Boxoffice - August 2019

1919 CELEBRATING A CENTURY 2019
Forging Her Own Path
UNITED ARTISTS CO-FOUNDER MARY PICKFORD
IS MUCH MORE THAN ‘THE GIRL WITH THE CURLS’
BY REBECCA PAHLE
>> America’s Sweetheart. The Girl with the
Curls. The Biograph Girl. None of the
nicknames commonly given to Mary
Pickford, one of the most popular
stars of the silent era, really conveys
the most fundamental fact about
her: Mary Pickford was one hell of
a savvy businesswoman.
Born in 1892 in Toronto,
Canada, Pickford became a film
star in an era when there was no
template for Hollywood superstardom—when
“Hollywood” didn’t
exist, film wasn’t taken seriously as
an industry, and actors often weren’t
even credited by name. In 1912 Pickford
was on the first-ever cover of the first-ever
fan magazine, Photoplay. Throughout the teens,
films like Hearts Adrift, Tess of the Storm Country, The
Poor Little Rich Girl, and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm cemented
her fan following—and her value to studios. Unwilling to let
studio executives rack up big paychecks without paying her her
worth, Pickford would routinely switch between
studios, accruing better deals for herself along
the way.
“In the late teens, when Mary finally
had the ability to hire her own directors
and her own writers, she hired
Frances Marion as her exclusive
screenwriter,” says film historian
Cari Beauchamp, who works with
The Mary Pickford Foundation.
“Mary and Frances worked hand
in hand in creating the characters
the Girl with the Curls, Pollyanna,
Poor Little Rich Girl, and
oftentimes adapting popular books.”
Another key woman in Pickford’s life
was her mother/business manager, Charlotte.
Beauchamp recounts an anecdote
involving Pickford’s fellow silent-screen star
Mary inspires us to step out of our
comfort zone and rebel against the status
quo. She bucked gender norms, pushed artistic
limits, and redefined her image on her own terms.
If only she could see the parade of women flooding
through the door that she pried open in Hollywood.
What a legacy.
–Cassidy Lange
Co-President of Production, MGM
Gloria Swanson, who supposedly once said that
“Charlotte Pickford could count heads in
a theater audience quicker than anyone
else in the business.”
Pickford eventually landed at
Famous Players-Lasky, which later
became Paramount Pictures. Its
founder, Adolph Zukor, favored
the process of block booking. If
a theater wanted the latest from
Pickford or her future spouse
and fellow superstar, Douglas
Fairbanks, they would also have
to pony up for all the studio’s other
films, which were inevitably of (putting
it politely) variable quality. “When
Mary and Doug and Charlie [Chaplin]
traveled the country selling war bonds, that
was when it really hit them: They were bringing out
thousands and thousands of people to see them. ‘Wow: We really
have power here. Why are we carrying all these other people
along with us?’” Beauchamp says.
Independent theaters banded together and created
a cooperative—later a studio—called First
National, with Pickford the first major
name to sign. First National was shortlived,
but Pickford’s desire to have full
creative control over her projects was
not. In 1919, Pickford—along with
Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, and
D.W. Griffith—formed United
Artists. It was, notes Beauchamp,
very definitely a risk. “They
were very careful, but there’s no
question they were risking their
stardom. There was another actress,
Clara Kimball Young, a huge star
in the late teens and early ’20s. She
formed her own company, and within a
year and a half she was bankrupt.”
The risk was especially real for Pickford,
52 AUGUST 2019