kate Bruce had become the leading character woman. Little Christie Miller, frail, white, and bent, played the kindly old men, while Vernon Clarges interpreted the more pompous, distinguished elderly ones. Daddy Butler was mostly just a nice kind papa, and George Nichols played a diversified range of parts—monks, rugged Westerners, and such. George Nichols had been a member of the old Alcazar and Central Theatres in San Francisco, where Mr. Griffith in his stranded actor days had worked.
Of the children, little Gladys Egan did remarkable work playing many dramatic leading parts. Her performance in “The Broken Doll” should be recorded here. Adele de Garde was another nine-year-old child wonder. These children were not comiques. They were tragediennes and how they could tear a passion to tatters! The Wolff children sufficed well in infantile rôles. Their mother kept a dramatic agency for children.
Boys were little in demand, and as Mary Pickford usually had her family handy, we came to use little Jack—he was at this time nine years old. He created quite a stir about the old A. B. He even managed to make himself the topic of conversation at lunch time and other off-duty hours. “Had he a future like sister Mary?” We were even then ready to grant Mary a future.