Life and Lillian Gish (1932)

"Her First False Step" 41 The heroine in "Her First False Step" was a tall, handsome woman, Helen Ray. Lillian and Dorothy played her two little girls. In one scene Dorothy and her "mother" are out in the snow, as Lillian rushes in, to find them. She has a lollypop for Dorothy, who claps her hands with joy while Lillian kneels by Miss Ray, saying: "Oh, mother, what are you doing out here in the cold snow?" Often it was cold enough, too. The air, not the snow. The latter was swept up every night, to be used at the next performance. Sometimes other things were swept up with it, and were likely to hit them on the head — nails, bits of wood, a little dry mouse. A real romance goes with the "False Step" season — one with a "happy-ever-after" ending. In one of the larger towns, a young actor from another company came to a matinee and was much struck by the beauty of Helen Ray, whom he had never met. That night he managed to come again, and next day at rehearsal time was lingering around the stage entrance. Dorothy, with a beloved Teddybear, was playing just outside. He struck up an acquaintance with her, and was invited in, to see her other possessions. A very few minutes later he had met Helen Ray. When the season had ended, they were married. At last accounts they were still married — and happy — after more than twenty-five years. Lillian and Dorothy, at the theatre before the others, had diversions of their own. Both dearly loved lemonsticks, especially if oranges went with them. To suck orange juice through a lemon stick was pure delight. They would run across the dressing-room and jam their oranges against the wall. In a corner of the first-act-set, they would set up a