We were also inundated with all manner of business propositions involving books, clothes, candles, toys, cigarettes and toothpaste. Also stacks upon stacks of increasing fanmail became a problem. Sydney insisted that it should all be answered, in spite of the expense of having to engage an extra secretary.
Sydney spoke to Anderson about selling my pictures separately from the rest of the routine product. It did not seem fair that the exhibitors should make all the money. Even though Essanay were selling hundreds of copies of my films, they were selling them along old-fashioned lines of distribution. Sydney suggested scaling the larger theatres according to their seating capacity. With this plan each film could increase the receipts to a hundred thousand dollars or more. Anderson thought this was impossible; it would butt up against the policy of the whole Motion Picture Trust, involving sixteen thousand theatres, whose rules and methods of buying pictures were irrevocable; few exhibitors would pay such terms.
Later the Motion Picture Herald announced that the Essanay Company had discarded its old method of selling and, as Sydney had suggested, was scaling its terms according to the seating capacity of a theatre. This, as Sydney said it would, upped the receipts a hundred thousand dollars on each of my comedies. This news made me prick up my ears. Getting only twelve hundred and fifty dollars a week and doing all the work of writing, acting and directing, I began to complain that I was working too hard and that I needed more time to make my pictures. I had a year’s contract and had been turning out comedies every two to three weeks. Action soon came from Chicago; Spoor hopped a train to Los Angeles and as an extra inducement made an agreement to give me a ten-thousand-dollar bonus with each picture. With this stimulus my health improved.
About this time D. W. Griffith produced his epic, The Birth of a Nation, which made him the outstanding director of motion pictures. He undoubtedly was a genius of the silent cinema. Though his work was melodramatic and at times outré and absurd, Griffith’s pictures had an original touch that made each one worth seeing.
De Mille started with great promise with The Whispering Chorus and a version of Carmen, but after Male and Female his work never went beyond the chemise and the boudoir. Nevertheless, I was so impressed with his Carmen that I made a two-reel burlesque of it, my last film with Essanay. After I had left them they put in all the cut-outs and extended it to four reels, which prostrated me and sent me to bed for two days. Although this was a dishonest act, it rendered a service, for thereafter I had it stipulated in every contract that there should be no mutilating, extending or interfering with my finished work.
The approaching end of my contract brought Spoor back to the coast with a proposition, he said, that no one could match. He would give me three hundred and fifty thousand dollars if I delivered him twelve two-reel pictures, he to pay the cost of production. I told him that on signing any contract I wanted one hundred and fifty thousand dollars’ bonus plonked down first. This terminated any further talks with Spoor.
The future, the future – the wonderful future! Where was it leading? The prospects were dazzling. Like an avalanche, money and success came with increasing momentum; it was all bewildering, frightening – but wonderful.
*
While Sydney was in New York reviewing various offers, I was completing the filming of Carmen and living at Santa Monica in a house facing the sea. Some evenings I dined at Nat Goodwin’s Café at the end of Santa Monica pier. Nat Goodwin was considered the greatest actor and light comedian on the American stage. He had had a brilliant career both as a Shakespearian actor and a modern light comedian. He had been a close friend of Sir Henry Irving, and had married eight times, each wife celebrated for her beauty. His fifth wife was Maxine Elliott, whom he whimsically referred to as ‘the Roman Senator’. ‘But she was beautiful and remarkably intelligent,’ he said. He was an amiable cultured man, advanced in years, with a profound sense of humour; and now he had retired. Although I had never seen him on the stage, I very much revered him and his great reputation.
We became very good friends and in the chill autumn evenings we would walk along the deserted ocean front together. The drear melancholy atmosphere accentuated a glow to my inner excitement. When he heard that I was going to New York at the completion of my picture, he gave me some excellent advice. ‘You’ve made a remarkable success, and there’s a wonderful life ahead of you if you know how to handle yourself.… When you get to New York keep off Broadway, keep out of the public’s eye. The mistake with many successful actors is that they want to be seen and admired – it only destroys the illusion.’ His voice was deep and resonant. ‘You’ll be invited everywhere,’ he continued,’ but don’t accept. Pick out one or two friends and be satisfied to imagine the rest. Many a great actor has made the mistake of accepting every social invitation. John Drew was an example; he was a great favourite with society and went to all their houses, but they would not go to his theatre. They had had him in their drawing-rooms. You’ve captivated the world, and you can continue doing so if you stand outside it,’ he said wistfully.
They were wonderful talks, rather sad, as we walked in the
