When the movies were young (1925)

Marking Time 213 gripped at the possibility of a new rival! Mr. Griffith was "getting it," and he wasn't going to stand for it, so emphatically he spoke, "Blanche, you know Gertie Bambrick," at which Blanche capitulated. "Little Mary" returned to Biograph. From "Imp," in the fall of 191 1 she had gone over to the Majestic, where she and Owen put in a brief season. Then back to Biograph she came, but without Owen. He went to Victor with Florence Lawrence. Mary Pick ford was now so firmly entrenched that she had no fear of bringing other little girls to the studio. And so, on her invitation, one day came a-visiting two sisters, one, decidedly demure; the other, decidedly not. Things were quiet in the theatre and Mary saw no reason why, when they could find a ready use for the money, her little friends shouldn't make five dollars now and then as well as the other extra people. Mr. Griffith rather liked the kids that Mary had brought — they were little and slinky. He liked the elder the better of the two, she was quiet and reserved. Dorothy was too forward. She even dared call the big director "a hooknosed kike," disregarding completely his pure Welsh descent. The little Gish sisters looked none too prosperous in mama's home-made dresses. I'll say for the stage mamas of the little Biograph girls that they did their bit. Mrs. Smith would sometimes make her child a new dress overnight, and Mary would walk in on a bright morning sporting a new pink frock of Hearn's best gingham, only to make Gertrude Robinson feel so orphaned, her mama seemingly the only one who had no acquaintance with a needle. Lillian and Dorothy Gish just melted right into the