MARY PICKFORD WAS THE WORLD'S FIRST WORLD WIDE CELEBRITY SUPER STAR!!! She was given the title "America's Sweetheart" by the billions of people around the world who were her whole hearted loyal fans.
Mary Pickford was born in Toronto Canada in the year 1892. She had a little sister Lottie, and a little brother Jack. Her Father died when she was very young and her mother worked very hard to support the family. They ended up having to rent out one of the rooms in their house to strangers to bring in a couple extra dollars for food. And it just so happened that one of the people who they rented their room to was a man from one of Canada's theater stock companies and he suggested that she Mary Pickford, then named Gladys Smith, and her siblings be actors in a play called The Silver King. She grew in skill and in fame as she began traveling around Canada performing in small plays. But she soon grew tired of the constant travel and the terrible conditions she was forced to live in.
While she was in New York with her family for a short visit she found the courage to talk to David Belasco, who at the time was THE BEST STAGE DIRECTOR OF ALL TIME. She convinced him to let her be in one of his plays, and she became known all across the country from her parts in numerous plays put on by David Belasco.
But, she was soon forced to go to work for Biograph Studios because the family wasn't bringing in enough money to support them. Biograph Studios was one of the first movie studios in America. It was stationed in Manhattan, New York. She acted in hundreds of short ten to twenty minute films for Biograph Studios and became known as the Biograph Girl.
After a few years with Biograph Studios, she signed a contract with other studios and made more and more short films until she signed her contract with Famous Players Movie Company. With this company she made feature length or full length films and her fame SKYROCKETED!!! After switching and traveling around to many other movie Studios and gaining more and more fame, she was named America's Sweetheart.
Mary Pickford is what was known as a Character Actress. In each of her movies, she played a character very similar to her last. Her signature character was a young angelic girl. Her characters were always sweet and well behaved young girls. Even at the age of 30 she was still playing little girls. She made many attempts to escape her signature role as a little girl and tried to move into more adult roles, but none of her fans agreed with her and wanted her to stay a little girl forever.
One of the ways she tried to escape her little girl roles was by cutting off her signature gold curls. Everybody was shocked at this new hair cut, and once the curls were off, her career quickly faded away.
Mary Pickford was a pioneer in the film industry. Hollywood wouldn't be what it is today without her. And that may not seem like such a good thing today since hollywood is sort of down in the dumps. But the film industry, not only hollwood, has Mary Pickford to thank.
Sadly, during her last few years alive, Mary Pickford became sad and people thought her very lonely, because she never left her house and always stayed indoors. Mary Pickford believed that she was forgotten and uncared for. She tried to destroy all her films thinking that once she was gone nobody would care about them. But thankfully she was convinced not to. If she had, we wouldn't be talking about her today.
Here's a bunch of pictures...
Mary Pickford on a Poster for the play A Good Little Devil
As a little girl in The Poor Little Rich Girl
As a young girl in Daddy Long-Legs
As a young girl in Suds
Before and after her haircut
She was one of the first actors to put their prints in cement at the Grauman's Chinese Theater. She WAS the first actress though.
A family picture with her third husband "Buddy" Rogers and their two adopted children Roxanne and Ronald.
I of course did not give a very great biography of her in this short post. There is soooo much more that I could talk about and so many more pictures that I could put here. If you are interested in her definitely search her up on google.com.
A list of my favorite of her movies...
1. Pollyanna
2. The Poor Little Rich Girl
3. Sparrows
4. The Little Princess
5. The Little American
6. Stella Maris
7. The Love Light
8. Through the Back Door
AND THERE ARE SO MANY MORE WONDERFUL MOVIES TO WATCH!
If you have any questions, just leave a comment and i'll get back to you. Or just look it up on the internet.
Thanks for reading.
