D.W. Griffith at The Biograph Company

-1-

NEW YORK CITY - 1908 - While David Wark Griffith was looking for work on the theatre circuit, he meets Max Davidson, an actor friend with whom he had worked years before in the Louisville Stock Company. At Davidson's suggestion, D.W. Griffith accompanies him to a nickelodeon movie parlor in lower Manhattan, where Griffith encounters moving pictures for the first time.

Afterwards, it becomes apparent that Davidson's reasoning was simply to show Griffith where he could earn some extra money until some work on the legitimate stage could be secured.   Davidson himself had already begun accepting acting jobs in moving pictures and stressed to Griffith that the standard rate of pay was five dollars a day with the added incentive of a fifteen dollar fee if you could sell them a scenario.   To David Wark Griffith, with the Southern heritage and scholarly attitudes, he couldn't see himself condescending to the level of moving picture acting.

An additional consideration was that legitimate actors could be placed on a "blacklist" by appearing in moving pictures, a policy implemented by some Broadway pro-ducers, such as David Belasco, who held to the opinion that the moving pictures were a degradation of legitimate theatre.   Where moving pictures once shared the bill on the vaudeville stage; upper class patrons who had once accepted the form as entertainment now were of a scornful opinion and left moving pictures for the lower classes to derive whatever enjoyment they could find from the medium.   Griffith and his wife, Linda, decide to try it out with Griffith beginning first. He used the stage name of Lawrence Griffith, preferring to leave his real name until he could associate it with some-thing more dignified, and attempts to sell a script to the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company.   He is turned down by Biograph's vice-president and general manager, Henry N. Marvin, who considers his story "La Tosca" as being too long in content and too large in terms of the number of characters. However, Marvin does offer Griffith an acting job, but "Lawrence" politely declines the offer.

Griffith in his first film role, Rescued from an Eagle's Nest(1907), directed by Edwin S. Porter for the Edison Company

Griffith next tries at the "Black Maria" studio of the Edison Company, but Edison's director,Edwin S. Porter, turns down his story for the same reasons as did Henry Marvin.   Porter offers Griffith an acting job also, and this time Griffith accepts. "Lawrence" Griffith has his film debut in the Edison production, RESCUED FROM AN EAGLE'S NEST.

That evening, his ordeal over, Griffith relates to Linda the embarrassment he felt at having to stoop so low and work under those disagreeable conditions. After prolonged discussion about it, however, David and Linda decide to try and stay with it for a while, at least until legitimate work could be found.   For the moment, moving pictures would have to be it; besides, more time could now be spent during off hours on work on his writings.