Lillian to Nell:

I want you to see “A Mothering Heart” ... I cried and lost so much sleep over that picture, that I am sure you would like it.

When the picture was an important one, she rehearsed the whole night, sometimes, alone in her room, going over the scenes again and again. She never required “glycerine tears”—she lived the part too vividly. A good many years later, she wrote:

“The first important picture in which I appeared was ‘The Mothering Heart.’ This was noteworthy, not only because it was in two reels, but because the vast sum of eighteen hundred dollars had been spent in the making.”

“A Mothering Heart” received gratifying notices: “Her best picture, thus far”; “Her lack of so-called acting is the secret of her success”; “Mr. Belasco said very little when he called her ‘the most beautiful blonde in the world’”; “The hit of her career.” All of which would indicate that those nights and days of rehearsal had not been wasted; also, that a picture “career” bore no very close relation to elapsed time.

There was some reason in this: fame of a sort had come to her with astonishing suddenness—the fame that comes to a striking face and personality, interestingly presented in a thousand towns and cities. It was like magic. She had really done nothing of importance, yet she had a “career”—her name and face were widely familiar.

There began to be a sifting-in of “fan” letters—rather a new thing in the picture world. Admirers did not always know where to write. And there was something remote, something baffling, in the idea of writing to a picture; something suggestive of the bibulous young man, waiting at the back door of a movie-house “to take Mary Pickford home.”

Then, more and more, the notices and the magazines gave addresses; the name of the producing company appeared on the title flash of the film itself, though it generally vanished and was forgotten before one had a chance to fall in love with the star. Still, the letters came, and the sift became a drift that in time would become an avalanche. Some were from children.

Lillian to Nell:

Tomorrow we start on our last picture out here, “Judith and Holofernes,” from the Bible story, a wonderful theme.

“Judith of Bethulia,” as they finally called it, was Griffith’s most pretentious undertaking up to “The Birth of a Nation,” of which it was the forerunner. He took his players up to Chatsworth Park, a desert place in the hills, and set up an ancient walled city, engaged an army of extras, men, women, children, even babies. Also, expert riders and trained horses, and went into strenuous daily rehearsal. The “Park” was a place of sand and rock and cactus, a good way from Los Angeles. They went by street car, then train, finishing the trip by hay-wagon. They got up at four or five o’clock, in order to be on the ground, dressed and made-up when the sun rose. Bottles of snake-bite antidote were issued to the players, for rattlers were very common there. An actress saw a coil of rubber tubing on a stump, and started to get it. It behaved curiously, and she lost interest—lost it at the rate of several miles an hour, until she was safely with the others.

It was June—the weather was blazing hot. They worked all day in the sun and dust, sweltering in Oriental garments, through the longest days of the year. When they got back to Los Angeles, it was dark, and they were hardly in bed before they had to get up again. As soon as the desert scenes were finished, Griffith packed up his players and set out for New York to finish the studio scenes there. In this picture, Blanche Sweet had the part of Judith, Henry Walthall was Holofernes. Lillian had a small part, a little Mother in Israel.

Only a little while ago, with Lillian, in a small New York projection-room, I saw “Judith and Holofernes” on the screen. I was amazed, and I think she was, at how good it was. The photography was excellent, would pass as such today: soft, brown in tone, with little of the jerkiness that came of the slow camera. Furthermore, the story was beautifully conveyed.

It was terribly dry, hot and dusty there, which took nothing away from the realism. The clouds of dust that rose from a battle scene gave a magnificence and mystery to the effect—a reality that was stirring, even today. It is easy to believe that an audience which had not yet seen “The Birth of a Nation,” was awed by the spectacle.

There was a great deal of fine horsemanship. Horses trained to fall, their riders flung far and wide, were not then so common. Blanche Sweet made a perfect Judith. Lillian’s part, though small, was quite lovely. She was a little mother, running about, seeking water for the baby held always close to her breast. There were other babies in the picture. Babies were easy to get, then. There was no enforced law about it, and one could pick them up by the dozen, in Los Angeles, or anywhere—Mexican babies—with a little girl to look after them when not in use.

The studio scenes of “Judith” were not made in the old Fourteenth Street place. During the winter, the Biograph Company had built a vast, new studio uptown, at 175th Street, great floor space, and dressing-rooms for all. They had thought their crowded dressing-rooms in California inconvenient—just one for women and another for men, rather scrambly and messy ... long tables, with mirrors back to back, in the center ... one side for the regulars, the other for the extras. Everybody thought the new place was going to be fine, but it wasn’t. All the fun, the cozy, intimate comradeship, was gone.

Griffith was restless. Primarily, he wanted to get out of picture making, and write. He had written his way into pictures, now he dreamed of writing his way out of them. He was a poet at heart. He had a poem and a play to his credit, besides dozens of scenarios. All the time he wanted to settle down to writing.

It was no use. He couldn’t settle down, even if they would let him, and they wouldn’t let him. He was too good a director for that—the best—much the best in the field. Settle down! Preposterous! But he quit the Biograph Company. They were niggardly about expenses; sometimes (often, in fact), he used his own money—and they had an economy complex in the matter of salaries. The Reliance-Majestic, a more recent organization, offered him a free hand. He went to them in October. With him went the Biograph players, almost in a body. A few were tied by contract, but the others went, Lillian and Dorothy among them.

Those young people had faith in Griffith, and loved him. Loved him when he raised their wages, loved him and were still faithful even when the day came, as presently it did come, when he was wading so deeply in the tide of battle and Reconstruction that attended “The Birth of a Nation,” that he could not find enough to go around. They knew he would pay to the last penny when it was possible, and he always did. With or without wages, they would stand by.

The Reliance-Majestic Company had a studio on the Clara Morris estate, Yonkers; another at Sixteenth Street and Union Square, West. It is said that in less than an hour after Griffith had closed the Biograph door behind him, he was directing on Union Square a scene for a new five-reel picture, which he made in six days and nights, working constantly—all day and night. Perhaps he wanted to make a showing to the new company. Perhaps there was a need of quick money—usually there was.

In this new picture, “The Battle of the Sexes,” Lillian was cast for the leading part: a daughter who suffers, and brings an erring father to repentance. In the beginning, it was called “The Single Standard,” and in that pre-war moment, was thought to be rather risquÉ. Today, it would be a Sunday-school picture, dramatically and morally suited to Third Avenue, New York’s remaining stronghold of respectability.

The cast included, besides Lillian, Mary Alden, Donald Crisp, Bobby Harron, Fay Tincher, and Owen Moore. In one scene, the climax, Lillian has a sixshooter ready for Fay Tincher, the vamp who has broken up the family. Her finger, however, refuses to pull the trigger. Her father, entering, finding her in this dubious association, asks: “You, my daughter, what are you doing here?” And the devastating reply: “You, my father, what are you doing here?” gives him something to think about. A notice says: “The sets were lavish, but above all, they were true to the higher social sphere.” Third Avenue would adore it. “The Battle of the Sexes” was Griffith’s first release for the Reliance-Majestic. There was a prologue and four reels; longer than “Judith of Bethulia.”