Category Archives: way back

“The Old Imp Company, pictured in the roaring days of the Independent war in the season of 1910-11.

1. Mary Pickford, 2. Owen Moore, 3. King Baggot, 4. Thomas Ince,
5. Jack Pickford, 6. Isabel Rae, 7. Lottie Pickford, 8. Joe Smiley,
9. William Shay, 10. Mrs. David Miles, 11. Joe MacDonald,
12. Hayward Mack, 13. Mrs. Joe MacDonald, 14. John Harvey,
15. George Loane Tucker, 16. David Miles, 17. Mrs. Pickford, 18. Robert Daley, 19. Tony Gaudio“

“Florence Lawrence, ‘The Biograph Girl,’ the actress that Laemmle took for ‘Imp,’ in his first daring raid on the Patents Company‘s stellar talent.”

Kinetoscope No. 1, built by Edison in 1889, when the fifty-foot films ran on a spool bank, long before the reel was born.

Latham Relics — above — Michael Leonard, who posed for the first screen fight made for Latham‘s special edition of Edison’s Kinetoscope — below — one of Latham’s Panoptikon’s first projectors — bottom — Latham Eidoloscope film of 1895, extract size.

Carmencita, First “Vamp” of the motion picture, a music hall favorite of the Naughty-Nineties, in the most daring pose that the press agent for Koster & Bial’s could imagine then.

“Mabel Normand, with John Bunny, at left, and Jimmy Morrison, in one of her first screen appearances, “Trouble and Secretary” at Vitagraph — after that came Biograph, Keystone, Sennett and fame.”

“Arthur Johnson, who went from the stage to play in Griffith‘s first picture at Biograph, and became the first screen player with the fame and following of a matinee idol.”

“Mary Pickford‘s first real part, playing opposite David Miles, in ‘The Violin Maker of Cremona,’ a one-reel drama released by Biograph July 7, 1909.”

“‘The Lonely Villa,’ a Griffith one-reel melodrama produced at Biograph in 1909, with Marion Leonard, at the telephone, and Mary Pickford at her right.”

“Mary Pickford, pictured in 1916 when the fate of half a dozen motion picture corporations hung in the balance as the producers battled to get her name on a contract.”