The Girls in the Picture

by Melanie Benjamin

  “It looks fascinating.” I couldn’t help myself; I had to look at the strip of film hanging out. It was translucent, full of ghostly images. Square after square of images that, when all played together, told a story. “To mold your performance, to, to touch it with your own hands—what a thrill that must be. I can’t even imagine.”

  Miss Pickford looked surprised. “It is—I love it, which is why I don’t mind the work! When you find what you’re meant to do, it doesn’t seem all that hard. It’s my life, these pictures. I don’t know anything else. It doesn’t leave me time for many friends, for one thing.” Again, a penetrating look—a challenge, perhaps?

  Or an invitation?

  “I was told you don’t like outsiders.” I decided to speak plainly; I sensed this was a moment of truth—or at least a moment that required truth.

  “I—well, it’s hard to explain.” Miss Pickford hesitated, apparently deciding whether or not to do so. Finally, she shrugged. “You see, the work is all I know and want to talk about. But not many people—outsiders—really understand. They may think they do, just because they’ve seen me on-screen. But they don’t.”

  “I think I see. When you’re that—feverish—about something, you only want to be around people who have the same disease. But it’s not a disease, it’s a privilege. I envy you, actually. I haven’t found anything like that yet. It’s what I—I think it’s what I came here to find today, maybe. I didn’t really want to sketch you—oh, I mean, I’d love to! But I was hoping for something more. Someone to tell me what to do, I suppose.” Ashamed of my unasked-for confession, I tried to laugh. Even to me, it sounded forced.

  “Do you want to be an actress?” A frosty glint in those startling eyes.

  “Oh, no! Lord, no—not me. But I would love to be able to find my passion, and I’ve thought—I’ve begun to hope—it would be in the flickers—the movies. It’s just so exciting, so—raw and new!” Tears sprang to my eyes and my heart was near to flying out of my chest, it was leaping so wildly—hopefully. But I took a deep breath and reined in my enthusiasm. She must surely be asked a thousand times a day how to get into movies. I was not going to behave like everybody else; I had too high of an opinion of myself. And of Mary Pickford.

  “I won’t take any more of your time, Miss Pickford, for I know you’re busy.” I held out my hand, professional and cool once more. “If you’d like me to sketch you, or if you have any other work you might like me to do, you can reach me at the Morosco Theater Company.”

  Then Mary Pickford surprised me. With a grin—a sly, worldly grin, very unlike the sunny beam she used in her movies—she said, “That sounds lovely. I have to go back to New York after this picture is finished, but I suspect I’ll be back in California soon. Perhaps I’ll look you up then?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble.” It wasn’t even a promise, only a question; still, it was more than I’d hoped to hear. I shook Miss Pickford’s hand with far more enthusiasm than was necessary, and opened the door, allowing all the hustle and bustle to invade this quiet little sanctuary.

  “Miss Marion—Frances?”

  I turned back.

  “Please, call me Mary.”

  Miss Pickford was blushing and staring at her shoes, and suddenly she looked frighteningly young. Then she gave a defiant little toss of her head, a gesture familiar to me from her movies—as if she’d forgotten that her saucy curls weren’t bouncing about her shoulders but were held captive by that ridiculous turban. As competent a woman as Mary Pickford obviously was—I was still rather stunned to see her working that dangerous-looking cutting machine without fear, and wondered how old she really was—there was something about this fragile-looking creature…I suddenly longed to wrap my arms about her and protect her from people. Especially from people like Owen Moore.

  “You know, I’m married, too.” I didn’t know why I said it, only that I sensed Mary Pickford’s life wasn’t as glamorous as I had assumed. “Or I was. I’m almost divorced now.”

  She was silent.

  “It’s challenging, isn’t it, being married?” I babbled on. “Especially if you were married young, before you knew better.”

  “Yes, it is.” That was all she said, and I was certain I had overstepped the invisible, yet plainly obvious boundaries this petite actress had constructed around herself. I turned to walk away, into the chaos of the studio, but before I could take two steps I heard a quiet “I don’t think you’re an outsider, Frances Marion.”

  Stunned, I spun around. Mary grinned, waved; I did the same. Then the door shut again and that whirring sound started up.

  I knew that I had a goofy smile on my face but didn’t care as I tried to find my way back to the entrance. All of a sudden, that young man appeared out of nowhere again—almost as if he’d been watching the cutting room the entire time, as if he were Mary Pickford’s personal guard dog.

  “Say, that’s the longest Mary’s ever spent with anyone that I know of. Except for her mother, of course. Mary never even spends that much time with her husband, if you may pardon the expression.” The boy’s darkly handsome Irish face grimaced at the mention of Owen Moore.

  “I can quite understand that.” I shivered with distaste.

  The young man suddenly grinned and thrust out a grimy hand. “Mickey Neilan.”

  “Marion Bens—I mean, Frances Marion.”

  “Seems like we know everything we need to know about each other.” Mickey Neilan shook my hand briskly. “We both like Mary. And we both hate Owen.”

  “That about sums it up,” I agreed, grinning right back at him.

  “Well, I hope you stick around, Frances Marion. I think Tad—that’s what I call her, ’cause she’s no bigger than a tadpole—needs someone like you. She won’t listen to an Irish mug like me. See you later!” With a jaunty salute, Mickey Neilan pivoted on his heel and bounded off.

  “Yes! See you later!” I waved as he disappeared around a corner. Then I smiled again, that same goofy smile.

  Mary Pickford had liked me! Oh, it was absurd—I was no stage-struck youth—but still I felt a warm glow of being picked out, chosen. Mary Pickford had decreed it: I was no longer an outsider. I was no longer a sleepwalker, waiting for my life to begin.

  Somewhere off in the shadows of the studio, a popular song was being scratched by a gramophone and I didn’t care who heard me; I began to sing along.

  “Aba daba daba daba daba daba dab, Said the chimpie to the monk; Baba daba daba daba daba daba dab, Said the monkey to the chimp.”

  Pushing the front door open, I marched out into the bright sun, white with heat this time of day. I slipped off my jacket and felt light, unencumbered; now I was glad I’d left that enormous sketch folder behind.

  Because without it, I was free to skip and dance and sing. And for the first time since arriving in Los Angeles, my dancing feet knew exactly where to take me.

  Mama, I made a friend!

  The first time Gladys had said this, she’d been three, and the friend a dog, a mangy mutt Charlotte banished as soon as she took one look at it.

  The second time, Gladys was eight, and the friend a little girl who had come backstage at a matinee, shy and lovely, carrying a fur muff in one hand, her other hand gripped by a starched governess who announced, “Miss Josephine wanted to meet the little girl who played Aurora.” And Gladys Smith—the little girl who played Aurora—had smiled her best, biggest smile, the one Mama told her to use with producers and directors, and curtsied, then held out her hand. Miss Josephine touched it, very daintily, and she smiled. “I think you’re very pretty,” she whispered to Gladys, reaching out to pet one of Gladys’s golden curls. “Can I invite you to my birthday party?”

  Gladys had forced herself not to squeal and clap her hands, which she knew instinctively would have made Miss Josephine regret having invited her. Somehow, Gladys understood she must act as if she might not come; she had to act as if she would be bestowing a favor if she did; as if she were invited to so many
birthday parties daily, she simply couldn’t begin to choose.

  But, oh! The truth was, Gladys had never been invited to a birthday party before, and when, after Miss Josephine bade her a timid farewell, Charlotte arrived to take her back home, Gladys couldn’t contain her enthusiasm.

  “Mama, I made a friend! Miss Josephine! She came backstage to meet me after the show. And she’s going to invite me to her birthday party! May I go? What shall I wear? I don’t have anything nice enough but perhaps I can borrow my costume?”

  Charlotte hadn’t said a word; she’d only looked down at her daughter with unconcealed pity, which Gladys couldn’t understand. Why did Mama look so sad? She’d made a friend, finally! A girl her own age, not her sister, not her brother, not one of the actors in the company, but a real little girl, who was going to invite her to a party! And Gladys wondered what a party was like; she’d been in one onstage, in the last play, and the child actors had all pretended to eat cake, and been told to blow whistles when the lead actress entered the scene, and there had been boxes wrapped in brightly colored paper, which were supposed to be gifts, but once Gladys had unwrapped one of them between the matinee and the evening show, and she’d found the box was tragically empty.

  That was the extent of her experience.

  Likely, a real party had real gifts and real ice cream, and a cake not made of cardboard. Likely, a real party had real children who didn’t laugh only on cue. Likely, a real party had elephants and tinsel and stars hanging from the ceiling, and everyone laughed the entire time and they played games and ate candy and came home with bags full of stardust to remind them of how beautiful it all had been.

  Gladys waited and waited for the invitation—for Mama said that’s how people were properly asked to parties, by written invitation, but she said it guardedly, as if she knew a secret Gladys did not. Which was odd, because Mama and she had promised never to keep secrets from each other. They had to be the strong ones and protect Jack and Lottie, and take care of them. Every week that she was playing, Gladys was thrilled to hand over her salary to Mama, who put it in a soft cloth pouch that she tied around her neck, and sometimes she’d shake her head so that Gladys could hear the clink of the coins. “That’s music to our ears, isn’t it, love?” Mama’d ask with a smile meant just for her. A conspiratorial smile, one that Jack and Lottie never saw.

  But the invitation never came. Impatiently, Gladys waited after every matinee, two weeks straight, for Miss Josephine to return and invite her in person, to tell her where the party was, what time she should be there. But she never saw Miss Josephine again.

  Finally, Charlotte sat her down. Mama’s blue eyes—wide and shrewd—hardened, after she first wiped away a surprising tear; surprising, for Gladys hadn’t ever seen Mama cry, not even when Papa died and she herself had wept until she made herself sick. What would they do, without Papa? Even though Gladys was only six, she was terrified; she understood that unprotected women and children didn’t have a chance in the world. That was when Mama and she decided that Gladys would try her hand at acting, in order to keep the family together.

  Mama’s mouth set itself in a determined line before she began to talk.

  “Gladys, your friend isn’t going to invite you to her party. She’s not your friend at all, I’m sorry to say. She is a spoiled brat whose nurse took her to a play, probably without her parents’ permission. I know the kind. They’ll not want their daughter to have anything to do with us—with you—because we’re poor, and you’re on the stage. Because you’re an actress. But don’t ever forget that being an actress is a privilege, a rare thing to be. You’re providing for your family. You’re continuing a noble profession. Still, there are rules about people like us. Real society, they don’t want to have anything to do with us, except to let us pour our hearts out onstage, make them laugh and cry and live, just for a bit. Until they go home to their marble palaces and, if they think of us at all, they think of us as servants. As dogs, even. Less than that. To hell with them, is what I say—but you’re only a child, Gladys. And I’m sorry you had to learn this so young.”

  “But—but—Miss Josephine wanted me to come! She asked! She was shy around me.” Gladys struggled to keep her voice from wobbling; she wouldn’t make Mama feel sad for her by crying. Mama had it so hard, really; even though Gladys was the one who earned the money, Mama was the one who had to stretch it out, keep a roof over their heads, food in their mouths. Sometimes Gladys did wish she could stay home and play, like Lottie and Jack did, but she always reminded herself that she was the lucky one, because it was her privilege to take care of them all. And one day, she would be a star—the biggest star of all!

  Jack and Lottie never would be that. Gladys hugged this knowledge to herself, and it kept her warm on lonely nights when Jack and Lottie huddled in their shared bed and whispered secrets about the other children they played with. Real children, not actors. Children like Miss Josephine.

  “But she didn’t really want to be your friend,” Mama continued, pretending she hadn’t heard Gladys’s voice wobble. “Miss Josephine only admired you because you were onstage. And that’s not the same thing, not at all. Even if she did want to be your friend, her parents would never let her.”

  “I hate her, then!” And Gladys meant it; if Miss Josephine had been there, she would have slapped her silly. And not a stage slap, either.

  “No, you don’t. Don’t forget, people like Miss Josephine make it possible for you to keep acting. As long as they show up, you’ll work. Don’t ever forget that you need them more than they need you. You remember that, precious, and you’ll work for life and we’ll always be together and happy.”

  “But I want—I want—”

  But Gladys wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted, other than to make Miss Josephine cry and feel sorry for not inviting her. But she also wanted to make her come to Gladys’s next play, and the next after that. And also, most important, she wanted Miss Josephine to admire her, to want to be her, Gladys, even if Mama didn’t think that was the same thing as friendship. But perhaps friendship wasn’t that important after all. She did still have Mama and Lottie and Jack.

  Gladys couldn’t articulate any of this; her dreams of a real party came crashing down around her tiny shoulders right then, and she did want to cry, very much. But she saved her tears for later. For when she might need them; perhaps in a role where she was supposed to cry on cue.

  —

  Mama, I made a friend!

  Gladys was thirteen now; she’d been on the stage for five years, ever since she was eight (even though she always told people she’d started out when she was five; five sounded better than eight). But she felt as if she’d started that young; she felt as if she’d never known a life before. A life that didn’t mean firetrap theaters and smelly greasepaint and threadbare costumes she had to try so very hard not to grow out of, or split, or spill anything on, because without her own wardrobe, she’d never be hired by the second- (or third-) rate touring companies with which she had the best chances. A life that didn’t mean lining her clothing with newspapers in the winter while on tour, because trains were so drafty; a life that didn’t include sleeping upright on those trains, using more newspapers as pillows, waking up covered in newsprint and coal dust. A life that didn’t mean traveling without her family, all alone, entrusted to the care of indifferent actresses who sometimes forgot to make sure she ate. But sometimes she did get to travel with them all, because the entire Smith clan was on the stage now, Mama and Lottie and even Jack, the very smallest of them all so sometimes he played a girl, which he hated, but Gladys made it her business to lecture him about not throwing tantrums, about being happy for a job, any job. Because jobs were scarce, and even though the Smiths worked fairly regularly, they were small-time, Gladys knew it. Try as they might, they’d never been able to break into the first tier; they had to tour, always, all over the United States and Canada, playing in terrible theaters, all bunking together in flea-ridden boardinghouses, M
ama, exhausted after a performance, managing to scrape together meals on a hot plate when times were good; feeding her brood crackers for breakfast, lunch, and dinner when times weren’t. Learning to make soup out of catsup and water.

  The Smiths were spending the summer of 1904 in Manhattan, which they had done before; of course, nobody played during the summer, when the theaters were stifling. So Mama took in sewing, and that summer she opened a candy stand at Coney Island. And they tried to pool their resources with other players whenever they could.

  “Mama! I made a friend! A little girl like me, her name is Lillian, and she and her mother and her sister, Dorothy, are in the theater, too, and looking for a place to stay this summer. We can all room together and save money,” Gladys explained to Mama.

  Gladys often explained things to Mama, and to Lottie and to Jack; she was the father of the family, and she had to help Mama out and keep the others in line. And she also knew things they didn’t: She knew how to get free tickets for real plays by sidling up to the box office manager, widening her eyes, batting her lashes, handing him her card, and purring, “I’m just sure that I could learn so much from your fine actors!”

  The first time she led Jack, Lottie, and Lillian and Dorothy Gish on such a foray, Lillian turned to her and gave her a look, an admiring, appraising look. And Gladys understood that perhaps here was a friend, a real friend, not someone who would show up backstage to invite her to a party and then never come back. It was difficult to make friends while touring; companies were constantly being broken up as some actors got better jobs, or finally decided to give up and go back home, wherever home was.

  And while she might not see Lillian and Dorothy again—a fate she accepted pragmatically, because that was life on the road—she enjoyed the summer they spent together. Lillian was very much like Gladys; at thirteen, they were the eldest, with frivolous younger siblings who preferred to cut up and play around rather than work. Lillian was close to her mother, too. And of course, she understood the theatrical life; she wasn’t an outsider, as Gladys had started to think of anyone who wasn’t in the theater, anyone who didn’t consider the smell of greasepaint just as vital as a cup of coffee to snap you awake. Anyone who didn’t understand the nuances of billing or the hierarchy of dressing room allotment, or who didn’t know that In Convict Stripes was a real stinker, but East Lynne always made audiences cry.