Mary Pickford was woman who acted, wrote and
produced in the early cinema; a woman who created the star system in Hollywood;
and along with Douglas Fairbanks, Charles Chaplin and D.W. Griffith, founded
United Artists. She helped to shape Hollywood more than any other actress
living or dead. She assumed power in the film industry in a way that was
unheard of for a woman until twenty years later. She paved the way for the
later success of such stars as Mae West
and Julia Roberts. Her face was known throughout the world when the
silent cinema produced a universal language. She was the first female movie
star to have complete creative control over the production of her movies.
Mary Pickford was born Gladys Marie Smith on
April 8, 1892 in Toronto, Canada. Her father was an alcoholic who died in 1898
in an accident aboard a Canadian ship. He was thirty years old and died leaving
a 24 year old wife and three children. Gladys, the oldest, was about to turn
six. (EYMAN 9-12)
Verging on destitution, Mary’s mother,
Charlotte Smith, tried running a fruit store, working as a dressmaker, and
hiring herself out as housekeeper. However, the family lived close to poverty.
Charlotte’s problem was a familiar one for women of that era: There
weren’t many jobs for a woman outside the home. The need for private
dressmakers was vanishing given the emergence of paper patterns and department
stores with ready made clothing. (KWOLEK-FOLLAND 115) Charlotte was barely able
to eak out a living. Given the
times and the circumstances, she might have tried to snare another man,
however, a widow with three children was not considered a great catch. (EYMAN
14)
A stage manager who boarded at the same
rooming house noticed the young widow working long hours at her sewing machine
and suggested that putting her children on the stage might make things a little
easier for all of them. Charlotte pushed her children into the theater to ease
the financial strain. Living from
week to week in a succession of boardinghouses, Gladys grew wary, and learned
the tricks of the theater trade and its necessity for sharp dealing. She also
observed the way the actors tried to protect each other. Theater dressing rooms
had stickers advertising local boardinghouses, and actors would write their
opinions of a given establishment on the wall, or the call board. This would be one of the first
places Mary had learned how to negotiate on her own behalf. (EYMAN 15-20)
However, the theater was not entirely
democratic and had a caste system. For instance, the leading lady of the A
touring company of a play rarely would speak to the leading lady of the B
touring company. It was a way of
creating and maintaining a pecking order, an interior status that was a defense
against an outside world that granted actors no status at all. This would be a
compelling force in Mary’s life in later years to always speak and be
cordial to all she worked with. (EYMAN 15-20)
Mary moved up the ladder steadily with a
series of better engagements, however, she aged prematurely in a psychological
sense. Those mean years left their brand on her in small but telling ways. For
instance, she would at times in later years become difficult in money matters,
slightly penurious and always putting off paying expenses like legal fees,
which she easily ran up because of her combative nature. (EYMAN 24)
Under the guidance of Charlotte, whom
biographers have considered the ultimate stage mother, and as much responsible
for Mary’s success as Mary herself (EYMAN 52; WINDELER 17), Mary trouped her way out of Canada and
into New York City. In the 1901-02 season, Mary Pickford, her mother, and
siblings arrived in New York City which offered better shows and better
audiences. She was soon a success on Broadway and supported her family by
working as a child actress in the theater.
It does not seem fair for modern biographers
to classify Mary’s mother as some kind of super-stage mother as certain
facts are not being taken into account. Around the turn of the century, it was
quite common for children to work in factories, mills, mines or become street
vendors (Hine website) and
contributing some, if not all, of their paycheck to their family’s
upkeep. Child labor laws had not yet been passed. Charlotte was a widow in a
world that outside of the theater, did not afford most women the ability to
earn a living wage. (KWOLEK-FOLLAND 93, 119) Rather than exploiting her
daughter, Charlotte was attempting to lift their family out of poverty through
an acceptable means of employing her daughter.
The famous producer David Belasco christened
her "Mary Pickford.", and D.W.. Griffith, her first film director,
began shaping the image from which she never quite escaped.
In 1909, Charlotte had heard of a casting
call at Biograph Studios and persuaded Mary to audition for D.W.. Griffith.
Mary was less than enthused about the idea because in those days, working in
moving pictures was a step down from the theater. Charlotte heard that
actresses were paid five dollars a day. By this time, Mary had had ten years
acting experience and was seventeen years old. She began working at Biograph
with Lillian and Dorothy Gish. Griffith specialized in "damsel in
distress" films. While women, especially in the theater were given some
room to assert themselves, the public still wanted to see women, particularly
young, unmarried women, in traditional roles.
D.W. Griffith was looking for someone about
Mary’s type and offered her five dollars a day - when she worked.
“I must have at least ten. You realize I’m a stage actress and an
artist. I’ve had important parts on the real stage. I must have
twenty-five dollars a week guaranteed.” Mary was hired on her own terms.
(EYMAN 41) Over the next two years Mary appeared in numerous films for
Biograph.(LEE claims 85 on page 83; EYMAN claims 81 on pg. 50)
With several raises, overtime work and
writing scenarios, Mary claimed that she was able to save $1200 in her first
six months at Biograph. In addition she obtained work there for others in the
family. (EYMAN 43)
It was 1910 and the popularity of moving pictures
was growing rapidly. Mary was
already a savvy businesswoman, moving from studio to studio-- wherever the most
money was, driving hard bargains for higher wages and greater control over her
films. Her salary steadily increased with the growth of her popularity. She
continued playing "little girl" roles in films such as New York
Hat
(1912) and Daddy Long Legs (1919) At this time, she also married actor
Owen Moore.* The marriage didn't last very long, however, and Mary even kept it
a secret from her mother at first, because she knew her ambitious mother would
disapprove; and from the public as well as she understood their lack of
understanding that she was indeed, a grown woman, and not the little girl she
continually portrayed on the screen.
At this point in her career, Mary was much
sought after by rival film companies, including director Thomas Ince’s
IMP Company. Mary joined IMP in 1911 but her stay was short, she missed the
quality of the productions that she had enjoyed at Biograph, and after a short
stay at Majestic, another producer of silents, Mary decided to rejoin Biograph
in 1912. Mary joined Famous Players later Paramount Pictures, and in 1913 and started to make feature
length films. During the next few years Mary's fame and fortune grew and she
also acquired her nickname "America's Sweetheart"
*Interesting side note: Owen Moore was born
in 1886 in County Meath, Ireland. His father, John, brought the family over to
America in 1898, where he landed a job as a laborer in Toledo, Ohio. Owen and
his older brother Tom, two of six Moore children, got restless in Toledo and
left home while still in their teens, drifting into traveling shows, road
companies and vaudeville. (Four of the six Moore children would eventually work
in the movies.)(EYMAN 51)
As far as the public knew, she was somewhere
between the ages of twelve and sixteen. Mary’s popularity as an actress
relied upon her appearance as a young girl. She was forbidden to smoke in
public, for example in a box at the theater - she could not be permitted to toy
with a lipstick, a pencil or bit of paper. From a distance it might be taken
for a cigarette. (EYMAN 77)
There was something unsettling about the way
she continued to play nymphets until she was well over 30, it was a tribute to
her abilities as an actress that she did so with such total plausibility. The
reason was that her child-woman screen character was anything but passive. The
plots of her films were often sentimental, but Pickford was not. She was the
best at the enormously difficult art of silent-picture performance. In Stella
Maris,
for instance, she played a double role: a crippled heiress and a love-obsessed
slave who commits murder so that the heiress and her lover (whom the slave also
loves) can find happiness. In the Dickensian Sparrows, she played a clever
and persistent teenager who frees the inmates of an orphanage from sadistic
bondage. It was a strong role for a forceful woman.
Even in pictures like Pollyanna or Rebecca of
Sunnybrook Farm, Pickford showed wit, mischievousness and sheer spunk. However,
she was not permitted her first romantic screen kiss until 1927 - 18 years
after she came to the movies! In 1928, after Charlotte died, Mary cut off her
long golden curls and bobbed her hair, flapper-style. It caused a national furor.
Mary helped to create the star system by
insisting on screen credit for her roles in films. Before Mary, producers
refused to give stars screen credit for fear it would inflate egos and
salaries.
By 1916, Mary was twenty-four, and making
considerably more money than the President of the United States. Her salary was
$10,000 weekly plus a $300,000 annual bonus. The salary was based on what her
contemporary Charlie Chaplin was making. Mary demanded equal footing with men
and always received it. Her salary peaked at $350,000 per picture. (EYMAN 83)
By 1917 she was famous enough to go on tour
alongside Douglas Fairbanks and Charles Chaplin, selling liberty bonds in aid
of the war effort. In 1919, together with Chaplin and
Griffith, Mary and Doug had formed United
Artists, a revolutionary concept: allowing
filmmakers to have total artistic control
over their films from conception through post-production. It also meant that
artists and writers could control their own financial future, rather than
having to answer to exploitative studio bosses. Her decision to help found
United Artist would eventually make Mary Pickford a millionaire several times
over. Her fortune was ultimately some $50 million, some of it from real estate.
For years she had a firm hand in the running of the company. (BALIO 14-15)
Douglas Fairbanks was the biggest male star
in Hollywood at the time. He was the first "action" star, thrilling
audiences by swinging on ropes, leaping across high buildings, and dueling in
sword fights. Mary found him irresistible, and after divorcing his wife, they
married in 1920. Both thought that their marriage might damage their careers
because they had both divorced their former spouses, however, when they married
in 1920, rather than damage them,they became even more popular.
Mary and Doug were treated like Hollywood
royalty and drew famous names from home and abroad to their house. They named
their Hollywood estate PickFair, and were renowned for their glittering
parties. Among the many visitors to PickFair included Lord Mountbatten, the
Duke of Alba, the King of Spain, the Prince of Sweden, F. Scott Fitzgerald,
Noel Coward, Amelia Earhart, Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle, Max Reinhardt, H.G. Wells,
Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey. (EYMAN 175)
Throughout the 20s Mary slowed down her film
production to one quality big budget production per year. Films like Tess of
the Storm Country (1922) Sparrows (1926) and My Best Girl (1927) maintained
her success but by the end of the decade Mary's screen persona was starting to
look dated in the era of the flapper.
Mary became another casualty of talking
pictures finding the transition from silent film to talkies difficult together
with the public failing to accept her in adult roles. Her efforts were somewhat
rewarded with the first Academy Award for an actress in a talkie in 1932. Her
movie career was over by 1933. By 1936 Mary's marriage to Doug was also over,
due to the loss of his film career and his constant wandering.
During the mid-thirties, she made frequent
broadcasts on network radio, published several books and in 1955 wrote her
memoirs, Sunshine and Shadow. In 1936 Mary was named first vice president of
United Artists and the following year, established the Mary Pickford Cosmetics
Company.
In 1937 Mary married her My Best Girl co-star Charles
"Buddy" Rogers and that marriage that was to last forty two years.
Over the next years she engaged herself in some film production work and
promoted several charities, including those for the aged, and also helped to
incorporate Beverly Hills.
In 1976, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences awarded Mary its lifetime achievement award,. She became dependent
on alcohol in her later years and a virtual recluse behind the walls of
"PickFair". On May 29, 1979, Mary Pickford died of a cerebral
hemorrhage at the age of 87.
History perhaps has never given Mary Pickford
her due, as either artist or entrepreneur.
While it has been noted that virtually all of
the tasks involved in filmmaking were new and gender discrimination
wasn’t as great, (KWOLEK-FOLLAND 120), Mary Pickford was able to set some
standards in the industry (equal pay, screen credits, star system) which paved
the way for others who followed her.
For instance, Mae West during the 1930’s. She achieved renown as a Broadway
playwright and entered motion pictures at the relatively late age of 40 in 1933
and was also the highest paid celebrity of either sex at the time. (EYMAN
226-227)
In later years, actors, directors, writers and editors became more like
laborers, and even the most popular stars found themselves bound to salaries
and exclusive contracts and these changes in the industry made it less open to
women in positions of power, such as producers, directors and studio
heads. Not until the 1980s would
women again attain the important institutional presence they had in the
earliest years of the film industry.(KWOLEK-FOLLAND 122)
The Mary Pickford Foundation is her legacy to
men and women involved in the making of motion pictures, funding those it can
with scholarships and grants. It also supports the Mary Pickford Library
containing numerous items from her own collection as well as seeking out,
preserving and archiving material of significance to the history of film.
Bibliography
1. BALIO, TINO. United Artists, The Company
That Changed the Film Industry, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1987
2. EYMAN, SCOTT. Mary Pickford, From Here to
Hollywood, Harper Collins, 1990
3. KWOLEK-FOLLAND, ANGEL. Incorporating Women,
A History of Women and Business in the United States, Twayne Publishers, 1998
4. THE HISTORY PLACE, Lewis W. Hine, Child
Labor in America, 1908-1912. Featuring original photos and captions by Lewis W.
Hine. http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/index.html
5. PICKFORD, MARY. Sunshine and Shadow, An Autobiography, Doubleday and
Company, 1955
6. WINDELER, ROBERT. Sweetheart, The Story of
Mary Pickford, Praeger Publishers, 1974
Submitted by Guiomar Goransson-Martin
August 2, 2002