When the movies were young (1925)

Movie Acting Days— and an "if" 43 has been so uncertain, one doesn't make without heart searchings and long councils of war. So we argued, in a friendly way. Said he: "If I turn this job down, and appear to be so busy, they soon won't send for me at all. Of course, if this movie tiling is going to last and amount to anything, if anybody could tell you anything about it, we could afford to take chances. In one way it is very nice. You can stay in New York, and if I can find time to write too — fine ! But you know you can't go on forever and not tell your friends and relatives how you are earning your living." Then said she: "How long is Peake's Island going to last? What's sure about summer stock? What does Peake's Island mean to David Belasco or Charles Frohman? We've got this little flat here, with our very own twenty dollars' worth of second-hand furniture, and the rent's so low — twenty. You don't know what's going to happen down at the Biograph, you might get to direct some day. Let's stick the summer out anyhow, and when fall comes and productions open up again, we'll see, huh?" So we put Peake's Island behind us. Now it is as sure as shooting, if "Lawrence" Griffith had accepted the offer to play stock that summer he never would have become the David W. Griffith of the movies. Had he stepped out then, some one else surely would have stepped in and filled his little place ; and the chances are he would never have gone back to those queer movies. Of course, now we know that even in so short a time this movie business had gotten under his skin. David Griffith had tasted blood — cinema blood. And the call to stay, that was heard and obeyed when Peake's Island threatened to disrupt the scheme of things, was the same