“All on the Metro lot were so kind to me. Little Norma Shearer dressed next door, and helped me in many ways. Marion Davies was another who was considerate and kind. They had been there several years before I came, and were a great comfort. After ‘Bohême’ was produced, Marion Davies wrote me a very beautiful letter.”
In _Picture Play_, Margaret Reid, an extra in “La Bohême,” has written a luminous article, from which I am going to quote, trusting in her good heart to forgive me:
Miss Gish arrived on the same day that the elaborate dressing-room suite designed for her was rushed to completion.... After a polite but systematic search of the studio I discovered her on the lawn, talking to one of the heads. She wore a severely plain white coat and a close hat of plain rose felt, and carried a heavy black book in her arms. No make-up, not even powder, marred the healthy, translucent, perfect complexion....
Lillian thinks that the first scene of “La Bohême” was made in Mimi’s attic, which is doubtless correct, for Miss Reid speaks of something having been done before she was called—before various of the ladies and gentlemen were instructed to come out and be fitted for attire of the year 1830.
I happened to be among the fortunate, and was soon gowned in a lovely costume of hideous brown serge and a gray flannel cape. The keepers of the M-G-M wardrobe are the nicest wardrobe women in Hollywood, but even their elastic patience is tried on days when the picture and scene require a mediocre costuming of extras. Their sympathetic ears are deafened with cries of:
“But, Mother Coulter, I _can’t_ wear this—why, it’s awful! Can’t I at least have a pretty cape to cover up this horror?” “Mrs. Piper, you wouldn’t make me actually wear such an ugly dress!” Each feels that anything less than the very best is not her type.
But today we were Parisiens of precarious means, offering up the old wedding ring and Grandfather’s stick-pin in a dingy little pawnshop in the Latin Quarter.... The magician, Sartov, Miss Gish’s special camera-man, sat on his high stool by the camera, pulling placidly at his meerschaum pipe. The last touches were being applied to the dreary little set.... Miss Gish was called, and we made our first acquaintance with Mimi. Such a sad and thread-bare little Mimi ... faint shadows hollowed her cheeks, and her eyes were haggard with fatigue and hunger. In her arms was clasped a poor bundle which she timidly offered up. The coin thrust at her was too small, and with tears in her eyes and quivering lips, she tenderly placed her shabby, moth-eaten little muff on the counter. The orchestra breathed faintly one of Mimi’s gentle laments—oh, the pitiful little Mimi! I fumbled blindly for a handkerchief, feeling I couldn’t stand it any longer without doing something about it—anything to allay the misery of that wistful face.