The Biograph Girl

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The Biograph Girl Page 27

by William J. Mann


  Ducks gave me a little salute. But I made him no promises. I took the reins in my hands and smacked the horse. She began to trot. Then faster and faster still. The wind in my hair, filling my nostrils. I wanted so much to clear my head, to stop thinking of the crowds, of Pickford, of Mr. Laemmle.… Out into the fields I galloped. Where the only sounds were red birds and—

  “That’s her!”

  Off to my left, a group of three horsemen. I pulled on my horse’s reins, steering her toward them, intending to tell them that they were trespassing and to please—

  That’s when I noticed they had cameras slung around their shoulders.

  “Miss Lawrence!” one of them called. “May we take your picture?”

  “Who are you? How did you get here?”

  I heard the fast gallop of another horse behind me. It was Harry, breathless and red. “Ducks told me you’d come out here,” he said, huffing. Poor Harry wasn’t used to riding. “You left the city so quickly I hadn’t a chance to tell you. These gentlemen are from Photoplay. They’re doing a feature on our life here on the farm.”

  “But Harry, I just want to—I can’t bear—”

  Harry smiled awkwardly. “Just a moment, gentlemen, while I talk to my wife.”

  He brought his horse close to mine. “Darling,” he whispered, “Photoplay has just done a poll of the most popular moving picture actresses in the world. Do you know where you ranked?”

  I dared not say.

  “Number one. By an enormous margin. No one else comes close.” He grinned. “Not even Pickford.”

  I put my hand to my head. Was that a red bird off in the trees?

  “You are so loved, Florrie. So admired. The world over. Feel that love. Let it strengthen you.”

  I sighed, looking back over at him from the trees. “All right, Harry,” I said. “Let them take their pictures.”

  He brightened, sitting up straight on his horse. “Very well, my good men,” he called. “Come and get a photograph of the Queen of the Movies atop her noble steed.”

  I bore the flashes of their cameras. I answered their questions as we escorted them around the farm. Harry was bursting with pride, calling me the greatest screen artist in the universe, the most beloved figure in all of dramatic history.

  “But no one,” he whispered in my ear, “loves you as much as I.”

  Dear Harry. He was always there. Urging me on, reassuring me, consoling me. Telling me how much the world loved me.

  But all I really wanted to do that day was ride my horse.

  He directed most of my pictures at IMP. If I’d complain of a headache or a case of high-strung nerves—which was more and more often the case these days—he’d always call a break in the shooting. I’d lie down on a daybed, the wardrobe girls swarming around me, offering me a drink of lemonade, fanning me with Chinese fans.

  Poor, dear Harry. At home, I often made him sleep on the couch. I’d be too distraught to sleep easily, too worked up from the day at the studio. I needed the bed to myself. When he would try to climb on top of me, I’d cry I couldn’t bear it. Florence Lawrence couldn’t bear it anyway.

  That’s when I became fully aware of the split. Somewhere between the time her name was revealed to the world and the time she left Mr. Laemmle for what she considered to be even greener pastures, I’d stopped thinking Florence Lawrence and I were one and the same.

  The Present

  “My, what a stir I seem to have made,” Flo says, wide-eyed, as Jean walks into her room.

  “There’s a media crew from Channel 7 on the front lawn,” Jean tells her. “I’m going to have to call the authorities. This is private property.”

  Flo just stands there in front of her, swaying a little. The New York Times article written by Richard is open on her bed.

  Sister Kate is suddenly in the doorway. She looks stunned. “Jean,” she says, “Barbara Walters is on the phone.”

  Flo says, “Oh, my,” and puts her hands to her mouth.

  Jean turns quickly. “I don’t care if it’s Saint Barbara, the Virgin Martyr—no one is going to see Flo!” She feels the anger rise up like perspiration on the back of her neck. She turns back, eyes blazing, to glare at Flo.

  “Oh, but I do so like Barbara Walters,” Flo says, tilting her head.

  She finds this all amusing, Jean thinks. She’s actually enjoying this.

  “Flo,” she says, “we need to talk.”

  “What should I tell Barbara Walters?” Sister Kate asks.

  “Tell her—” Jean looks over at Flo, who smiles weakly. “Oh, dear God, Katie. Tell her to call back tomorrow.” Sister Kate nods quickly and moves off.

  Flo raises her eyebrows like an ingenue. “It’s happening all over again,” she says dreamily. “I never would have imagined.” She pauses, smiling. “I thought the photograph they used in the Times was a very nice one, didn’t you? It was from one of the Jones pictures I made with Mr. Griffith.”

  “Flo, there are people outside—reporters—with microphones and cameras,” Jean says.

  Flo sits down in the chair in front of her mirror. “How very strange that people would still care.”

  “Flo, they care about anything they can turn into a sensation. Your story has been all over the news shows. We’re getting calls from everyone. Flo, I need to know some things from you before it goes much farther.”

  “There she is.”

  In the doorway is Henrietta, Flo’s plump friend from the dayroom. She seems quite pleased with herself, as if she’s just done a good deed—like selling all of the Girl Scout cookies Flo had given her. But what she’s actually done is quite another story. Behind her is a man, a tall, gangly fellow with dark glasses and bright yellow hair—and a camera hanging around his neck.

  “That’s her,” Henrietta is pointing and saying. “That’s Flo.”

  “Thanks, doll,” the man says and snaps two photographs, rapid-fire, of Jean and Flo before they have a chance to respond. For a second, Jean feels like the proverbial deer caught in the glare of … not headlights, but a camera flash, and she watches in mute horror as the man bolts from the doorway and back down the hall.

  She recovers. “Stop him!” she screams, rushing out into the hallway, nearly knocking over Henrietta. “Stop him!” But she can already see him bounding down the stairs.

  She spins on Henrietta. “Why did you bring him up here? I said no one was to have access to Flo!”

  “Oh, dear,” says Henrietta, her plump cheeks reddening and her squinty little eyes misting with tears. “He seemed like such a nice man. He told me he was Flo’s nephew.”

  Jean turns to Flo. She’s standing there as if frozen by the flash. She seems lost in time somewhere, her eyes looking through Jean, her ears cocked to the sounds of a crowd no one else can hear.

  “Flo,” Jean says. The old woman’s eyes return to her. “He said he was your nephew.”

  “I don’t have a nephew,” Flo says, approaching them slowly. She’s grown very pale. Jean worries she might faint right there in front of them.

  “Henrietta,” Jean orders, “no one is to see Flo. No one. Do you hear me?”

  Henrietta starts to cry. Flo puts her arm around her. Some of the color has returned to her wrinkled cheeks. “There, there, dear,” she says to her plump little friend, but she’s looking instead over at Jean. “Don’t you fret. Everything is going to be all right.”

  Flo draws in a long drag on her cigarette. She lets out the smoke slowly, watching it as if transfixed. Jean sits opposite her. The door to Flo’s room is closed now; Sister Kate stands sentinel outside in the hall.

  “Once, such attention made me physically sick,” Flo’s telling Jean. “But I’m much stronger now. There’s no need to worry, Jeannie. Really.”

  “Flo, you’re a hundred and six years old. Yes, you’re active. Yes, you’re a wonder of energy and agility for your age. But you get tired very quickly. I’ve seen you. You have no idea what it would be like out there.”

 
Flo stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray beside her. “And the questions they’d ask. Is that what worries you?”

  “Precisely.” Jean reaches over and takes her hands. How cold they are. Her knuckles are big like acorns, the backs of her hands spotted and dry. “Flo, are you prepared for the kinds of questions they’d ask?”

  Flo sighs. “I’ve thought about this ever since Richard first interviewed me,” she tells her. “Of course, I never expected such attention. I never expected people to remember or to care. But I think I am prepared, Jeannie. It was such a long time ago, after all.”

  “Flo.” Jean feels a tight warmth constrict her chest, a signal she’s about to cry. She’s got to learn the truth, even if it’s painful for both of them. “Flo,” she says again, leaning in toward her friend. “Who was Molly? And don’t tell me just a girl.”

  Flo smiles kindly. She doesn’t seem troubled by the question. “But that’s what she was, Jeannie. They mistook her for me. Surely I can’t be blamed for that.”

  “No?” Jean hears the hopefulness in her own voice, the desperation to believe whatever Flo tells her, without looking too deeply beneath her words. “Then why, Flo? Why did they mistake her for you?”

  Flo hesitates. Her eyes go back to that place Jean can’t see. She seems to be searching for something—perhaps asking herself the same question. She closes her eyes, folding and unfolding her hands in her lap. Finally she returns her gaze to Jean. “She lived with me for a time,” she says. “I suppose—I suppose when the ambulance came for her, neighbors told them it was my house. And so they assumed—”

  “Is that it then? An honest mistake?” Jean can hear the hopefulness rise again. “Tell me that plainly, Flo. That it was an honest mistake and you had nothing to do with her death. Tell me and I’ll believe you.”

  Flo just sighs. “Oh, Jeannie,” she says quietly.

  She won’t say it plainly, Jean thinks.

  Because Flo never lies.

  “It was so long ago, Jeannie,” Flo says. “It was sixty years ago. More than twenty years before you were even born. Do you have any understanding of how much has happened in my life since then? How much has come after? How much has mattered? I knew Molly for only a few years—people I met after that, after I started my new life, I knew for decades. Ask me about them, and I’ll tell you. But Molly—how can I tell you about her? I can’t even remember all the details myself. I just know they made a mistake. I saw my chance, and I left.”

  “What if some reporter presses for details? What if they think …?”

  Flo smiles weakly. “Remember Clare Blake?” she asks.

  “All too well,” Jean says.

  “Remember how I handled myself then? I’ll be fine now, too, Jeannie.”

  “But these people aren’t pushovers like Clare Blake. They’re reporters.”

  “Oh, I handled any number of reporters in my day,” Flo assures her.

  “They’re different now, Flo. You don’t understand. It’s a completely different world out there. In 1910, you didn’t have Jerry Springer and Geraldo and Hard Copy.”

  Flo reaches over to her pack of cigarettes on the table with her scarlet-tipped hand. Jean lights one for her, placing it in her own mouth first and taking the first drag. Flo accepts it shakily, bringing it to her hot pink lips.

  “Why, Flo? Why do you want to do it?” Jean looks at her hard, trying to find something in her eyes. “Why after all this time?”

  Flo makes a little shrug. “I’d forgotten her,” she says simply.

  Jean assumes she means Molly. “You’d forgotten who, Flo?”

  “Florence Lawrence.” She exhales, holding the cigarette between two fingers down at her lap. It burns awhile there, growing a long, precarious ash. “I’d forgotten what she was like,” Flo says, after some thought. “There’s much I don’t care to recall, of course, but maybe I should remember at that. Maybe I should finally make some peace with her.”

  “Then you have some regrets?”

  Flo considers this. “The only thing I regret about my past is the length of it.” She laughs. Jean can’t help but do so as well. “If I had to start over,” Flo continues, “I’d make all the same mistakes—just sooner.”

  The ash on her cigarette shivers free, leaving a dull gray powder on Flo’s blue silk dress.

  She grins suddenly. “And there’s an awful lot of fun I’d forgotten about her, too.” Her voice drops into that devilish, tough-old-broad tone Jean knows so well. “She used to love the applause, you know. It’s strange to think some of it might still be out there.”

  “The applause?”

  “Yes.” Flo smiles more to herself than Jean. There’s a glint in her eye, a tilt to her smile that Jean hasn’t seen before. “I was the biggest star in the world, you know—and the first.”

  Jean observes her for a moment, sees Flo’s eyes move off to the place only she can see. She stands and walks over to Flo’s bed, looking up at the poster hanging there of Baby Flo, the Child Wonder Whistler.

  “Flo,” she asks, “do you not feel loved enough here?”

  Flo laughs. “Oh, don’t go getting melodramatic on me, Jeannie.” She stubs out her cigarette, stands with some difficulty, and moves over behind Jean. “I treasure your friendship,” she tells her. “Living at St. Mary’s these past fifteen years has given me a home. I’ve loved playing bingo and putting together the talent show and selling Gertie’s Girl Scout cookies every year. But, Jean—”

  Flo looks up at the poster as well.

  “We can be many things.” She takes Jean’s hand and pinches the skin on the back. “Not just this.”

  “Flo, this is my agent, Xerxes Stavropoulous,” Ben tells her.

  Flo is seated on her purple leather throne in the day room. She extends her hand out to Xerxes, who takes it gallantly and presses it to his lips. “I am most charmed and honored, my good lady,” he says.

  “Your name—Greek?” she asks.

  “Yes, ma’am. My parents were born on the island of Paros.”

  She smiles. “Ah, yes. A lovely island. We stayed in a little pension where we slept on the roof under the stars. But, of course, my favorite island was Santorini.”

  “Just a ferry ride away,” Xerxes says.

  “There’s a volcano there—do you know it?” Flo looks at Xerxes with crystal-clear blue eyes. He nods. “It’s off the coast in the Aegean Sea,” she continues, looking at the group assembled around her. Ben thinks she looks like some ancient schoolteacher reciting a geography lesson—like Mrs. Maxwell, his fifth grade teacher, proper and regal but a little bit crazy, too.

  “Some say the volcano is the tip of the lost continent of Atlantis,” Flo’s saying. “When it exploded all those centuries ago, it took Atlantis down with it into the sea. The waters are black around it—black as night. And hot, very hot, from volcanic hot springs.” She smiles. “You know, I don’t think I was ever happier than I was swimming in the hot black waters off Santorini.”

  Ben notices the smile Sister Jean gives to Carla Ortiz, the diocesan lawyer she’s asked to sit in on their meeting. Carla Ortiz doesn’t smile back. She’s a severe-looking woman, with a long neck and shiny black hair swirled around on the top of her head in a bun. She keeps eying Ben and Xerxes, not saying anything, writing in a small spiral-bound notebook.

  “I was convinced the volcano was going to explode once again while I was there,” Flo’s saying, a little sadly. “Every day I expected a terrific blast. What a grand finish that would be. What a way to go. But it never did.”

  “Well, I’m glad for that,” Xerxes says. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”

  She just smiles wistfully. “You remind me of a young man I met there,” she tells Xerxes softly. He grins. “But, no,” she says, taking a closer look. “Not really.”

  Ben clears his throat. “Well, I understand you’ve been getting a lot of media interest,” he says, looking back and forth between Sister Jean and Flo.

  “Yes,” Flo tel
ls them. “Do you know Barbara Walters called?”

  “It’s getting a bit out of hand,” Sister Jean says, looking over at Carla Ortiz, who nods. “A photographer snuck inside and snapped Flo’s photo. That will not happen again. I’ve gotten the police to keep the reporters off the property.”

  “The press,” Xerxes sniffs, shuddering. “Dreadful.”

  “Maybe that’s what we could start with, Flo,” Ben suggests. “About how the press has changed. You could tell us what it was like dealing with reporters back in 1910—”

  “We haven’t agreed to talk with you yet,” Carla Ortiz chimes in finally. She has a sharp, lovely Latina accent but the dry, matter-of-fact tone of a lawyer. Ben looks over at her. Her deep brown eyes are like mirrors: He can see himself but nothing behind.

  “Of course,” Xerxes says. “We want to do this right, Ben. Now, what we were thinking was videotaping Flo here, in her element, talking about her story … and then moving out and filming her at various sites that have historical relevance, like the old Biograph studios and the MGM lot.”

  “Biograph’s gone,” Flo tells them.

  “Well, the site of the old studio then,” Xerxes says. “We could find all sorts of places.”

  “Just a moment,” Sister Jean says. “I can’t see Flo traipsing all around the country.”

  “It might be fun, Jeannie,” Flo says.

  Ben sees the look Jean gives her. So, he thinks. That’s the ticket. Get Flo excited about all this. It’s her decision, after all. If she wants to do it, there’s little the Big Nun can do to stop her.

  “Oh, you’d travel in style, Flo.” Ben sees Flo’s eyes sparkle as she turns to look at him. “Believe me. We could get a sponsor—”

  “A sponsor?” asks Carla Ortiz.

  “Sure,” Xerxes says, picking up from Ben’s point. “Look, let’s face it. In the past few days, we’ve seen an outpouring of interest in Flo’s life. Why not ride the wave?”

 

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