The Biograph Girl

by William J. Mann

  “Excuse me,” the woman asked in a broad Midwestern accent, “but aren’t you The Biograph Girl we’ve heard about on TV?”

  Flo smiled shyly. “Yes, I suppose I am.”

  The woman’s eyes sparkled. “Would you pose with us for a photograph?”

  Flo looked up at Ben. “Sure,” he said. “I’ll take the picture.”

  The woman nudged her husband, who awkwardly removed the camera from around his neck and handed it over to Ben. The couple then hurried to stand on either side of Flo, putting their faces in next to hers. Ben snapped the shot.

  “Where are you from?” Flo asked.

  “Indianapolis,” the man told her.

  “Oh! I played there at the Majestic Theater when I was just a girl,” she told them, clearly delighted. But they didn’t seem to hear her or care. They just rushed off, chatting frantically to each other.

  Flo’s room was on the twenty-ninth floor. Her eyes grew wider and wider on the elevator as she watched the light hop like a little flame from floor to floor. She was given a whole suite of rooms, with a separate adjoining bedroom for Sister Jean. She looked out over the city just as the sun was setting, the tall spires of silver and aluminum and red brick bathed in a golden glow. “I never thought I’d see it again,” Flo said quietly, staring out the window. “It’s changed so much.”

  “When was the last time you were in New York?” Ben asked.

  “Shortly after the war,” she said.

  Which war she didn’t say. For Flo, it could’ve been just about any war this century.

  She slept in luxury. Early the next morning, Ben knocked on her door. “We’ll be right out,” Sister Jean called to him. “Just as soon as Flo finishes with her bubble bath.”

  “I thought she could only tolerate sponge baths,” Ben said through the door.

  Jean opened it just a peek. He caught a glimpse of her in a green silk nightgown, so unlike what he imagined a nun might wear. It was unlaced in the front, revealing just a hint of cleavage. “Funny thing,” she said, smiling. “She asked me to help her into the sunken tub, and she’s loving it.”

  When Flo finally emerged, she looked magnificent. Magnificent, but somehow posed—as if she’d been art directed rather than dressed up. And in fact, she had been: Xerxes had arranged for a makeup artist and hairdresser to meet her at the hotel. Her hair was swept up under a pure white wig, woven through with a strand of tiny pearls. Her naturally thick eyelashes were plumped even further, her signature pink lipstick outlined and sharpened. A dress of blue satin was found for her, and around her shoulders, she wore a delicate lace shawl. She looked less the image of a silent film actress and more that of a visiting queen dowager.

  “She’s what the Queen Mum would look like if she had style.” Xerxes laughed.

  “I’ve always liked the Queen Mother,” Flo said, just a hint of protest in her voice. “I always thought she was lovely. Of course, I remember when she was just a princess.”

  “Now, Flo,” Ben said as they walked off the elevator and into the lobby, “we’ve gone over everything that we talked about with Rosie and her producers.” Flo was seated in a wheelchair and was being pushed by a bellhop. “Do you have any questions?”

  “Just one,” she said, grinning up at them. “Where are we goin’ for lunch?”

  They laughed.

  “Because I remember a place we used to go to when I was working on East Fourteenth,” she said. “They made the most wonderful steamed cheese sandwiches. Oh, but I don’t suppose it’s still around.”

  “No,” Jean said. “Probably not, Flo.”

  At the front of the hotel, they were met by a pack of photographers, crowding around the revolving doors. “Dear God,” Ben groaned. “We should’ve known. The paparazzi.”

  “The what?” Flo asked.

  “Here, Flo,” Ben said, giving Flo his hand. “Let’s have you walk out.”

  “It’ll be easier if she’s in the chair,” Sister Jean objected.

  Ben looked at her sternly. “I want to send the message that she’s strong, that she isn’t feeble.”

  “It’s all right, Jeannie,” Flo said. “I can walk.”

  Ben and Xerxes helped her to her feet. She was a little shaky at first, but she found her balance. “This way,” the bellhop said, holding open the door for her.

  “Just smile and wave, Flo,” Xerxes said. “The car’s waiting right over there.”

  They stepped outside. Immediately the cameras began popping. Flo stiffened, halted in her stride.

  “Hey, Miss Lawrence!” cried one photographer.

  “Look! It’s The Biograph Girl!”

  She stood there frozen in place on the sidewalk, holding on to Sister Jean’s arm for support. The cameras kept flashing in her face.

  “Come along, Flo,” Ben said.

  “Flo, are you all right?” Sister Jean asked.

  She still just stood there, staring into the mob of photographers.

  “Miss Lawrence, over here,” came a cry.

  She turned. A camera flashed.

  “Flo?” Sister Jean asked again.

  Flo blinked. A small smile crept back onto her face, and she seemed to emerge from whatever paralysis had momentarily gripped her. “I’m fine, Jeannie,” she said, summoning a reserve of strength and resuming her walk. But the photographers kept snapping away, capturing each precarious step until she was safely inside the car.

  Jameson Collins leans over to Ben. “If you’re doing a film on Florence, you’ll want to see Her First Biscuits,” he whispers. “Come up to my house in Connecticut. I’ve got a print. A short little comic masterpiece. Mary Pickford’s first film, by the way.”

  He turns to Anita. “You must come, too, Miss Murawski.”

  She smiles.

  “You have a lovely fiancée, Mr. Sheehan,” Collins tells him, turning back to Ben. “Simply lovely.”

  Ben begins to tell him that they aren’t engaged, but decides against it. He wonders briefly why Collins assumes they are, but then discards the thought as he pulls out his notepad from his inside jacket pocket and jots down: Her First Biscuits. He doesn’t want to forget it.

  His mind these days feels pulled in a dozen different directions like taffy. There are the ongoing videotaped interviews with Flo, in which he gets her to reminisce and tell stories. Then there are the negotiations with Xerxes, the discussions about financing, weighing the offers that were beginning to come in. Not to mention the writing of the script—or maybe two scripts. Ben’s thinking a documentary first, culled from the videotaped interviews, and then maybe a feature biopic, with actors.

  That made him think of Anita. Of course, she’d expect a part. But he wasn’t making any guarantees—not even to her.

  He hears her giggle. Jameson Collins is leaning over, saying something to Anita. They’re both grinning like schoolkids. Dear God, Ben thinks. They can’t be flirting.

  “Here she is, ladies and gentlemen,” Rosie calls out as the cameras begin rolling again. “The Biograph Girl!”

  Ben’s stunned by the thunderous roar of the audience around him. He sees Flo appear in the wings. She’s a tiny figure glittering in blue satin, a flicker of light and terror. Sister Jean grabs his shoulder from behind. Rosie makes her way across the stage and escorts Flo out, walking slowly and speaking some words of reassurance into her ear.

  The audience goes crazy. Whooping and hollering, standing up and whistling. Flo stops in the middle of the stage and looks out in wonder. She reaches out with her hands, as if imploring them to continue. Rosie backs away, allowing Flo to bask in the applause.

  “Who’d have ever thought?” Jameson Collins says as they all get to their feet.

  “So, Flo—I can call you Flo, can’t I?”

  “You can call me anything you like except late for dinner.”

  Rosie looks a little taken aback by Flo’s wit. “Well, that’s a good one, Flo. I’ll have to remember it.”

  The audience chuckles.


  Rosie grins. “So what a welcome, huh? How does it feel to be found?”

  “I wasn’t aware I was lost,” Flo says. She lets the audience—and Rosie—laugh before continuing. “But seriously, I’m delighted to be here. I’m delighted to be anywhere at my age!”

  Ben can feel the buzz going through the crowd. This old lady is a revelation, people are thinking. A revelation and an inspiration. So old, and yet so … alive.

  It’s clear Rosie, too, is both surprised and delighted by the old dame. “Well, I must admit, Flo,” she says, “I love old movies. When we went to Arlene Dahl’s house, I was like, ‘Oh, my Gawd, that’s Arlene Dahl’ all day long. But you know, you were around a while before Arlene Dahl even.”

  “Who’s Arlene Dahl?” Flo asks innocently.

  The audience erupts in laughter. Rosie reaches over and touches Flo’s shoulder. “Spoken like the first true star of them all,” she pronounces, and the audience roars in appreciation.

  Flo puts her hand over her heart and bats her eyes like a young girl. She’s loving this, Ben observes.

  Rosie eyes Flo admiringly. “You played a very important role in the history of moving pictures, Miss Flahrence Lahrence.”

  “Ah,” Flo says, fluffing off the praise. “I’ve always said movies aren’t so important in the scheme of things. Plumbing—now that’s important. I’ve known plumbers who were far more important than I was.”

  More appreciative sounds from the audience.

  “I get your drift, Flo. I hear ya.” Rosie smiles. “But you were a big star nonetheless. You started all this.” Rosie gestures with her hands around at the studio, the crowd, the cameras now rolling in for a close-up of Flo. “And you’re going to be a hundred and seven in a couple of months!”

  The audience applauds madly.

  Flo just shrugs as the applause dies down, although she’s clearly loving it. “Ah, anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.”

  Rosie cracks up, shrugging her shoulders at the camera. “What? Do you have a joke writer back there?” She laughs, pointing with her thumb over her shoulder backstage. “If so, I want him!”

  Flo smiles. “No, no, it’s just me.”

  Rosie contains herself. “Okay, Flo. So tell me. Did you enjoy it? Hollywood, I mean, in the early days.”

  She shrugs. “Hollywood. You have to remember I did most of my work here in New York. When I went out to Hollywood it seemed everyone was a little bit crazy. I remember Fred Allen saying Hollywood was a place where people from Ohio mistook each other for stars.”

  More hoots, cheers from the crowd.

  Flo’s continuing, “It was a strange place, Hollywood. Especially for a woman of my years. In Hollywood, a woman having a mind was all right—so long as she hid it with a low-cut dress.”

  Rosie shakes her head. “Ain’t it the truth, Flo. Ain’t it the truth.”

  “Well,” Flo says, seeming to reconsider, “in some ways, women had an unfair advantage in Hollywood. If we couldn’t get what we wanted by being smart, we’d get it by being dumb.”

  “I can see you never let the male species sway you,” Rosie tells her.

  “Well, I had my moments,” Flo confesses with a grin.

  “I’ll bet you did, Miss Flo,” Rosie goads her.

  The audience titters.

  “But my best affairs were always matters of the mind and soul as much as anything else.” She leans over Rosie’s desk as if to tell her a secret. “A love affair with a stupid man,” she says, mocking conspiratorially, “is like drinking a cold cup of coffee.”

  Rosie cracks up again. This isn’t just the standard polite-host chuckle. It’s an honest-to-God belly laugh.

  Ben can’t get over it. The rapport between Flo and Rosie. Flo’s ease in front of the cameras. How readily the audience is eating her up.

  “A star is reborn,” he whispers over to Collins.

  Then he spots Sister Jean’s face, unbroken by any smile, looming over his shoulder. He settles back into his seat.

  On the stage, Rosie’s saying, “Now, Flo, I can’t say I grew up with your pictures like I grew up with Doris Day or anything like that, but my producer got a whole bunch of ’em here for me to see before the show—and you were good. You were ta-rific!”

  “Thank you,” Flo says.

  “And guess what we got here?” Rosie asks with a wink. The audience giggles. Flo looks wide-eyed. “A clip from Resurrection.”

  “Oh,” Flo says, clapping her hands in that way of hers. “With Arthur Johnson!”

  “Just watch,” Rosie says, and the lights dim. On the monitors, a jerky black-and-white image pops up. Flo, in a long, old-fashioned dress, hair piled up on her head, discovers Johnson in the arms of another woman. She twirls around, nearly fainting. The audience, already tittering, dissolves into uproarious laughter.

  “It’s a drama, damn it,” Jameson Collins grumbles under his breath to Ben. “A drama.”

  The lights come back up. The audience applauds. But Flo’s leaning over to Rosie. “Why did they laugh?” she’s asking, unaware her microphone has picked up her question.

  “Because you were so wonderful!” Rosie tells her, and the audience cheers again. This seems to satisfy Flo, who smiles and nods.

  It’s the first moment that Flo hasn’t seemed in total control of the situation. Ben can feel little beads of sweat suddenly pop out on his forehead. He peeks around at Sister Jean, who sits unblinking as she stares at the stage.

  “Now, let’s see,” Rosie’s saying, “you worked with D.W. Griffith and Mary Pickford.”

  “And so many others,” Flo tells her. “There was John Compson and King Baggott and Matt Moore.”

  Rosie shakes her head. “It’s amazing, your memory.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Flo says with a smile. “Sometimes I can’t remember what I had for breakfast.”

  “Who can? Now, Flo, I have to ask you. Some people are still doubtful that you are who you say you are. Now, I believe you, and we have an expert here who believes you, but everybody’s wonderin’ how—and why—you pulled it off. ’Cause let me tell you, that was sure some trick you pulled—you know that?”

  The audience cheers. Flo smiles.

  Ben licks his lips.

  “Well, the hospital just made a mistake, and when I heard—” Flo shrugs. “You know, I just wanted to find a place where there wasn’t any trouble, a place far away.”

  Rosie squints at her. “You’re not goin’ to break into ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ are you, Flo?”

  Laughter from the audience.

  “What I don’t understand,” Flo says, and Ben once again marvels at her dexterity in getting around topics she doesn’t want to discuss, “is why no one ever asks what my life was like after that point. That’s when I got back to being me. I made a lot of friends and had some good times. It was sixty years, you know—longer than what came before.”

  “You know, I think you may be on to something, Miss Flahrence Lahrence,” Rosie tells her. “You are one very wise lady, I think. All this fame stuff—it’s not what it’s cracked up to be, huh? It’s not the real part. Am I right?”

  Flo just smiles.

  “You are one fascinating lady,” Rosie says. “And this isn’t the first time you came back from the dead, huh?”

  Ben keeps his eyes on Flo. They’ve practiced this part. “As a matter of fact, no,” Flo explains. “Once before, the papers said I’d been killed in a streetcar accident. That was in St. Louis, back in 1910.”

  “1910!” Rosie gushes. “And she’s sitting next to me today! Can you stand it? Now that episode was a publicity stunt, eh, Flo? In fact, the very first studio public relations ploy—the grandmommy of a long, long tradition of publicity tricks in Hollywood.”

  Flo just sits there with an enigmatic grin.

  “Okay, Mona Lisa,” Rosie says as the audience laughs and applauds. “Still keepin’ those trade secrets, I see! You’re not gonna admit to it even after all t
hese years. Fine, fine. Have it your way.”

  The audience hoots.

  “Tell me, Flo,” Rosie says. “What’s the most different thing about show business today? How has it changed?”

  Flo looks off toward the cameras. “I don’t think it really has much changed,” she says simply. “Of course, I don’t know because I’ve just arrived back in New York last night, and I haven’t been back to Hollywood since I left in 1938. But from what I see—not much. Not much has changed.” She smiles. “There’s just a lot more of it.”

  “Like television and videos and all that?”

  “Yes,” Flo says. “That’s the only thing that’s different.”

  “Because, let’s see, you left pictures in … what year?” Rosie looks down at her notes. “Wow. 1915. There was a fire, right, Flo?”

  Ben sits forward in his seat. He hadn’t given Rosie that information. It must have been Collins. He watches to see how Flo will answer.

  “Oh, yes, there was a fire,” Flo tells her without any apparent unease. “It was just terrible. We were filming a Western picture, and my costar was Matt Moore. Matt was almost two hundred pounds, a big, strapping man, a big, big cowboy star—and he was supposed to be saving me from a burning building. Well, the fire simply got out of control, Matt passed out from the smoke, and I had to carry him down the stairs to safety.”

  “Wooow,” Rosie gushes. “And you so little. How did you ever manage?”

  “It was either that or let him die,” Flo says.

  She sounds exactly the same as she had when she’d recounted that story for Ben on video. There’s a quality to it that Ben thinks sounds phony somehow—a little too self-serving, too polished. It was so out of keeping with the spontaneous, unself-conscious banter with which she’d engaged Rosie earlier on. It was as if this particular story had been repeated many times, told to countless scribes down over the years. Her other stories are warm, rambling. This one is just too—too precise.

  “And you suffered some burns and injuries in the course of it,” Rosie’s saying.

  Flo nods. “That’s what forced me off the screen. I had to recover. There was no way anyone could have forced me back in front of the camera after that.”