D. W. Griffith and His Dancing Girls
Transcription by
Marilyn Slater
Looking for Mabel
September 20, 2009
Jackie Saunder told Grace Kinsley about Griffith’s dancing. “He was a miserable dancer when we came to California – I mean we Biograph players – but he was determined to be a good one.”
How Griffith Danced!
He would stop a scene he was directing drag one us – Mary Pickford, Mabel, Blanche (Sweet) or Miriam Cooper or myself (Jackie Saunder) – 
out on the floor and dance with us. By the time he
gave the Levy party he was fine. He brought both Blanche Sweet and Mae Marsh. It was a costume 
party and Mabel came as a bathing girl. She looking too cute. The party 
was held in a big private room.
All the actresses whom Griffith signed were marvelous dancers. He liked taking them to parties and dancing with them.
Clarinet Seymour, who died so untimely, got her start because she was a dancer. Griffith saw her twirling around on the set one day – she was an extra – called her in and signed her. He was first drawn to Carol Dempsteer,
who was a solo dancer with Ruth St, Denis, when he saw her dance. He and Lillian Gish became famous for their graceful stepping at the Alexandria Hotel Indian Grill and other public spots.
Sight-seeing parties were often given in the infamous old Barbary Coast section of San Francisco by picture companies working on location there.
Griffith gave one up there when some of his people were making scenes for an earlier picture. Present were Dorothy and Lillian Gish, Mae Marsh, Robert Harron, Mrs. Gish and some others.
The café they were in was raided and Dorothy exclaimed, with that daring and bubbling sense of fun characteristic of her, “My! Do you think we’ll get a chance to ride in a patrol wagon?”
But they didn’t.
