When the movies were young (1925)

174 When the Movies were Young Dorothy West played a leading part in "A Child of the Ghetto," in which was featured more Eastern atmosphere— the old oaken bucket. For a time we stayed indoors. We acquired a new actor, Joseph Graybill, and a few old ones returned, Vernon Clarges and Mrs. Grace Henderson, Jim Kirkwood and Gertrude Robinson. They now played leading parts. The public must not get fed up with the same old faces — Mr. Griffith always saw to that — so it was "go easy" on the California actors for a while. The feeling of the old actors towards the new ones, this spring, was largely a jealous one. "Gee, Griff likes him all right, what are we going to do about it?" said Charlie West and Arthur Johnson when Joe Graybill was having his first rehearsals and the director was beaming with satisfaction and so happy that he was singing lusty arias from "Rigoletto." "We'll fix him," they decided. So this day Charlie and Arthur returned from lunch with a small brown bottle containing spiritous liquor, with which they would ply Joe Graybill surreptitiously in the men's dressing-room in the hope that they might incapacitate him. But Joe drank up, rehearsed, and Mr. Griffith's smile only grew broader. Better than ever was the rehearsal. So Charles went out for another little brown bottle and Joe disposed of it, and rehearsed — better still. Another bottle, another rehearsal — better than ever — until in a blaze of glory the scene was taken and Joe Graybill stood upon the topmost rung of the ladder, leaving Charles and Arthur gazing sadly upward. There was another reason why Mr. Griffith welcomed new faces. He had a way of not letting an actor get all