Backwards and in Heels. Alicia Malone
offer. This was unheard of, but Mary was now the breadwinner in her family, so she was determined to get enough money to support them. She quickly proved her worth by acting, writing scenarios, and learning everything she could about lighting, costumes, make-up, stunts, and the art of movie-making. In her first year, she starred in fifty movies.
Mary was often directed by D.W. Griffith. He was a big proponent of close-up acting, and that tighter shot required smaller expressions and as much real emotion as possible. He was known for his temper and often “inspired” these emotions by being cruel. One famous example of this involves sisters Lillian and Dorothy Gish. As the story goes, they came to his studio for an audition, and D.W. took a gun and fired it several times into the ceiling, just to see their reaction. “You have expressive bodies,” he told the terrified sisters, “I can
use you.”
Mary described her early days at the studio as hostile, putting up with unwanted advances from male colleagues and clashing with D.W. She later wrote that she “wanted more than ever to escape,”
but knew she had to stay to support her family. So she decided to fight back.
The 1909 movie To Save Her Soul saw Mary cast as a choirgirl opposite Arthur Johnson as her lover. In a pivotal scene, his character is overtaken by jealousy, pulling out a gun in the suspicion that she hadn’t been faithful. The problem was that over lunch, Arthur had had a bit to drink, so when he pointed the gun, according to Mary, “he waved it at me as if it were a piece of hose.” She found it hard to conjure up genuine fear, and D.W. became frustrated. He ran onto the set and grabbed Mary roughly by the shoulders, shaking her and yelling, “I’ll show you how to do this thing! Get some feeling into you, damn it! You’re like a piece of wood!”
In response, Mary leaned down, and bit him. “Sir,” Mary said defiantly, “if I am not an actress you cannot beat it into me. What gave you the right to lay your hands on me? I’m finished with you and motion pictures and the whole thing!” And she stormed off.
D.W. came to her dressing room later to apologize for his behavior and persuaded Mary to return to the set. Without any rehearsal, he started rolling the cameras, and Mary channeled her anger into improvisation, giving an electrifying performance.
She was strong, but with her five-foot frame and curls, Mary was often cast as a child or a child-like woman. These movies kept her young, de-sexualized, and virtuous, as was the desired female type at the time. But Mary’s sassier roles were also popular, where she played feisty ingenues, such as in 1910’s Wilful Peggy where she beats up a man with his own hat after he tries to kiss her.
In the early days of silent film, actors weren’t listed in the credits. But Mary Pickford became so well-loved, directors and theater owners would make sure her name was prominently displayed. She went from being called the “Biograph Girl” or “the girl with the curls” to Mary Pickford, movie star, and her image graced the covers of magazines and the front pages of newspapers around the country.
The press followed her to California when she left Biograph to work with a variety of different studios. Her mother Charlotte came out to help her get settled, and one day, she overheard an interesting conversation about her daughter on the Paramount lot.
Two executives were talking about block booking, a practice later made illegal. Studios would force theater owners to buy a block of their movies, ensuring release dates for every single film, no matter the quality. If a theater wanted one of their prestige pictures, they had to buy the whole lot. So, the executives were saying, if they had a new Mary Pickford picture, they could rest easy about their other films.
Charlotte realized the unique power that Mary now had. She was so popular with audiences, theaters were desperate to play her movies, and studios were clamoring to make them. In fact, much of the success of selling their other films depended on it. Charlotte encouraged her daughter to be tougher. And in 1916, Mary negotiated a contract which gave her a salary of $10,000 per week plus a $300,000 signing bonus, 50 percent of the profits from her movies, and the creation of the Pickford Film Corporation. This was more money than Charlie Chaplin was making, and by age twenty-four, Mary Pickford was earning a million dollars per year and was the highest paid star in Hollywood.
It was money well spent, because she continued to have top hits at the box office. Some of her biggest successes came from a collaboration with her friend, writer Frances Marion. Together they made Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, which gave her the “America’s Sweetheart” moniker, and one of her most famous roles, “The Poor Little Rich Girl” from 1917. Its plot was very melodramatic, with Mary playing a rich girl suffering at the hands of abusive servants. At one point they almost kill her with too much sleeping potion.
At the New York premiere, Mary sat next to Frances, trying to be incognito by wearing dark sunglasses and a hat. She watched in amazement as the audience reacted passionately to her movie, laughing, crying and cheering at all the right moments. When Mary removed her sunglasses to wipe away her own tears, she was instantly recognized by an usher, and a large crowd of crazed fans quickly gathered. They ripped fur from her coat and wanted snippets of her hair, and Mary had to be escorted out of the theater by police.
Though “Little Mary” had reached the pinnacle of Hollywood stardom, she didn’t quite have the full creative control she craved. Together with D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, and Douglas Fairbanks Sr., in 1919 Mary formed the United Artists Corporation (UA). This was the first star-driven production company, and it gave each of those actors the chance to produce five projects of their choice—offering financing and distribution independent from a movie studio. “The inmates have taken over the asylum!” exclaimed the president of another studio when he heard the news. But UA was successful, and continued to profit throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The company is still around today, and is now owned by MGM.
The news about the creation of UA also served as a handy distraction from gossip about two of its founders. Mary and Douglas Fairbanks had been friends for years, but it had turned into more. This was complicated, because they were both married when they first got together, albeit unhappily so. He filed for a divorce, and then so did she. And three and a half weeks later, Mary Pickford married Douglas Fairbanks.
There had been shock from moviegoers who disapproved of this scandalous relationship. But once they married, studio publicists managed to spin it, selling America on the idea that Mary and Douglas were Hollywood royalty. Fans became obsessed with this power couple (who were perhaps rather like the “Brangelina” of their time), with newspapers reporting on their every move. They lived in a mansion the press nicknamed “Pickfair,” where they wined and dined celebrities like Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein. Mary and Douglas remained a source of fascination throughout their ten-year marriage, until Douglas fell in love again, this time with a British socialite.
Towards the end of the 1920s, Mary further cemented her place in film history by helping to set up the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1927. She was one of only a few women among the thirty-six original members, and the founding of the Academy led to the introduction of the Oscars.
By this time, Mary Pickford was eager to shed her innocent persona. She cut off those famous ringlets, and in 1929 made her first sound movie, Coquette. “I wanted to be free of the shackles of curls and playing little girls,” said Mary, “and I thought that [sound] was one step toward it.” Coquette was made in the early days of talkies, where seamlessly capturing audio hadn’t yet been fully mastered. Giant microphones were hidden inside furniture, forcing the cast to stand awkwardly beside the pieces of furniture to deliver their lines. But Mary worked hard on her first speaking role, and it paid off. Her performance in Coquette won the second-ever Academy Award for Best Actress.
Though Mary successfully made the transition from silent to sound films, she never quite felt at ease in them. Her final appearance as a screen actress came in 1933, but throughout the next forty years she remained active in Hollywood. Mary worked behind the scenes as a producer, and mentored new female stars like Shirley Temple. In 1976, Mary was awarded an honorary Oscar for her overall contribution to film.