- With Helen Gardner>
March 21, 2025
How She Won Him, 1910
- With Helen Gardner
by Dorin Schumacher
I take a train to Brooklyn and knock on the door that says VITAGRAPH. The armpits of my dress are wet. A man in a bowler opens the door. “Helen Gardner, here to audition for the moving picture,” I say. I put my hand out and he doesn’t shake it. Two men are standing on a stage. A camera cranks in the background. A lady with frizzy hair leads me to a changing screen in a corner. I pull a shirtwaist and long skirt over my whalebone corset.
HG: I can hardly breathe. But I want to be stylish. I want men to stare at me on the street. The corset makes my hips look even bigger.
“Stop,” the director shouts. He tells a hand to replace the eight-foot backdrop with a painting of an office window.
“Sit on this chair. When the cameraman cranks, sit up straight, pound the typewriter, and look coy when your fiancé enters.”
HG: I learned how to look coy from my mother. I have a lot of practice.
He yells “Action!” I hit the keys. A young actor with a crumpled hat in his hands climbs the steps to the set. I smile and wiggle my bottom.
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