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From under my Hat
before they could be lowered to terra firma. I'd seen plenty of actresses up in the air, but that was the first time I'd seen thirty of them flutter on wires.
In making scenes, Griffith worked directly from the Bible. He was meticulous about the effect he wanted for the Crucifixion of Christ and waited for foggy days. There were no fog-making machines then.
I remember Griffith, overtired by long hours of trying for perfection, ordering a break and calling for hot tea. The actors who portrayed Christ and the two thieves had been on their crosses four hours without a rest.
"Lower Christ too," said Griffith.
"What about my brothers who play the thieves?" said an actor.
"Lower the thieves too. Get tea for the whole company."
D. W. Griffith was the father of our industry. Many men have tried to claim the title since, but it was due to Griffith that Hollywood grew great. He was one of the great pioneers of the business in developing screen technique, but his cameraman Billy Bitzer, and not Griffith, as is so widely supposed, invented the close-up.
After giving us Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Way Down East, Orphans of the Storm, and Broken Blossoms, Griffith started to grow old, and upstart producers said his usefulness was at an end. In his latter years he lived at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood. Griffith didn't need money; he needed a job to uphold his pride. There was nothing left for him to do in the art form he had largely perfected. He wandered around Beverly Hills and Hollywood, drinking in one tavern, then going on to the next bar. Several times I saw him almost struck by passing cars.
I went to several bigwigs in the business. "You must find something for that man to do; give him back his faith in life."
"What could he do?" they asked me. They had the face to ask that question! "The industry has passed him by!" Passed by the man who made it possible for every one of them to be where they were! In Hollywood gratitude is Public Enemy Number One.
Frances Marion tells a heart-stopping story of passing Grauman's
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