The Girls in the Picture

by Melanie Benjamin

  I awoke later—how much time had passed? It was still dark, but the car was stopped, the general gone. The lieutenant remained in the driver’s seat.

  “What time is it?”

  “Twenty-three hundred. We’re in Luxembourg.”

  “Luxembourg!” I scrambled from the car, strangely refreshed, almost exhilarated. My stomach rumbled, and I decided to walk around, looking for a mess tent or canteen. After pushing my way through a tangle of uniforms—I scarcely heard their “Hey, watch it, girlie!” protests—I found a stall where a woman sold pitiful sandwiches, the contents of which I had no desire to inquire about. I bought two and wolfed them down, followed by a watery cup of coffee. Then I went off to find my crew.

  As I trudged from group to group, seeking a familiar face, I overheard two soldiers talking about an advance guard about to move across the Rhine, the first Allied forces to do so, while the rest of them hung back for a couple days. Advance guard! Without pausing to think it through, I ran back to the car just as my general—I laughed at myself for that, how absurd!—emerged from the hotel with the American flag posted in front, serving as headquarters.

  “Sir!” I saluted. General William Mitchell—I could read his insignia—saluted back with a grumpy sigh. “I hear there are troops crossing the Rhine? An advance guard?”

  “So?”

  “I’d like permission to accompany them.”

  General Mitchell sighed again.

  “Lieutenant Marion, I don’t approve of women in war. But since you’ve come this far on your own I’m not going to be the one to stop you from going farther. Permission granted. My aide, Major Brereton, is going on ahead. You can ride with him.” He gestured to a tall soldier standing a foot behind him, who scowled down at me, obviously longing to protest. But equally obviously reluctant to contradict his superior.

  “Thank you, sir!” Not hiding my grin, I saluted once more. Then I grabbed my bag from the back of the general’s car, and raced after Major Brereton—who was not slowing down for any mere female—as he strode to his own touring car. Without asking, I slid into the passenger seat beside him.

  “I don’t know why you dames are here,” the major grumbled in lieu of a greeting. “Look at you, in that uniform! What do you think you’re trying to prove?”

  “I’m not trying to prove anything.” For the first time since arriving in Europe more than a month ago, I allowed my anger—suppressed after weeks of putting up with insults—to flare. “I’m here because I wanted to do something for my country, the same as you.”

  “What exactly are you doing, Lieutenant Marion, if I might be so bold to ask?” The car was easing out onto another muddy road, heading northeast, and I realized I was about to cross into German territory for the first time. How thrilling! Astonishingly, I knew no fear; hadn’t I walked through my own valley of death earlier, on that nightmare road from Verdun, and survived?

  “I’m filming women. Telling women’s stories. Because their stories are just as important as the soldiers’. The nurses, the doctors, the aides, the telegraph operators. Without them, the Allies wouldn’t have had a chance.”

  “Filming?” The major glanced at me, and I realized my hands were empty. Where was my crew? I had no idea; as soon as I’d heard about the chance to cross the Rhine, I’d forgotten all about poor Harry and Wes. My only thought had been of the opportunity. Nevertheless, I was unrepentant. I’d never felt this strong and fearless before. Only hours earlier I’d been so terrified, so defeated, I’d believed that if I ever made it home again I’d never leave. And now here I was, tumbling toward the German army in a military car! No man had been able to prevent me and I felt as liberated as the Statue of Liberty—I might as well have been carrying a torch for freedom, the Allies; for women.

  “I couldn’t find my crew back in Luxembourg,” I lied.

  “So why are you going on?”

  “Well, because they might already have left.” But I knew they hadn’t, for our orders were to accompany the nurses and doctors. Not to speed ahead of all the Allied forces to be among the first to cross into the Rhineland.

  “I don’t understand you women,” Major Brereton muttered with a scowl. But he accepted the crumpled cigarette I handed him from my bag. “You don’t have to be here. Why would anyone in his—or her—right mind want to go to war, if they don’t have to? If I never see another battle in my life, I’ll be a happy man.”

  “You’re a major. Which means you weren’t drafted. Why are you in the military? You didn’t have to be.”

  “My father fought at San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt. My grandfather fought at Gettysburg. It’s a tradition.”

  “So you didn’t have a choice?”

  Major Brereton grunted. “Not really.”

  “Some people choose to serve. Some people want to be of use. Even women, you know. We don’t all like the idea of sitting home while our menfolk take care of all the difficult things in life.”

  “But we menfolk, as you call us, want to take care of those things. We want to take care of you.”

  “But not all women want to be taken care of, you see.”

  “No, I don’t see.” And the major shook his head, to emphasize his confusion. “I just don’t.”

  I bit my lip. I wasn’t going to argue with this man who, after all, was doing me a favor. I couldn’t spend the rest of this trip—or even the rest of my life—trying to argue with men like him. No, the only thing I could do was continue my career, live my life, and let my work speak for me.

  And praise the heavens that I was going to marry a man who didn’t expect me to sit at home and knit.

  Closing my eyes again—I really was exhausted, and every now and then the memory of my earlier chill would cause my limbs to involuntarily shudder—I slept. But not very long. For Major Brereton suddenly poked me in the shoulder and said, tersely, “Germany.”

  I opened my eyes. We were driving through a small village, as miraculously untouched by battle as Verdun had been decimated by it, the street lit up by blazing torches. But here there was the same menacing quiet. Villagers lined the street, all staring with pure hatred at our car with its little American flag fluttering on the hood. One hungry-looking child took a rock and flung it at us, and soon we were being pelted by rocks, clods of dirt, even a brick.

  Major Brereton swore, as I shrank back from the window. At the first sign of a back road, he took it, and we stayed off the main roads, even though we had to inch along through the dark. I did my best to navigate with a map full of strange German names, and we journeyed on.

  Finally, near dawn—the sky was pink past the tall trees—Major Brereton actually smiled.

  “We should be in Koblenz now. That must be the Rhine, up ahead.”

  Sitting up, I straightened my hair, still in a damp knot at the back of my head, and wondered again at this telltale female gesture. Why on earth did I care that I look my best now, of all times? In all places? But I did, and I decided not to fight it. I was a woman, after all. And being a woman—even a strong woman, even a suffragette, if that was indeed what I was—meant never apologizing for being feminine.

  I began to hear music, very faint, in the distance. Could there be some kind of carnival up ahead? But the notes grew clearer, louder, as we sped up and over a narrow stone bridge, and as I waved at the small, proud military band on the other side, I realized.

  They were playing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” I’d never been moved by it before, but I was now; my chest expanded and tears were flowing down my cheeks, and even as Major Brereton gaped at me, I wouldn’t apologize for crying, either. There was nothing weak in being moved to tears, especially after the night I’d just had.

  “Satisfied?” Major Brereton asked sarcastically as the car pulled to a stop outside a small building, obviously just confiscated from the Germans because, gathered on the sidewalk, a cluster of townspeople, with coats thrown over their nightgowns and nightshirts, stood eyeing us with hatred. Fortunately there were
a few armed troops watching them, so no rocks were thrown.

  “What do you mean?” Drying my tears, I stepped out of the car gingerly. Every joint was cold and stiff, and my head was pounding.

  “You’re here, Lieutenant. Congratulations. The first American woman to cross the Rhine.”

  “Yes.” I smiled. “I am satisfied. Thank you, Major.”

  “So now you can leave. Go back to Paris—I’ll arrange for a plane. It’s not safe—there are rumors of riots all through Germany, and we won’t have a large presence here for a few days. The only Americans behind us right now are military police. It’s really not safe. And I’m not only saying that because you’re a woman.” The major rolled his eyes. “It’s not safe for any of us.”

  “Nothing in war is safe. I’m staying. The nurses and doctors will be here in a couple days, won’t they?” Major Brereton nodded.

  “Then I’ll catch up with my crew and we’ll start filming. Those are my orders, and I intend to follow them. Now, I’m sure you have things to do, Major. I don’t require a babysitter. I can manage on my own.”

  With a smart salute—after all, the man was my superior—I retrieved my bag from the car. I headed to find a place to stay, a cot to lie down on, a morsel to eat, and, if I was lucky, a place with a hot bath, because I was spattered with filth. And my hair—oh, my hair! I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window.

  My hair was an absolute wreck.

  Years later, she would spend countless hours looking at all the photos from that time, marveling at how young she was, how slim, how unlined her face, how luxurious her hair. She thought, When you’re older, looking at your younger self is like looking at a promise you couldn’t keep. But still, you look, you marvel. You remember.

  But there was something else about those photos that she kept returning to; those photos of her and Charlie and Douglas; her and Charlie and Douglas and Griffith; her and Goldwyn and Griffith; her and all the—

  Men.

  One after the other, Mary was the only girl in the pictures. Occasionally, Fran would be there, too, but Fran never really did seek that kind of publicity; Mary remembered always having to coax her into the photo, Fran reluctantly obliging and then looking so beautiful that Mary had to tease her.

  “Why did I insist you stand next to me, Fran, dear? You’re so pretty, no one is even looking at me!”

  But even as she said this, she knew it wasn’t true. In every photograph that she was in, it was Mary whose image drew the first gaze. Especially in those photos where it was only her and her new partners—males all.

  How many photos they posed for, the partners in this embryonic endeavor, all of them simultaneously terrified and arrogant! How many interviews they gave, the four of them!

  The lunatics have taken over the asylum.

  Some wag said it, although no one ever claimed responsibility. Mary knew it could have been uttered by any of the studio heads and distributors who greeted their new studio with forced jocularity but mainly disdain. No one in the industry could imagine that actors, artists, were capable of running their own business; that they could produce and distribute their own films. No one could conceive of the idea that actors could pocket their own profits, too. Or that they’d want to, in the first place.

  And that a woman could be one of them—unheard of! Yet she was. The very first. Mary Pickford—actress, producer, philanthropist. And now, studio head.

  It started in November 1918. Right around the armistice, when Mary had reached the very peak of her fame thus far, single-handedly selling more war bonds than even Douglas and Charlie. Headlines such as Little Mary Wins the War were not uncommon; even President Wilson publicly congratulated her for doing more for the war effort than anyone else. Mary proudly packed away her custom-made uniform after a victorious parade in San Francisco. Then she and everyone else in Hollywood returned to the studios and resumed the business of making movies.

  But movies were different, now that the war was over. Hollywood was different. No longer a new, struggling American industry, Hollywood was suddenly big business, big international business. It would be years before the European film industries recovered, and since the Allied countries had been introduced to Mary and Charlie and Douglas and the rest during the war, millions hungered for even more of their films. So now there was international distribution to think of; international box office to divide.

  Papa Zukor at Famous Players–Lasky pressed Mary to sign a new contract, but she stalled. Chaplin had just gotten a deal from rival First National for over a million dollars, and when that studio reached out to Mary offering her more than that if you included profits, plus full artistic control, she called Papa.

  “Let her go,” one of the men was reported as saying. “Let that bitch get her ego deflated, destroy First National, and come crawling back on her knees.”

  When Mary heard this, she seethed. Had anyone said a word about Chaplin when he was offered almost the same deal? Had anyone called him a bastard for seeking control of his own movies?

  Papa couldn’t—or wouldn’t—meet her demands this time, and they finally parted ways, each of them teary on that last phone call; neither with anything left to say but “goodbye.”

  Then Mary dried her tears, fixed her curls, and put on a new dress to go over to First National. There she signed her new contract, smiling for the cameras—the only girl in the room.

  But—she should have known!—First National immediately began to founder, underfinanced like so many new studios. And in January of 1919, during an industry conference held at the Alexandria Hotel in Hollywood, the rumors began. Famous Players–Lasky and First National were going to merge. The studio heads were tired of the actors calling the shots. If they all merged, if there was nowhere else for actors to go, to grab bigger contracts, then the executives would be back in control. The way they used to be, before people even knew actors’ names. Before there ever was a Mary Pickford or a Douglas Fairbanks or a Charlie Chaplin.

  Alarm bells went off, particularly among Douglas, Charlie, and Mary, the Triumvirate. Mary especially panicked. If all the studios merged, she asked Douglas feverishly, then what would happen to them? There would be no bargaining chip in future negotiations. They’d all be cattle in the same barn.

  Mary never could remember who came up with the idea of their own studio. She did recall that B. P. Schulberg, a wild-haired young man with popping eyes who saw the writing on the wall and knew that in any merger he’d be out of a job as publicity director at Famous Players–Lasky, somehow got wind of their talk. He approached the three of them with some financial projections, and the idea took root. Why not bring together the five biggest stars in the business—Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, William S. Hart, and the great D. W. Griffith—and have them form their own studio? Immediately, it would leave the other studios peddling lesser product. And what theater in the United States—or the world—would fail to book one of these five luminaries’ films for a lengthy engagement, at a premium cost?

  On the last day of the convention at the Alexandria, as the studio heads met behind closed doors and the rumors of mergers flew, the Triumvirate, along with Griffith and Hart, descended upon the hotel dining room, where they demurely ate a very public dinner together. All the while, as if on cue, every studio executive—including Lasky and Zukor—popped in to take a look, then ran off in a panic.

  When they made the announcement days later, the entire industry erupted. And when the dust cleared, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith—Hart got cold feet and decided to remain at Famous Players–Lasky—were partners in their own studio, United Artists. Each partner would produce, direct, and/or star in five pictures a year, and they would distribute their films themselves, not working with Paramount or any of the other exhibitors. Each would have full artistic control; no more having to listen to men—the men!—who thought only of the bottom line. No more having to suffer directors like DeMille.


  No more having to split the profits with people who had no idea what making a film took out of you, the sweat, the physical toil, baring your soul to the camera that never blinked, coming home dressed in character, going to sleep as that character, drinking coffee as your character would, learning lines and blocking for that day’s shoot. Never eating, because the camera added so much weight. Never cutting your hair, because your audience would riot.

  Never being with the man you loved, because your fans would never forgive you.

  For in those heady days when Mary posed with the other “Big Four,” signing contracts or clowning around for the cameras, giddy with the freedom awaiting them, Mary was thrown into Douglas Fairbanks’s company again and again. Posing together behind a table, watching Charlie sign his contract. Douglas with Mary and Chaplin perched on his shoulders like circus performers, arms outstretched in a “Ta-da!” pose. All four standing on a porch looking casually professional—and in every photo Mary was forced to stand beside Douglas, to be near him, feel the heat of his skin radiating through his clothes, sense the tensely drawn lines of his muscles as he strained to look casual, chummy, nothing more.

  After the cameras were gone, however, it was an entirely different Mary and Douglas. A Mary and Douglas who still donned disguises, even though Douglas was divorced, for their rendezvous; rendezvous that now, more often than not, started out in giddy passion but ended in angry tears.

  “Be with me, Mary! Be mine! I’m tired of sneaking around. I gave up my wife and my kid for you. Why won’t you get a divorce for me?”

  “Because, Douglas! Because—what will my fans say? What will the public say?”

  “My fans didn’t care one bit, Mary.”

  “Yes, but—but I have farther to fall than you, Douglas. Because I’m a woman—no, I’m a girl, an innocent little girl, to them. It’s not the same.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “No, I don’t.” She said it quietly, almost in a whisper. “But I’m scared to find out.”