Throughout the 1910s, motion picture attendance grew exponentially, with more theaters
springing up around the country, creating an ever—increasing demand for more films. Studios
began to standardize the way movies were made. The creation of specialized movie costume
departments may be credited to D. W. Griffith, whose employment of film designers was just
one of his many innovations in moviemaking. Prior to Griffithwthe first filmmaker to com—
mission costumes specifically for a single film, Judith afBethulia—movies were costumed from
a grab bag of sources. The extras in Bethulia continued to be responsible for their own cos—
tumes, wearing primitive beards created from crepe paper and cardboard. Two years later, for
Griffith’s landmark The Birth ofa Nation (1915), a number of the costumes were made by
actress Lillian Gish’s mother. With no organized costume department yet created, there was no
one to keep track of costumes. “In those days there was no one to keep track of what an actor
was wearing from scene to scene,” said Gish, the film’s star. “He was obliged to remember for
himself what he had worn and how his hair and makeup had looked in the previous scene. If he
forgot, he was not used again.”

Even in these early, haphazard days, actors understood that the primary purpose of costume
was to help tell the story. As Lillian Gish remembered, “In Birth of a Nation, during the famous
cliff scene 1 experimented with a half dozen dresses until I hit upon one whose plainness was a
guarantee that it would not divert from my expression in that which was a very vital moment.”

For Intolerance (1916), Griffith had new costumes created for not just the lead actors but also
the movie’s thousands of extras—another moviemaking first. Crowd control was an issue, as
actress Bessie Love recalled, and the filmmakers devised a clever strategy to keep order on the set:
“Half a dozen second assistant directors were made up in costume and mingled in shot with the
crowds, inciting the mob and relaying the directions of Mr. Griffith.” After Griffith’s innovations,
the restricted scale of the legitimate theater could never again compete with the depth of field and
spectacle on screen.

Griffith’s commitment to costuming was legendary. His wife, Linda Arvidson, often told the
story of his “auditioning” practices: “I have no part for you, Miss Hart, but 1 can use your hat. I’ll
give you five dollars if you will let Miss Pickford wear your hat for this picture.” The golden—haired
Mary Pickford had been acting in a theatrical troupe since she was six years old. She had already
formed the essence of her “Little Mary” character, the little girl with the long golden curls, by the
time she started working with D. W. Griffith at Biograph. Pickford later recalled one of her first
days in the movie business. “I played a ten—year—old girl in a picture titled Her First Biscuits . . . and
to costume me for that one day’s work had cost all of $10.59. lfl had had any doubt before, 1 had
absolutely none now that the picture industry was mad.”

A savvy stage veteran, Pickford didn’t fit easily into Griffith’s mold as a virginal heroine, but
she rated Griffith first of all her directors. She remembered working on The New York Hat (1912),
and Griffith’s tender depiction of a scene in an impoverished New York tenement. Griffith
coached Pickford not to throw her shabby hat and coat on the bed, but to treat them as the char—
acter would have treated them, to cherish the precious tattered garments—the only ones she pos-
sessed. With her petite stature, Pickford played children well into her adult years. At twenty—seven,
when she portrayed Little Lord Fauntleroy, she was refused admittance to her own movie because
she looked too young.

The silent-film industry quickly produced a multitude of comedy stars. Among the first were

Fatty Arbuckle, Louise Dressler, Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, and Buster

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