Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood

Sarah Robertson is the trade, scholarly, and reference editor of the
Canadian Book Review Annual.

At the height of her career, silent film star Mary Pickford (18921979),
popularly known as “Little Mary” and “America’s Sweetheart,”
was the object of a phenomenon known today as the cult of celebrity. In
1920, adoring fans rioted when honeymooners Pickford and Douglas
Fairbanks appeared at a function in London, England. Today Pickford is
remembered, if at all, as a curly haired actress who specialized in
playing simpering prepubescent girls. In this balanced, scrupulously
documented, and elegantly written biography, Eileen Whitfield
demonstrates that her subject was far more than a silent film version of
Shirley Temple.

As a child, Pickford was a hypersensitive and guilt ridden
perfectionist who effortlessly assumed the role of family caretaker.
Determined to contribute much needed income to the family coffers, she
joined the vaudeville circuit in 1900. Film was in its infancy when
Pickford became a member of D.W. Griffith’s Biograph Company in 1909.
In 1913, she joined Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players. More than a star,
she became Hollywood’s first female mogul, establishing her own
production company in 1916 and cofounding United Artists three years
later.

As the 1920s drew to a close, things started to unravel. The death of
Pickford’s beloved mother was a devastating blow. More damaging to her
career was the advent of talking pictures. Unlike her friend Lillian
Gish, she failed to make the transition to talkies. On the personal
front, Pickford’s stormy marriage to Fairbanks ended in 1936. Her
subsequent union with Buddy Rogers was long lasting but troubled. Their
decision to adopt two children in the 1940s was particularly
unfortunate: Pickford wasn’t cut out for motherhood. Even her business
acumen seemed to desert her as project after project failed and United
Artists was increasingly paralyzed by lawsuits and internal squabbles.
In her later years, Pickford became a recluse who occupied her time
“sleeping, dreaming, reading the Bible, and drinking whiskey
throughout the day.”

In addition to liberating Pickford from the stultifying Little Mary
image, the author, a journalist, playwright, and former actress, is
concerned with reviving interest in a long neglected art form—the
silent film. For contemporary audiences, Whitfield writes, “such
movies ... seem to be artifacts from an impenetrable, distant world.”
Through her perceptive criticism and infectious love of the form, she
succeeds admirably in bringing that world into focus.