The Biograph Girl

by William J. Mann

  Ben was nowhere to be found, of course. Later, he’d claim Mom had thrown the party just for Richard. But that wasn’t the case. CONGRATULATIONS RICHARD AND BENJAMIN was scrawled on a large piece of construction paper taped to the front door. Inside, her peach cobbler awaited alongside a pitcher of fresh-squeezed lemonade and a pile of paper plates.

  Mary Kay had been the only one of his friends to see Mom since Dad died. She tried to brace the others for Mom’s appearance, but Richard could still see the looks of shock and revulsion on their faces. Mrs. Sheehan had always been a little chunky, but she’d never looked like this. Only Mary Kay had a slice of cake with her in the kitchen; the others stood in the living room and giggled to themselves. After a half hour, everyone was gone, but Mom seemed pleased.

  “I’m glad your friends could come, Richard,” she told him, reaching up and kissing him on his cheek, her chubby hand pressed against the other side of his face. “I’m glad we could celebrate this special day.”

  “You do like Chinese food, don’t you, Mom?” he asks her now. They’re almost to the restaurant. “I mean, we could drive up to Northampton.”

  “Oh, no, I don’t want to go that far,” she says.

  “Mom, it’s just fifteen minutes.”

  “This is fine, Richard. None of those fancy-shmancy places with sprout sandwiches for me.”

  They’re about to enter the restaurant when Rex stops in front of the tobacco shop next door. “Oh, no,” he groans, looking down.

  Newspapers are displayed in a rack out on the sidewalk. The Springfield Union-News. The Boston Globe. The New York Daily News.

  And The National Exposé.

  “Look,” Rex says, snatching the tabloid up in his hands. “It’s Flo.”

  And sure enough, there she is, with Sister Jean, on the front page under the headline:

  FIRST PHOTOS OF THE BIOGRAPH GIRL

  Flo’s in a paisley caftan, her long white hair loose and down to her shoulders. Sister Jean’s eyes are wide and outraged. Her mouth is open.

  “Holy shit,” Richard says. “Someone got in. Sister Jean looks pissed.”

  “Yeah, but Flo looks pretty amused by it all,” Rex observes. It’s not a bad picture of her really, not for one so obviously taken by surprise.

  “She looks ancient,” Mom says, peering up at the paper.

  “Mom, she’s a hundred and six,” Richard tells her. “She’s supposed to look that way.”

  “Oh, God, listen to this,” Rex says, briefly scanning the article. He reads: “‘Could this sweet old lady be a murderess? That’s what some investigators are beginning to wonder. Her answers to a reporter’s questions on the subject have been tantalizingly vague.’” He looks up at Richard. “Oh, poor Flo.”

  “Do you think she is, Richard?” Mom asks. “A murderess? Do you think she killed that girl just so she could get away? I heard Regis and Kathie Lee talking about it after your article came out. It was also on Good Morning, America. Some people suspect she might have had something to do with it.”

  Richard makes a sound of exasperation. “Mom, we don’t even know for sure yet that she’s telling the truth. She might not even be Florence Lawrence.” But he’s not convincing, least of all to himself. He sighs. “We’ll know soon enough anyway,” he says.

  “Why? What’s happening?” Rex asks.

  Richard closes his eyes. “I was going to wait and tell you later after brunch. I got a call last night. They’re going ahead with the exhumation. The L.A.P.D. pressed the court to act quickly, given Flo’s age, in case they need to question her. I’m going to cover it while we’re out there.”

  Mom gasps, her eyebrows high on her face. “They’re digging her up? There’ll be nothing left of her!”

  Rex locks eyes with Richard. “I guess there’s no turning back now, huh?”

  No, none. And Richard wouldn’t, he supposes, even if he could. This past week, he hired an agent himself, and on the basis of his Times article, he’s already received book offers from two publishing houses. Meanwhile, he’s cleared his desk of everything but this story; he’s prepared to spend the next year researching it if necessary. He’s going to try to talk with Sister Jean again, convince her to give him access to Flo. He’ll even negotiate with Ben if he has to.

  Because in the course of just a couple weeks, Flo has become big. A hot property all over again—eighty years after the fact. He’s had calls from every major film historian and archive in North America and Europe. Everyone wants to know what he knows. While in L.A., he’ll appear on Entertainment Tonight. He’s agreed to be part of a special being put together on the life of Florence Lawrence for A & E’s Biography series. A month ago, they would never have been interested in profiling her. Now, nearly every time Richard has turned on the television, he’s seen reports on the Flo Bridgewood story, with grainy old clips of Florence Lawrence acting with Mary Pickford or Mack Sennett. The Biograph Girl is big again.

  And he’s found his ticket to ride.

  But he feels tremendously sad. He looks down at his fat mother. The kids in the neighborhood used to call her Tyrannosaurus Rose. He feels as if he might start bawling right there on the street.

  “Come on, Mom,” he says huskily. “Let’s go get you some General Tsou.”

  April 1912

  The sounds of the ship in the harbor: the great scrape of iron, the angry hisses of steam, the long sad horn. Once again, it’s sound that comes first to my mind. The shouts of the crowd, the laughter of children. The beating of my own heart, high in my ears.

  And smell, too: everywhere the scent of sea salt and burning coal. The heavy fragrance of oil, the great ship’s perfume.

  The vessel berthed at Pier 59 was as tall as an eleven-story building. I looked up, my chin raised to the sky. I kept my hands in my muff and pretended not to be awed.

  It was a new Gilded Age. What a perfect epithet, don’t you think? For everything was gilded in those years. Our ships, our cars, our homes. Our ambitions. Of course, that was my experience. I imagine others weren’t as fortunate. But when my name was announced at the pier, the crowd parted and Harry and I made our way through. “Bon voyage, Miss Lawrence,” someone called from the throng. I paused, waving a lace handkerchief from my gloved hand. A dozen cameras flashed.

  I was working then for “Pop” Lubin, one of the film industry’s earliest pioneers, and a shrewd, crafty man. He’d promised us more money than Mr. Laemmle, so of course, we’d left, just as we’d left Biograph. Now, after six months of uninterrupted filmmaking, Pop had wangled first-class tickets for himself, his wife, Harry and me aboard the Olympic, the jewel of the White Star Line.

  “Florrie needs to get away, take a rest cure,” Pop had said. He and Harry deemed it the best thing for me. I wasn’t consulted. They just secured the tickets.

  Six months doesn’t even begin to count it. Between my work at IMP for Mr. Laemmle and now with Pop Lubin, it had been two years of moviemaking without a single break. Two years of appearances, of mobs, of hands everywhere, of reporters and cameras and interviews. It got to the point where I’d receive them in my dressing room, still in bed. One wrote:

  Florence Lawrence languished on her settee, arm draped over her head. She has a frail constitution. Her nerves are easily rattled.

  Mother just called me “moody.” Pop Lubin seemed inclined to indulge my moods. “Actresses have busy minds,” he told the press. “They’re always changing them.”

  Moody. I’d never thought of myself as moody before. I had to laugh when I read the words “frail constitution.” Tell that to the grooms who taught me how to break a horse. To Mr. Griffith, who said I had the soul of a boy. To Linda or Harry or Ducks, after I’d given them their first ride in an automobile. Tell it to my brother Norman, who’d get socked on his nose when he teased me just a moment too long.

  But that wasn’t me. That was Florence Bridgewood, a girl I might have read about or played on the screen. In front of the camera, I still rode horses. I still popped
boys in the nose. I still drove cars dangerously across railroad tracks, just missing the onrushing train. But once Harry would call “Cut!” I retreated to my bed. Wardrobe girls fluttered close behind with pitchers of water and cold cloths for my brow.

  Lincoln had freed the slaves, but he couldn’t have anticipated me or my kind. In truth, Florence Lawrence did indeed have a “frail constitution.” She was forever feeling faint, forever being gripped by mysterious headaches and phantom pain. Harry would take me out to our farm in New Jersey, but still I couldn’t relax. Even petals falling from my rosebushes kept me awake.

  The press didn’t know what to make of me. I wasn’t like the other girls—Norma Talmadge, Lillian Gish—who greeted them with polite chatter, with ethereal glances. Mary Pickford was their greatest darling, posed and petted and puckered prettily. I told one reporter, “Say anything you want about me, but don’t say I like to work. That sounds too much like Mary Pickford, that prissy bitch.” The line appeared in print, albeit without the last three words.

  One morning all I could do was cry. Heavy, wracking sobs that shook my bed. The drapes were still drawn and the maid cowered in the doorway. Harry rushed in from the couch, sitting on the edge of the bed, helpless to comfort me.

  Pop Lubin suggested a trip to calm my nerves. “We sail next week,” Harry told me, showing me our tickets. I managed a smile. I’d never been to Europe. He handed me brochures on all the places we’d visit. Rome. Athens. Cairo.

  Of course, Mother was opposed to the idea. Mostly, I’m sure, because Harry hadn’t included her.

  “Florence,” she scolded, over the telephone, “this trip is too long. Is Lubin out of his head? Months will go by before you have a new picture in the theaters.”

  “Pop says there’s a backlog, Mother,” I told her. “In any event, Harry says I need a rest.”

  “Harry! What does he know? It was his bungling that led you astray from Griffith and then from Laemmle! And now look! Pickford has risen steadily in the Photoplay poll from five to four and now to two! Florence, Harry will ruin your career!”

  “Mother, I have to go.” She was out in New Jersey; I was in our New York apartment. “I have to get back to the studio.”

  “At least come out tonight and see Ducks,” Mother said, knowing how to drive the knife. “He’d like that. It’s been so long.”

  “I can’t possibly get out to Westwood tonight, Mother,” I told her. “The ship departs tomorrow, and I have to finish shooting some scenes here.”

  “It’s just that he’s been asking about you, Florence.” Mother’s pause over the phone was deliberate. “And he hasn’t been well, you know.”

  I let out a very melodramatic sigh. Harry took the receiver from me and pressed it up to his ear. “Now, listen, Lotta. Don’t go upsetting Florrie,” he growled. “She’s worked up enough as it is.”

  I don’t know what she said back to him, but Harry’s voice got louder and angrier, and finally he just slammed the receiver back onto its cradle. “Damn woman,” he spit.

  “Oh, Harry, sometimes I think I’m going mad,” I cried.

  “Don’t you worry, sweetheart.” He wrapped me in his big arms. He smelled sweet, a man’s perfume that seemed so incongruous to his bullish frame. “That’s why we’re heading to Europe. They call it a European rest cure. Lots of them big society matrons take ’em.” He kissed me on the cheek. “Your mother’s just jealous she’s not coming. She wants to make you feel guilty about Ducks. But he’ll be fine. He’ll be here when we get back. And you’ll be a new woman, rested and happy and ready to go.”

  But I wasn’t so sure. Pop Lubin was bringing a couple of the studio’s cameramen. They were planning to take pictures of me in Rome and Athens and on a barge sailing down the Nile. “Just for stock footage,” Pop assured me in his heavy Germanic accent. “You won’t have to do any acting. But who knows when you’ll be making an Egyptian picture and we’ll need it?”

  I eased myself out of Harry’s embrace. I was tired. I hadn’t even begun to pack for the trip. I wished I was getting in my convertible Oldsmobile Autocrat with the tiger-print interior and heading out to New Jersey. The wind would be in my hair, the sun on my face.

  I picked up the telephone. Harry glowered at me.

  “Ducks?” I said when he answered.

  His voice sounded tinny. A bad connection. “That you, Florrie?”

  “Ducks, how are you?”

  “Oh, they can’t seem to figure it,” he said. “These aches. But I took a walk out in the rose garden today and felt better.”

  “I’m glad, Ducks. How are the roses coming?”

  I heard him snort. “Just beautiful, Florrie. I’m keepin’ them trimmed for you. They’re halfway over the trellises now. Come next month, they’ll start blooming some beauties.”

  “I can’t wait,” I told him. “How’s Alfonso?”

  “Oh, didn’t your mother tell you? He’s gone and run off, like all of ’em have done eventually.”

  I smiled sadly. “You’ll find another soon enough, Ducks.”

  “I don’t know anymore, Florrie. I’m an old man.”

  We were quiet for several seconds.

  “Well, you come out as soon as you’re back,” he said to me.

  “I will, Ducks.” I paused. “Ducks, do you have your harmonica on you?”

  “Sure, I do, Florrie. Always right here in my pocket.”

  “Just play it a minute. Play ‘Annie Laurie.’ Over the phone.”

  He chuckled. I heard him set the receiver down. There was a quick zip of music as he tested the harmonica. I imagined his lips running along its shiny metal as he leaned in close to the mouthpiece on the stem of the phone. I could see him so clearly, just as he was in those days when he’d accompany me on the stage or lull me to sleep. Dear old Ducks, who once shielded me from the world. The whine of the music filtered through the phone, and for just a moment, I closed my eyes and forgot my pain.

  The music ended. He got back on the phone. “Haven’t played that old tune in years.”

  I smiled. “It was lovely, Ducks.”

  “You’ll say hello to the Sphinx for me now, won’t you?”

  “I will, Ducks.”

  “Good-bye, Florrie.”

  The phone crackled.

  “Good-bye, Ducks.”

  The First Officer welcomed us on board. “It is a distinct honor to have you with us, Miss Lawrence,” he said.

  I smiled demurely as way of reply. The truth was, I could barely speak. The ship’s magnificence was overwhelming, and to my state of mind, overpowering—so vast and gargantuan that I felt puny, even threatened, by its grandiosity. While Harry conferred with the purser, I stood off to the side, clutching the railing, my body trembling.

  “We’ve got a parlor suite done up in Louis XVI,” Harry whispered to me when he’d finished, taking me by the arm and leading me across the deck. “One of the best on board.”

  The accommodations were spectacular, to be sure. Our sitting room was edged in gold, with an elaborately woven Oriental rug. We had our own bath and lavatory. Instead of the traditional portholes, our full-size windows afforded us gorgeous views of the ocean. We even had our own private promenade deck.

  We set sail to the cheers and streamers of the tumultuous crowd on the pier. Mother hadn’t come down to see us off. I stood on the deck and waved to the people anyway. A Lubin cameraman cranked away, recording the event.

  In the first-class lounge, we enjoyed cigarettes and brandy with British millionaires and Greek shipping tycoons. It was a magnificent room. A frisky blaze danced in the fireplace under a statue of Artemis. A chandelier of Irish crystal hung over us, so carefully aligned that I never once saw it shiver as the ship crossed the seas.

  Harry regaled our ascotted friends with stories of the movies. Pop Lubin even arranged for a screen to be set up and to show some of my pictures. Afterward, the millionaires’ wives all flocked around me, asking for my autograph.

  I never sa
w any of the third-class passengers. They weren’t allowed up on our decks. But I felt their presence nonetheless, so far below. There, but for a few years, was I. Now, instead, I made pleasantries with ladies wearing tiaras and carrying little dogs with ribbons tied in their pipe-curled fur. I spoke very little, fearful that my underschooled language would embarrass me. I just smiled prettily and docilely—playing the coquette in ways Florence Bridgewood would have found laughable.

  One woman—I think she was a countess or something equally outrageous—was trying very hard to convince herself that the theater was a noble profession, that acting was a true art. I suspected she’d always looked down on the stage and was probably horrified by the flickers. Yet here I was, the toast of the ship, so she had to rationalize why she would be talking with me.

  “Bernhardt, Duse,” she was saying, rambling on, and I nodded my head, barely alive it seemed. I gripped a chair behind me to steady myself.

  “Don’t you agree, Mrs. Solter?”

  “What?”

  She smiled. Her face was powdery white. A great knot of pearls dangled from her turkey-wattle throat.

  “Your endeavors with the films are an attempt to create a literature for the photoplay, are they not?”

  I could no longer abide her pretensions. “Life’s what’s important,” I told her. “Tending roses and driving automobiles. Eating fresh oranges and getting the juice all over your chin. Birth and death and hunger and pain. Acting’s just waiting for a custard pie. That’s all.”

  And I excused myself, much to Harry’s consternation.

  Our second night at sea, we dined with the First Officer in the elegant Palm Court, surrounded by high-arched stained glass windows and trellises covered with ivy. We sat on delicate wicker furniture and were served by authentic French chefs and waiters. The menu promised a superb feast, but I only picked at my lamb in mint sauce.