Photoplay (May 1921)

34 PhQtoplay Magazine has long since learned the soullessness of luxury and \\ h()se e\ es have seen down the long vista of years } et to be li\ ed. I am sure she would ratlier have had that sunset window than the most elegant suite at the Alexandria. I know — as part of the short but crowded history of motion pictures — the story of Florence Lawrence. I know that she was the first motion picture star, the idol of the thousands wlio first answered to the lure of the screen. I know that onl\the brief span of ten or twelve years ago she was "The Biograph Girl," photographed, sought after, mar\elled over, adored. I know that she was the first D. \V. Griffith star — the girl who made all the famous two reel pictures for "The Imp" and for the Victor film company, "in the beginning." Only the day before I went to see her, that splendid actor and fine director, Jim Kirkwood, said to me: "Florence Lawrence was one of the finest screen actresses that ever li\ ed. If she's as good now as she was ten years ago you can discount the 'ad\ance in motion picture art' and bet she'll gi\e some of the newcomers a run for their money. She's a great artist." I had never seen her, and I pictured a rather wordly woman, returning to the screen after her long absence with some condescension, backed securely by millions of St. Louis money, a woman perhaps a bit passe, but assured, self-confident, triuni])hant. But I had not counted upon the long, harrowing months of illness— brought about by a fall through a burning building while she was making her last ])icture — nor upon the years of quiet retirement this illness necessitated, nor upon the sad death of her husband, her present strangeness amid changed conditions, the mental and physical strain of actually beginning all over again her fight for public fa\or, and the deep wound that was to cut her on finding how short, how very short, is the memory not only of the public but of fair-weather friends. If the old, oft-repeated theory is true that one must ha\e li\ed, suffered, in order to act — then Florence Lawrence returns to the screen with a boundless treasury. She showed me some poetry that she had written during the long, pain-racked, bed-ridden months — years — that she spent in her beautiful Jersey home — the home tiiat represents her sole reward for those >ears of ])ioneer labor. It was not good lK)etr\, but it brought tears to my eyes just the same. Little simple things called "Alone" and "My Hope" and "Heartbroken." Things that brougiit me a \ision of a light-hearted, triumphant girl, standing ten \ ears ago in a smaller way where Mary Pickford stands today, suddenly stranded in the marshy backwaters of life, stri\ing to express her heartbreak through an unfamiliar medium. She did not say so, but as we talked I gathered the impression that she had not desired to return to the screen. I am sure she shrank from the tremendous effort, from taking up the struggle against the great, new competition. She is wise, with the simple wisdom of experience, and she realizes that the strongest thing she has to fight is the stubborn, c\ nical belief of the world expressed in "They ne\ er come back." "Sometimes," she said smiling, "I think it is harder to 'come back' than to 'arri\e.' Peo])le do not like to have their beliefs disturbed." Nor did she tell me win she decided after all to make the \enture. But as she talked of her motiier, her husband's death, the years of terrific exjiense of doctors, nurses, tra\el, I suspected that the little fortune (for the films had not then reached the swollen fortunes of today) she had accumulated when she took America by storm as the first movie queen had dwindled until it seemed no longer an adequate barrier for two women alone in the world. Then, too, I believe she has a deep, sincere lo\ e of her work, that drew her when she found herself physically able to go on with it. "No one is e\er happy unless they ha\e their work to do," she said with cjuiet conviction, "I do not think I have forgotten much. They used to say I 'grew up with the industry.' But it has outgrown me now. It is like coming back to your old home to find it changed, and all your family and neighbors mo\ed away. But — screen acting is like swimming. If you once know how you never forget. I had a great schooling. But it takes a little courage to make the first i)lunge." When you come to think about it, it is rather a bra\e, soul-trying thing. She has returned to a land where once she ruled supreme, where her name was the magic word, to find herself an outsider, her place usuri)ed, her \ery name forgotten by gateinen at the studios. (Coiiliii iicd on fxii^c '>!' A remarkable "still of a scene from one of the early two-reelers directed by D. W. Grifiitli and starring Florence Lawrence. From left to ri(^ht in tKe first row, Tony O Sullivan, Floren "e Lawrence, Johnny Cumpson. first fat man of films, and Harry Myers. That's Little Mary Pickford just behind Miss Lawrence s left shoulder, with Dorothy Bernard, also a member of the supporting cast, at her right.