Even the triumph which I have just chronicled was doomed to only a partial realisation. I could not anticipate, of course, on that Summer day when, riding from Berlin to Paris, I counted up my thousands, that in a few short weeks a bomb would explode in Sarajevo which would change the map and the psychology and the industrial conditions of the whole world. And I certainly could not foresee, therefore, the broken contracts and the difficulty of obtaining ships to fulfil contracts which followed the declaration of war.
While in Europe I was constantly on the lookout for actors, and one of the results of my search was Edna Goodrich. Miss Goodrich had three assets at this time. She was beautiful; she had created a sensation on the London stage, and she had recently joined the famous recessional of wives of the late Nat Goodwin. Eventually Miss Goodrich made a picture for us at five thousand dollars, with the understanding that if it were successful we should have the first option on her second venture.
Too bad for Miss Goodrich! Too bad for the Lasky Company! Almost the minute De Mille started to work with her he wired me, “Goodrich too cold.”
In the film world this is an epitaph. Nor did Miss Goodrich live down her obituary. Time refused to thaw her, and I was then initiated into the profound truth that many an actress whom individuality of voice and beauty of colouring render glowing on the stage are absolutely calcimined by the camera.
However, my interview with Miss Goodrich resulted profitably in another way. While dining with her at the Carlton in London I was introduced to a tall, broad-shouldered, manly-looking chap with a mop of chestnut-brown curls. From the moment that I saw him I was struck with Tommy Meighan’s possibilities for the screen, and when he came to America I wired Lasky to look him over. We engaged him, and Tommy went to California to make his first picture, “The Fighting Hope.”
“Tommy no good”; this was the telephoned verdict which De Mille rendered after this initial performance. I was then in San Francisco, and when I arrived in Los Angeles the defendant got to me before the prosecutor.
“See here,” announced Tommy ruefully, “they say I’m no good around this place, so I guess I’ll clear out. The Universal has made me an offer, anyhow.”
“Do nothing of the sort,” I commanded. “Wait until I see your picture first.”
My view of that picture convinced me that our chief director’s opinion had been conceived too hastily. And the outcome of my intercession was a very distinct gain. A year or so planted this star on terra firma. To-day he is one of the most popular actors of the screen.
All this happened in 1914. The next year was one especially significant in motion-picture circles. Among the events contributing to its impressiveness was that Titanic conception of the silver-sheet, “The Birth of a Nation.” This Griffith picture which, by the way, was the first screen performance where two dollars a seat was asked, might also have been called “The Birth of Numerous Stars.” Mae Marsh, the Gish girls, perhaps a dozen luminaries who have since flashed across the public consciousness, owe their success to parts in the giant canvas.