Mary Pickford

Mary Pickford (born April 8, 1892, Toronto, Ontario, Canada—died May 29, 1979, Santa Monica, California, U.S.) was a Canadian-born American motion-picture actress who became known as “America’s sweetheart” of the silent screen. She was one of Hollywood’s first film stars, and she was a founder of United Artists Corporation. At the height of her career, Pickford was one of the richest and most famous women in the United States.

(Read Lillian Gish’s 1929 Britannica essay on silent film.)

Gladys Louise Smith grew up in precarious financial circumstances. Shortly after the death of her father, she began taking child’s roles in productions, and soon the rest of the family also began acting. She made her first stage appearance in a Toronto stock company at the age of seven.

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At eight she went on tour, and within 10 years she was playing on Broadway. She made her New York debut in David Belasco’s The Warrens of Virginia in December 1907. Belasco suggested that she change her name to Mary Pickford. At age 14 she had already learned more about stagecraft than many older actors, and her winsome face, framed by a mass of golden curls, made her appeal virtually irresistible.

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Pickford began working as a motion-picture extra at D.W. Griffith’s Biograph Company, starring in his 1909 film The Violin Maker of Cremona. Though actors’ names were not listed in film credits, Pickford’s face quickly became well known. After appearing on Broadway in Belasco’s production A Good Little Devil in 1913, she turned permanently to the screen, rising to first rank with Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players Company.

Pickford’s meteoric rise from an anonymous player to a star with her own production company (Mary Pickford Studios, created in 1916 by Famous Players) was attributable not only to the phenomenal popularity of her films but also to her dedication to her craft and her meticulous care in creating quality entertainments. The ringleted ingenue with an expression of sweet sincerity and invincible innocence that she played in such silent films as Hearts Adrift (1914), The Poor Little Rich Girl (1917), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917), Stella Maris (1918), and Johanna Enlists (1918) enthralled audiences everywhere.

Pickford was known at first as the “Biograph Girl with the Curls” and then as “Our Mary” when that much of her name was revealed. With the release of Tess of the Storm Country in 1914, she was firmly established as “America’s Sweetheart.” In 1917 First National Films paid her $350,000 for each of three films, including the very successful Daddy-Long-Legs (1919).

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In 1919 Pickford took the lead in organizing the United Artists Corporation with Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, and Douglas Fairbanks. In 1920, after the dissolution of her first marriage (1911–19) to actor Owen Moore, she married Fairbanks (divorced 1936).

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Pickford’s popularity continued unabated in Pollyanna (1920), Little Lord Fauntleroy (1921), Little Annie Rooney (1925), My Best Girl (1927), Coquette (1929; her first talking picture), The Taming of the Shrew (1929; her only film with Fairbanks), and Kiki (1931). Although she won an Academy Award for best actress for her performance in Coquette, Pickford’s popularity began to wane with the advent of sound.

After making Secrets (1933), her 194th film, Pickford retired from the screen. Thereafter she devoted herself to United Artists, of which she was first vice president from 1935 and for which she produced several films. She also wrote Why Not Try God? (1934), The Demi-Widow (1935), and My Rendezvous with Life (1935), and in the 1930s she appeared on radio. In 1937 she married actor Charles (“Buddy”) Rogers.

Her later years were spent on business and civic and charitable activities, and she eventually became a recluse at Pickfair, the lavish estate she had built with Fairbanks. Sunshine and Shadow, her autobiography, was published in 1955. She received an honorary Oscar in 1976 for her contributions to film; she accepted the award from Pickfair.