The House That Shadows Built (1928)

132 THE HOUSE THAT SHADOWS BUILT Gladys. Her golden hair, her soft blue eyes, her intelligence, and her amiability endeared her alike to audience and company. Within the year, all three Smith children were “trouping.” “ Smith” would not do for programmes and posters. So they borrowed a family name of an Irish ancestress and became Mary, Lottie, and Jack Pickford. There followed years of cheap theatrical boarding houses, of lessons learned and recited on trains, of crises in towns which enforced the labour laws against child actors, of ups and downs, until the accidents of the road led Mrs. Smith and her brood to the great theatrical mart in New York. There, by the bold device of invading the stage during a rehearsal, Mary got a child part in Belasco’s production. The Warrens of Virginia, and scored a modest hit. But child parts are scarce, and Mary had become chief breadwinner of the family. An experienced actress who had appeared under the great Belasco on Broadway would never have tainted her professional reputation with the moving pictures. But Mary was young, inexperienced. When the bank account began to shrink, she applied to Griffith for work. He gave her a “try out”; showed the developed film to his directors. They objected that her head was too large. “A good fault; that’s the organ we ought to do things with in this business,” Griffith replied. He cast her at once and realized within the first