“That’s it, that’s the one. I’ll never forget that picture.”
“As I remember, it was considered quite a masterpiece.”
The fishing village of Santa Monica was the locale of this story. At this time there was but a handful of little shacks beyond the pier, places rented for almost nothing by poor, health-seeking Easteners. No pretentious Ince studio as yet meandered along the cliffs some nine miles beyond. The road ran through wild country on to Jack Rabbit Lodge where a squatter had a shack that tourists visited occasionally and for twenty-five cents were shown an old Indian burial ground.
The only fellow movie actors we met this first winter in Los Angeles were two members of the Kalem Company, beautiful Alice Joyce and handsome Carlyle Blackwell, who often on fine mornings trotted their horses over Santa Monica’s wet sands.
Occasionally, we met Nat Goodwin, who had cantered all the way from his home in Venice-by-the-Sea.
CHAPTER XXI
BACK HOME AGAIN
Now we must pack up our troubles in our little black bag and go home. They must be lonesome for us at 11 East Fourteenth, for the studio has been dark and silent in our absence. Mr. Dougherty especially will be glad to see us. And others—the jobless actors. For things were coming along now so that Mr. Griffith didn’t have to dig so hard for new talent.
Much talk there’ll be about the pictures we did—how the public is receiving them—which ones are most popular—how worthwhile the trip was—how economical we were—and how hard we worked.
When once again we had donned our working harness, how stuffy and cramped the studio seemed! Four months in the open had ruined us; four months with only a white sheet suspended above our heads when we did “interiors” on our lot and the sun was too strong. We felt now like toadstools in a dark cellar, with neither sun nor fresh air.
There was so much to keep Mr. Griffith busy—cutting and titling of pictures, and conferences upstairs. But the blossoming pink and white apple orchards must be heeded, so we deserted a few days, hied ourselves to New Jersey’s old stone houses and fruit trees and friendly hens, and did a picture “In the Season of Buds.”