Diminutive Marguerite Clark had left the footlights of Broadway for the arcs and Cooper-Hewitts of the Famous Players' Studio. At a social gathering I had met her—chaperoned by her sister, 'Old Miss'—with her inseparable friend, the wife of J. Gordon Edwards, William Fox's veteran stage director at the 14th Street Academy of Music. I had seen one of Marguerite's pictures and told her frankly what I thought of story and direction. Adolph Zukor had visions of her replacing Mary Pickford, whose popularity had made "Ma" Pickford exigent. I told Marguerite I had a story for her entitled Yellow and White, and she asked me to send her the scenario. The story was a melo-melo, but the Tong wars of New York's Chinatown gave it an atmosphere new to the cinema of those days. Marguerite liked it. However, her prosaic director, Hugh Ford, found it unsuitable for his dainty star. It was not, he said, a vehicle for the rival of the star of The Bishop's Carriage or The Good Little Devil.
But Marguerite had talked about it to Mrs. Edwards who had talked to J. Gordon, of whom William Fox—with Life's Shop Window, The Clemenceau Case and A Fool There Was to his cinema credit already—had determined to make a successful film director. Mott and Pell Streets were not so far from the 14th Street Academy of Music. The same melodramatic aura hovered over all three, and Yellow and White appealed to the Academy's stage director. He passed it on to William Fox.
Within the week I got a note from Marguerite to come to dinner with her and the Edwards.
J. Gordon Edwards was a Canadian by birth. Somehow, on meeting him, I imagined him as a police commissioner. His eyes had a look which told you at once that details had little interest for him. His grasp of life was general. Incidentals took care of themselves or someone else took care of them for him. His job had been to make the 14th Street Academy audiences like the productions Mr. Fox offered them, and J. Gordon had done it so successfully that Mr. Fox, already visioning motion picture screens back of the proscenium of every American theatre, had decided to stake a claim for him in this new Klondyke along with his own.
"W.F. wants to see you in the morning, Rex," said J. Gordon, before I left. "I read that story. W.F. read it too, and I know if you decide to come with us you'll find him a square shooter."
Though my Vitagraph time was practically my own—and even had it not been, a word to Vic Smith would have made it so for the next day—I said I had some very important work to finish for A.E., and it would be impossible to get away before Wednesday morning—this being Sunday.
"That is too bad," said J. Gordon. "I'm starting my first picture next week and the scenario writer has made a mess of it. With your Vitagraph experience, W.F. and I think you're just the man to re-write it for us. We're new in the business."
I saw this was no time for stalling and said if Mr. Fox could see me after 6:00 p.m. I could make it.
"W.F. never quits before midnight," said J. Gordon. "From nine in the morning till then he's in his office or the projecting room. He's going to put over this movie business or go broke in the attempt."
I promised to be there at six-thirty the next day.
I had a talk with Vic Smith.
"I hate to leave A.E.," I said, "I've been on salary so long, and I haven't done a thing that's been used yet. But there's a big chance here."
"I don't know how Fox is going to pan out, Rex," Vic said. "He's sure spending the dough. But if you quit A.E. and Fox goes bust, A.E. won't take you back. You got to decide for yourself."
"It's two weeks since A.E's been at the studio," I said. "Maybe it'll be three before he comes around again."
"Tied up," said Vic. "Ain't his fault...V.L.S.E."
"Let me go," I said, "and I'll come back the moment I've done this Fox job if A.E. is ready to start me directing—how's that?"
"Fair enough," said Vic.
"About dough. What should I hold out for ?" I said.
"Hundred bucks," said Vic. "You can always come down. Anyway, Fox is dishing it out. You might as well get in on it."
Vic called up his brother, then he made out a letter to me saying it was understood I would be at A.E's disposal as a director when the Fox job was finished. I kept the original and signed and wrote agreed on a copy which Vic left on A.E.'s desk.
"Good luck, kid," said Vic. He shook his head as he took my hand. He had a hunch I was never coming back to the Vitagraph.