Industries change, and one of the ones that has changed the most is the motion picture industry. In the early days of the US film industry, in 1909, an early star named Mary Pickford appeared in 51 films. In those days a “movie” was a short, monochrome, silent pantomime that only took a few days to make. And Pickford, as a star, earned $10 per day; twice the usual rate.
Mary Pickford was born April 8, 1892 in Toronto, Canada. Her real name was Gladys Louise Smith. Her family was poor, and her father died when Pickford was just 6. This became a turning point for Pickford, because one of the ways her mother brought in money was by taking in boarders. One of the boarders was a stage manager for a local theatre company. He suggested the Gladys (Pickford) and her little sister Lottie play roles in a production of The Silver King. He also hired their mother to play the organ.
Pickford took to acting immediately, and continued with roles in a number of plays by the same troupe. By the time she finished her Toronto acting career by starring in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, she had played every child role the company could find. The family had become a real theatre family, though, and around the turn of the 20th Century Pickford, her mother, and two younger siblings toured the US by train, performing in theatre productions in various cities.
They were still not prospering, though, and Pickford was both growing up and getting tired of the life of an itinerant actor. She had even acted on Broadway, but only in supporting roles. She vowed to give it one more try in early 1907, and if she didn’t land a leading role in a Broadway production, she was going to quit acting. And land the role she did; in The Warrens of Virginia. That play was where her stage name originated; “Mary Pickford” was the producer’s idea. The play was written by William C. deMille, whose brother was Cecil B. deMille — who also acted in the play, and was getting very interested in this new medium everybody was talking about: motion pictures.
The play ended its Broadway run and tour in early 1909, and Pickford visited the New York studio of the Biograph Company — the motion picture business headed by D.W. Griffith. Griffith was impressed enough with Pickford that he offered her a contract immediately, at twice the rate he paid all the other actors: $10 per day. Pickford signed up, and played a wide variety of roles in the company’s films. This was a strategic move; as she later said, “I played scrubwomen and secretaries and women of all nationalities … I decided that if I could get into as many pictures as possible, I’d become known, and there would be a demand for my work.”
There was indeed a demand. At the time movies didn’t include credits, so nobody knew Pickford’s name. Films were advertised by people walking around wearing “sandwich boards” — signs on their backs and fronts — and she was called “The girl with the Golden Curls,”
“Blondilocks,” and “The Biograph Girl.” Pickford leveraged her popularity into a better contract at a different studio, then returned to Broadway in 1912. In her Broadway role she realized she missed film acting, and after her play ended its run decided to concentrate on movies. That was in 1913, around the time the whole US film industry was leaving New York for Los Angeles. The main reason was light; artificial lighting wasn’t yet bright enough for moviemaking, and there are a lot more sunny days in southern California than there are in New York.
Feature-length films were beginning to be made, and Pickford became a star — in fact, helped create the role of “movie star.” She made public her demands for pay raises based on the profits of her films, and negotiated “top billing,” where her name would appear above the title of the film on ads and posters. By about 1916, she was described as “the most popular actress in America, if not the world.” A film magazine described her as “the best known woman who has ever lived.” The film industry had, it seems, invented the hype they’re still known for.
Pickford starred in 52 feature films and her skills at negotiation gave her authority over the films she starred in, a salary of $10,000 per week (this is 1916, remember), and half the profits of a film, with a guarantee of at least a million dollars. Nowadays that would be about $22 million. She also formed her own production company, Pickford Film Corporation.
Like many silent-film stars, Pickford didn’t make a successful transition to the era of the “talkies.” She had married fellow star Douglas Fairbanks, and they tried making sound films together, but their movies were not well received. In addition she cut her hair! She was known for her long curly hair, and when she cut it, there were front-page stories in newspapers including the New York Times. Critics liked her talking roles, and she won an Academy Award for Best Actress, but her stardom was in irreversible decline. So she switched to the business side of the movies, founded the United Artists studio along with some other stars, and realized that the production rights for films were often worth more than anything else — so she started acquiring them. By the 1930s Pickford was probably the most powerful woman in Hollywood, even though she’d quit acting.
When she was married to Douglas Fairbanks they lived in a huge mansion in Hollywood called “Pickfair.” It was an over-the-top residence that included a bowling alley, and was a site for many famous dinners and parties. The place was mostly demolished in the late 1980s because the owner, a minor actress, claimed it was haunted. It’s now a conference center.
Pickford’s later years were a bit sad; she lapsed into alcoholism, which had also killed her father. She became a recluse, and would only speak to people by telephone. She also was unsure of her own citizenship — she had been a British subject when born in Canada, but thought she might have lost that when she married an American in 1920. Canadian citizenship had not existed until 1947, so she thought she wasn’t a Canadian citizen either. She had never applied for US citizenship. The Canadian government wasn’t sure either — they thought she probably was a Canadian citizen, since she had a Canadian passport and had owned property in Toronto for decades. In any case, in the 1970s she made a formal request for Canadian citizenship, and it was granted.
She’s memorialized in countless ways, including stars on the “Walks of Fame” sidewalks in both Hollywood and Toronto. And when you look at the whole nature of “major hollywood actress” nowadays, well, Mary Pickford pretty much invented that.
