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Mary Pickford (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979)
was a film|motion picture actor|star and
co-founder of United Artists, known as "America's
Sweetheart" and "the girl with the curl." She was
one of the Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood. 

==Early Life==
Pickford was born Gladys Louise Smith in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada (for some reason, Pickford always
claimed "Marie" as her middle name). Her father,
John Charles Smith, worked as a purser on a
steamship, but died of a cerebral hemorrhage in
1898. Her mother, nÊe Charlotte Hennessy, began
taking in boarders, and through one of these
lodgers Gladys, aged seven, gained a part in
Toronto's Princess Theatre production of The
Silver King as Baby Gladys Smith. She subsequently
played in many melodramas and became a popular
child-actress in Canada. Though her mother was
Catholic, she did not raise her children in that
faith, to the dismay of her own mother, a devoutly
Catholic Irish emigrant, who would seize the
chance later when, during a infectious disease
quarantine, a priest came by, and on learning the
children were not baptized, baptized them himself
on the spot.

==Beginning of Career==
Her mother took her to New York, looking for
stardom, and she landed a leading role in a 1907
Broadway theatre|Broadway play, The Warrens of
Virginia. The playwright, William C. DeMille,
brother of Cecil B. DeMille, also appeared in the
cast.  David Belasco, the producer of the play,
insisted that Gladys Smith assume the stage name
Mary Pickford.

==Stardom==
D. W. Griffith screen-tested and hired her for a
part in a one-reel thriller, The Lonely Villa in
1909. Pickford would go on to become Hollywood's
biggest female star, the first female actor to
receive more than a million dollars per year (the
first male actor who made a million-dollar deal
was Charlie Chaplin), and one of the few stars to
prove successful in both the silent-film era and
the sound-film period. She won an Academy Award
for Best Actress in 1929, but retired from films
four years later, after a series of disappointing
roles and the public's inability to accept
Pickford in roles that reflected her own age,
rather than teenage heroines. In 1919,as a very
astute business-person, she founded United Artists
(UA) together with Charlie Chaplin, D. W.
Griffith, William S. Hart, and her soon-to-be
husband, Fairbanks. She became its first vice
president in 1936.

==Romantic Life==
Pickford married three times. She first married
Owen Moore (1886 - 1939), an Irish-born
silent-film actor, on January 7, 1911. The couple
had numerous marital problems, notably Moore's
alcoholism, and Pickford became secretly involved
in a romantic relationship with Douglas Fairbanks
(1883-1939) | Douglas Fairbanks, an
action-adventure film-star. The phrase "by the
clock" became a secret message of their love; as
the couple was driving and Fairbanks was
discussing the recent death of his mother, the
clock stopped.

Pickford finally divorced Moore in March 1920 and
married Fairbanks on March 28 of the same year.
Together they gained the status of "Hollywood
Royalty" and their entertaining at their estate
Pickfair became legendary. However, Pickford's
second marriage also was fraught with problems.
Her stressful business schedule and Fairbanks'
extra-marital affair with another woman led to
their divorce in January 1936.

Pickford married her last husband, Charles 'Buddy'
Rogers (1904 - 1999) - a fresh-faced bisexual
actor known as "America's Boy Friend" and later a
bandleader - in 1937; they had two adopted
children, Roxanne and Ronald. They stayed together
for over four decades until Pickford's death from
a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 87. 

==Later Years==
For the last 50-odd years of her life, Pickford
suffered from alcoholism, which also afflicted her
first husband and both of her parents. She became
a recluse, refusing to come back from her 1933
retirement from acting, and remaining at Pickfair
in her final decades, only allowing visits from
Lillian Gish, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and a few
select others. Pickford received an Academy
Honorary Award for a lifetime of achievements. 
The Academy sent a TV crew to her house to record
her reaction to the award.  Her frail appearance
and her nearly unintelligible speech shocked the
general public (which vaguely remembered Pickford
from the movies she had made in her prime). Before
her death, Pickford petitioned the Canadian
government to restore her Canadian citizenship
which had been lost when she became a U.S. citizen
on her marriage to Fairbanks in 1920, and it did
so. Thus, she became, long before it became
fashionable to do so, a dual citizen. She died on
May 29, 1979 and lies buried, along with her
scandal-prone brother Jack Pickford, in the
Pickford private family plot in the Garden of
Memory of the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery
in Glendale, California|Glendale, California.


== Partial chronology ==

* 1909: discovered by David Wark Griffith at
American Mutoscope and Biograph Company|Biograph,
worked for $5 a day
* 1910: I.M.P., $175 a week
* 1911: Majestic Film Corp.
* 1912: back to Biograph
* 1913: appeared (with Lillian Gish) in Belasco's
Broadway production A Good Little Devil
* 1913: Famous Players, $20,000 a year
* 1915: worked for various companies, $1000 to
$2000 a week
* 1916: founded "The Mary Pickford Corporation" as
a part of Paramount Pictures, she earned about
$10,000 a week. She became the first actress to
produce her own films.
* 1917 in film|1917: starred in Rebecca of
Sunnybrook Farm and The Poor Little Rich Girl,
among other films.  She toured the United States
of America with Fairbanks and others, supporting
U.S. involvement in World War I and promoting
Liberty Bonds.
* 1918: played two starring roles in Stella Maris,
in performances that Adolph Zukor reluctantly
judged her best yet.  She earned $675,000 (about
$10 million in 2005-terms) for three films with
First National, plus 50% of all profits, plus a
signing bonus of $50,000 and complete control over
her films, ranging from script to the final cut.
* 1919: co-founded United Artists 
* 1923 in film|1923: Pickford, wanting to work
with a strong director, convinced Ernst Lubitsch
to direct her next film.  After considering
alternatives, they settled on Rosita
(movie)|Rosita, with a performance which critics
praised but her fans avoided (it lacked her
'little girl' image).
* 1927 United Artists, under Pickford's direction,
opens their flagship Spanish Gothic movie theatre
in downtown Los Angeles.  Pickford became deeply
involved in the design of the theatre, and two
Anthony Heinsbergen murals in the auditorium 
feature her.  Theatre architect Howard Crane
opened two other UA theatres in the same year, in
Chicago and Detroit.  The Los Angeles theatre has
become known as the University Cathedral of Dr.
Eugene Scott.  
* 1929 in film|1929: Pickford becomes the first
major actress to star in a sound film, Coquette
(movie)|Coquette, a production that did well at
the box office, earning $1.4 million.  Her
performance earned her an Oscar.
* 1933 in film|1933: Pickford stars in Secrets
(movie)|Secrets, a money-losing film which proved
her last.
* 1937: Pickford founds Mary Pickford Cosmetics, a
cosmetics | beauty company.
* 1941: Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney,
Orson Welles, Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick,
Alexander Korda, and Walter Wanger found the
Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers.
* 1949: Pickford and her husband form
Pickford-Rogers-Boyd, a radio and
television-production company.
* 1976: Pickford receives an Academy Honorary
Award for a lifetime of achievements.  

Mary Pickford has a star on the Hollywood Walk of
Fame at 6280 Hollywood Boulevard.

==Filmography==

One Reels

1. The Violin Maker of Cremona. 6/7/09. 

2. The Lonely Villa. 6/10/09. 

3. The Son's Return. 6/14/09. 

4. Faded Lilies. 6/14/09. 

5. Her First Biscuits. 6/17/09. 

6. The Peach-Basket Hat. 6/24/09.
 
7. The Way of Man. 6/28/09. 

8. The Necklace. 7/1/09. 

9. The Country Doctor. 7/8/09.
 
10. The Cardinal's Conspiracy. 7/12/09. 

11. The Renunciation. 7/19/09.
 
12. Sweet and Twenty. 7/22/09. 

13. The Slave. 7/29/09. 

14. A Strange Meeting. 8/2/09. 

15. They Would Elope. 8/9/09. 

16. His Wife's Visitor. 8/19/09. 

17. The Indian Runner's Romance. 8/23/09. 

18. Oh, Uncle! 8/26/09. 

19. The Seventh Day. 8/26/09. 

20. The Little Darling. 9/2/09. 

21. The Sealed Room. 9/2/09. 

22. 1776 or The Hessian Renegades. 9/6/09. 

23. Getting Even. 9/13/09. 

24. The Broken Locket. 9/16/09. 

25. In Old Kentucky. 9/20/09. 

26. The Awakening. 9/30/09. 

27. The Little Teacher. 10/11/09. 

28. His Lost Love. 10/18/09. 

29. In the Watches of the Night. 10/25/09. 

30. What's Your Hurry? 11/1/09. 

31. The Gibson Goddess. 11/2/09. 

32. The Restoration. 11/8/09. 

33. The Light That Came. 11/11/09. 

34. A Midnight Adventure. 11/18/09. 

35. The Mountaineer's Honor. 11/25/09. 

36. The Trick That Failed. 11/29/09. 

37. The Test. 12/16/09. 

38. To Save Her Soul. 12/27/09. 

39. All on Account of the Milk. 1/15/10.  

40. The Woman From Mellon's. 2/3/10 

41. The Englishman and the Girl. 2/17/10. 

42. The Newlyweds. 3/3/10. 

43. The Thread of Destiny: A Story of the Old
Southwest. 3/7/10. 

44. The Twisted Trail: A Story of Fate in the
Mountain Wilds. 3/24/10. 

45. The Smoker. 3/31/10. 

46. As It Is In Life. 4/4/10. 

47. A Rich Revenge: A Comedy of the California Oil
Fields 4/7/10. 

48. A Romance of the Western Hills. 4/11/10. 

49. The Unchanging Sea. 5/5/10. 

50. Love Among the Roses. 5/9/10. 

51. The Two Brothers: In the Days of the Padres.
5/14/10. 

52. Ramona: A Story of the White Man's Injustice
to the Indian. 5/23/10. 

53. In the Season of Buds. 6/2/10. 

54. A Victim of Jealousy. 6/9/10.

55. A Child's Impulse. 6/27/10. 

56. May and December. 6/30/10. 

57. Muggsy's First Sweetheart. 6/30/10. 

58. Never Again! 6/30/10. 

59. What the Daisy Said. 7/11/10. 

60. The Call to Arms. 7/25/10. 

61. An Arcadian Maid. 8/1/10. 

62. When We Were In Our 'Teens. 8/15/10. 

63. The Sorrows of the Unfaithful. 8/22/10. 

64. Wilful Peggy. 8/25/10. 

65. Muggsy Becomes a Hero. 9/1/10. 

66. A Gold Necklace. 10/6/10. 

67. The Masher. 10/13/10. 

68. A Lucky Toothache. 10/14/10. 

69. Waiter No. 5. 11/5/10. 

70. Simple Charity. 11/14/10. 

71. Song of the Wildwood Flute. 11/21/10. 

72. A Plain Song. 11/28/10. 

73. White Roses. 12/22/10. 

74. When A Man Loves. 1/5/11. 

75. The Italian Barber. 1/9/11. 

76. Three Sisters. 2/2/11. 

77. A Decree of Destiny. 3/6/11. 

78. Their First Misunderstanding. 1/9/11. 

79. The Dream. 1/23/11. 

80. Maid or Man. 1/30/11. 

81. At the Duke's Command. 2/6/11. 

82. The Mirror. 2/9/11. 

83. While The Cat's Away. 2/9/11. 

84. Her Darkest Hour. 2/13/11. 

85. Artful Kate. 2/23/11. 

86. A Manly Man. 2/27/11. 

87. The Message in the Bottle. 3/9/11. 

88. The Fisher-Maid. 3/16/11. 

89. In Old Madrid. 3/20/11. 

90. Sweet Memories. 3/27/11. 

91. The Stampede. 4/17/11. 

92. Second Sight. 5/1/11. 

93. The Fair Dentist. 5/8/11. 

94. For Her Brother's Sake. 5/11/11. 

95. The Master and the Man. 5/15/11. 

96. The Lighthouse Keeper. 5/18/11. 

97. Back to the Soil. 6/8/11. 

98. In the Sultan's Garden. 7/3/11. 

99. For the Queen's Honor. 7/6/11. 

100. A Gasoline Engagement. 7/10/11. 

101. At a Quarter of Two. 7/13/11. 

102. Science. 7/24/11. 

103. The Skating Bug. 7/31/11. 

104. The Call of the Song. 8/13/11. 

105. The Toss of a Coin. 8/31/11. 

106. 'Tween Two Loves. 9/28/11. 

107. The Rose's Story. 10/2/11. 

108. The Sentinel Asleep. 10/9/11. 

109. The Better Way. 10/12/11. 

110. His Dress Shirt. 10/30/11. 

111. From the Bottom of the Sea. 11/20/11 

112. The Courting of Mary. 11/26/11. 

113. Love Heeds Not the Showers. 12/3/11. 

114. Little Red Riding Hood. 12/17/11. 

115. The Caddy's Dream. 12/31/11. 

116. Honor Thy Father. 2/9/12. 

117. The Mender of Nets. 2/15/12. 

118. Iola's Promise. 3/14/12. 

119. Fate's Interception. 4/8/12. 

120. The Female of the Species. 4/15/12. 

121. Just Like a Woman. 4/18/12. 

122. Won By a Fish. 4/22/12. 

123. The Old Actor. 5/6/12. 

124. A Lodging for the Night. 5/9/12. 

125. A Beast at Bay. 5/27/12. 

126. Home Folks. 6/6/12. 

127. Lena and the Geese. 6/17/12. 

128. The School Teacher and the Waif. 6/27/12. 

129. An Indian Summer. 7/8/12. 

130. The Narrow Road. 8/1/12. 

131. The Inner Circle. 8/12/12. 

132. With the Enemy's Help. 8/19/12. 

133. A Pueblo Legend. 8/29/12.  

134. Friends. 9/23/12. 

135. So Near, Yet So Far. 9/30/12. 

136. A Feud in the Kentucky Hills. 10/3/12. 

137. The One She Loved. 10/21/12. 

138. My Baby. 11/14/12. 

139. The Informer. 11/21/12. 

140. The New York Hat. 12/6/12. 

141. The Unwelcome Guest. 3/15/13. 


Feature Length 


1. In the Bishop's Carriage 9/10/13. 

2. Caprice11/10/13. 

3. Hearts Adrift  2/10/14. 

4. A Good Little Devil 3/1/14. 

5. Tess of the Storm Country 3/30/14.  

6. The Eagle's Mate 7/1/14. 

7. Such a Little Queen 9/21/14. 

8. Behind the Scenes 8/26/14. 

9. Cinderella 12/28/14. 

10. Mistress Nell  2/1/15. 

11. Fanchon, The Cricket 5/10/15. 

12. The Dawn of a Tomorrow 6/7/15. 

13. Little Pal  7/1/15. 

14. Rags  8/2/15. 

15. Esmeralda  9/6/15.

16. A Girl of Yesterday 10/7/15.  

17. Madame Butterfly 11/8/15.  

18. The Foundling  1/2/16.  

19. Poor Little Peppina  3/2/16. 

20. The Eternal Grind  4/17/16. 

21. Hulda From Holland  7/31/16. 

22. Less Than the Dust  11/2/16. 

23. The Pride of the Clan  1/8/17. 

24. The Poor Little Rich Girl  3/5/17.  

25. A Romance of the Redwoods 5/14/17. 

26. The Little American  7/2/17. 

27. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm  9/3/17.  

28. A Little Princess  11/12/17.  

29. Stella Maris  1/21/18. 

30. Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley  3/10/18.

31. M'Liss  5/12/18. 

32. How Could You, Jean?  6/23/18. 

33. Johanna Enlists  5 reels. 9/15/18. 

34. Captain Kidd, Jr.  4/21/19. 

35. Daddy-Long-Legs  5/12/19. 

36. The Hoodlum  9/1/19. 

37. The Heart o' the Hills 12/1/19.

38. Pollyanna  1/18/20. 

39. Suds  6/27/20.  

40. The Love Light 1/9/21.  

41. Through the Back Door  5/17/21.  

42. Little Lord Fauntleroy  9/16/21. 

43. Tess of the Storm Country 11/12/22. 

44. Rosita  9/3/23. 

45. Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall 5/25/24. 

46. Little Annie Rooney  9/18/25. 

47. Sparrows  9/26/26.  

48. My Best Girl  11/13/27. 


Talkies

49. Coquette  3/30/29. 

50. The Taming of the Shrew (with Fairbanks)
10/26/29. 

51. Kiki  3/14/31. 

52. Secrets  3/16/33.

==External link==
* http://www.classicactresses.com/mary.html Mary
Pickford at Classic Actresses
*http://www.marypickford.com/about.html About Mary
Pickford, from the website of the Mary Pickford
Institute for Film Education
*imdb name | id=0681933 | name=Mary Pickford
*http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pickford/index.html
Mary Pickford, from American Experience

lived|b=1892|d=1979|key=Pickford, Mary