"Mary Pickford: Queen of the Movies"

A century ago, in the early days of cinema, when actors were unbilled and unmentioned in credits, audiences immediately noticed Mary Pickford. Dubbed "America's Sweetheart," Pickford charmed moviegoers during the first three decades of the 20th century with magnetic talent, as she rose to become cinema's first great star. Christel Schmidt's "Mary Pickford: Queen of the Movies," sheds new light on this icon's life and legacy.

Speaker Biography: Christel Schmidt is a film historian, writer and editor. She was awarded two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities for her work on Mary Pickford and is co-editor of "Silent Movies: The Birth of Film and the Triumph of Movie Culture."

>>From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
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>> Well, good afternoon.  I'm John Cole.  I'm the Director of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, and very pleased to welcome you to a very special presentation, special for many reasons.  We're going to learn about Mary Pickford sitting here in the Mary Pickford Theater.  We're going to have an opportunity to celebrate an absolutely gorgeous book which will be on sale once the program is over.  This was a co-publication of the Library of Congress and the University of Kentucky Press and it is a remarkably beautiful book, a collaboration with the Library of Congress, University of Kentucky Press and with the designer, Robert Wiser, who is with us today, who did a wonderful job and is someone we at the Library have worked with for some time.  The Center for the Book is co-hosting this with the Publishing Office.  For those of you who don't know, the Center for the Book was created by Daniel Boorstin when he was Librarian of Congress.  Our first year was 1977 and our mission is to promote books, reading, and literacy on behalf of the Library of Congress and we have been at it now for several decades.  We do this through--in a couple of ways.  One is through a national network of state centers for the book.  All states, 50 states, now have affiliated centers.  They promote books and reading and literacy and writers and writers from their states at the local level.  We also have a reading promotion partners program of nonprofit organizations that share our interest in book promotion and in reading.  We also play a very important role in the National Book Festival which has--came to the Library of Congress in the year 2001.  And most recently, we have helped the Library developed and have assumed the responsibility for the first Young Readers Center in the history of the Library of Congress which just celebrated its third year.  Here at the library, you are participating in Books and Beyond which is a lecture series that really features new books that have some kind of special relationship to the Library of Congress.  And as I hinted earlier, this relationship is a very strong one.  A word about the program itself, we will--Christel will talk about the book and we are really be given a tour of the book which is a wonderful way to learn about both Mary Pickford and the relationship to the Library.  We also will be--are videotaping this for viewing later on the Library of Congress' website because we will be having a brief Q and A period and I should tell you that when you choose to ask a question of Christel, you're giving us your permission to perhaps use your image and your ideas on our website as part of the Q and A.  The book sale and signing will follow at 1 o'clock.  I want to say just a brief word so Christel doesn't have to get into that and we can enjoy the book about this relationship with the Library of Congress and Mary Pickford.  It started back in 1943 with Archibald MacLeish when he was Librarian of Congress and he had a great interest in reviving the Library's earlier efforts at motion picture collecting and collections and he wanted to attract collections that were of special interest and for whatever reason and we don't have to go into that, he asked--wrote Mary Pickford and asked if she would become involved, and shortly after MacLeish left the library, she did donate her personal collection of films to the Library of Congress and that was in 1946 and that kind of really got things started.  Our Motion Picture and Recorded Sound Section--Division was created in 1978 and of course, that brought film preservation to the fore in terms of the Library's development of its motion picture collection.  And the opportunity came of course really when--actually when Mary Pickford died, I think Christel, 1979 is what I wrote down.  And by then, a man named Daniel Boorstin who had created the Center for the Book and was very interested in all kinds of outreach decided to move on this Pickford legacy that we had and wrote the estate suggesting among other things as I understand it, the development of a, out of the funding of the--was developed from the Pickford Foundation and Family this theater and the Pickford Theater opened in 1983--excuse me, 19--forgot--1983, I'm correct and with funding for our programming initially from the foundation.  And it was really the first gathering site for motion picture theater showings at the Library of Congress and of course immediately, we all thought it was too small, but nonetheless, this is what we had and it's enjoyed a wonderful history since then, but of course now the supple--we've been supplemented by Culpeper and everything else.  But today, we can come back and take a look at Mary Pickford and honor her through Christel's wonderful new book.  Christel came to the Library of Congress in 1998 as a temporary employee working in prints and photographs, but as we explained in the biographical verb, she has a background as a film historian and a writer and an editor and once she came to the Library of Congress was the period when she began finally to get any [inaudible] support for her work on Mary Pickford and among her other book--Christel's other books, she is the co-editor of "Silent Movies: The Birth of Film and the Triumph of Movie Culture."  I first met Christel when I was fortunate enough in a temporary period to be reassigned to be acting director of the Publishing Office between--for reasons of Ralph Eubanks who is the director who was not--needed relief for six months and I was brought in and that happened to be the period when we were continuing to struggle with ways to keep Christel not only employed but making use of her wonderful talent and we were lucky then and I think I speak for Ralph in saying that the Publishing Office has been lucky since then to have Christel not as a steady employee as I understand it, but nonetheless someone was knowledgeable someone the Library of Congress takes great pride in supporting and having here today.  Also and finally, I'd like Christel to say a few words.  She can correct anything I've just said, but not much, Christel, I want you to move ahead into the book.  Besides that, I'm pretty close I think on most of these.  But talk about this other thing that's going to happen which is she's going to be touring with the film with film screenings of Mary Pickford to promote the book for the next few weeks and that is a new activity and a wonderful activity for the Library of Congress and maybe you could explain a little bit to everybody what you're up to with that tour and then go into your presentation.  But, let us now welcome Christel Schmidt to talk about Mary Pickford, her favorite subject.
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>> I think these were your notes, John.
>> Thank you.
>> You're welcome.  I will tell you briefly about the tour.  It kicks off Thursday in Lexicon, Kentucky which is the home of our co-publisher, the University Press of Kentucky and we're going to be showing the Library of Congress' restoration of Pickford's "Sparrows" from 1926.  I'm going to introduce the film and talk a little bit about the book and do a book signing afterwards.  We're going to be doing screenings all across the US.  You can find out about it on the Library of Congress' website.  I also have a Facebook page for the book and so there are a number of places that you can find more information.  The first thing I want to do is just take care of some business.  I want to take John Cole in the Center for the Book for asking me to come here.  I also want to thank the staff of the Publishing Office.  This book met with many obstacles on the way to completion and none of them could have been surmounted without the advice, encouragement, enthusiasm of my fellow writers and editors.  They provided me with the support of--and truly ego-free environment and I will always be grateful.  I also have to thank Robert Wiser, my designer who's sitting right there.
^M00:10:03 We got along very well.  We saw things the same way and I feel very, very grateful.  The number one thing people say to me about this book is it's gorgeous and I get some of the credit for that, but you get a lot of the credit for that as well.  So thank you.  And I want to thank all of you for coming out and spending your lunchtime with me.  So what I want to do is talk to you a little about Mary Pickford.  Can I borrow the book, John?  And I want to take you into the book.  Nine writers, 14 essays, over 230 images and weighing in at almost 5 pounds.  I think it's a book that's truly fitting of a queen and that's what I tried to do.  So I'll start with telling you about Mary and then I'll show you some of the visuals because this is--this book was meant originally to accompany an exhibition and when the plans for that fell apart, I thought, "Well, why can't I have an exhibition inside my book and that would last longer that any exhibition standing in a building or a room."  Mary Pickford lived a remarkable life, transcending the class and gender boundaries that a girl born into poverty in the late 1800s would have encountered.  She became one of the most celebrated and influential figures of the early 20th century.  Her medium was the movies, the era's most powerful new art form that captured both the public's imagination and it's hard one dollars.  Pickford's early cinema--Pickford was early cinema's most gifted actress.  She was also its first great star.  She attained an immense and unprecedented level of popularity which she astutely parlayed in the power behind the scenes and an income that made her one of the wealthiest women in the world.  So, Pickford had an extraordinary ambition, drive and determination.  For me, a story from her childhood is the perfect illustration of how she achieved her goals. When she was just a young girl in Toronto, she became obsessed with a nickel that was caught between the keys of the family piano.  One day, she decided she would free it, with a hammer.  [laughter]  Luckily for the piano, her grandmother stopped her.  It's that story of Pickford's early life and her ambition and drive that I really want to share with you today.  Pickford was born Gladys Marie Smith in Toronto in 1892, 1892.  Isn't she cute?  Her parents, Charlotte Hennessy-Smith and John Charles Smith had two more children, a daughter Lottie and a son Jack.  John struggled to earn a living.  He also struggled with alcohol.  The couple's marriage was rocky and when John Charles died in 1898, he wasn't even living with his family.  Pickford, just 5 years old, was traumatized by her father's death in the intense grief her mother plunged into.  Over the next year, Charlotte struggled to take care of her children.  When a wealthy doctor and his wife offered to adopt Pickford, her mother, knowing she cannot provide what the rich man could, considered it.  She explained to her daughter the sacrifice she was willing to make to give her daughter a better life.  Pickford was terrified and heartbroken.  She told her mother she didn't care about anything except being with her family.  In her memoir, Pickford recalled that from that day forward, a determination was born that nothing could crush.  She would take her father's place and make sure the family would never be parted.  Two years after the death of John Charles, an opportunity for the 7-year-old presented itself.  A theater manager staying at a rented room at the Smith house was looking for two young girls for bit parts in a six-day run of a play called "The Silver King."  Charlotte was hesitant but she allowed it.  On January 8th, 1900, Pickford and her sister Lottie made their first appearance on the Toronto stage.  They earned 13 dollars for the week.  I just want to point out, this is the oldest piece of surviving Pickford memorabilia.  I also love it.  It's Gladys Smith, someone put the explanation--anyways.  And that came to us courtesy of Pickford biographer, Eileen Whitfield, actually two of these survived which I think is amazing.  Soon, the whole family was working as actors whenever they could obtain roles.  Now, I also want to point out here.  That's Mary, that's Lottie and that's Jack playing the girl.  Lottie and Mary are actually playing boys.  I don't know how they worked it out, but they needed the job.  Pickford who loved performing found herself much more in demand and over the next few years, the young girl lived the rather punishing life of a working actor at the turn of the century.  Long uncomfortable train rides to one night performances and rundown theaters in towns where actors were not readily accepted.  The hotels were dingy and the productions in which she appeared, usually well-worn mellow dramas, were mostly third rate.  The circumstances were harsh for an adult, let alone a child.  By 1906, the now 14-year-old Pickford had had enough.  She was enchanted with acting but she wanted to improve her stature, so she set a lofty goal for herself.  She would be on Broadway in one year or give up acting forever.  Her plan B, learn dress design and manufacturing so she could eventually own her own factory.  I've said this many times.  The world lost the Mary Pickford sweat shop that I think it probably would have been.  [laughter]  The ambitious teen decided to stakeout the casting office of one of the era's producers, David Belasco, he was called the Bishop of Broadway and you can probably see, he's got that very clerical-looking collar.  After weeks of going unnoticed in the office, she took matters into her own hands.  Pickford sought the assistance of a popular Belasco actress named Blanche Bates.  Bates was actually performing at the Majestic Theater in Brooklyn.  The Majestic is where Lottie, Mary and Jack and Chauncey Olcott who you just saw up there had played not that long before.  She convinced someone to let her in and she got access to Bates' maid.  Bates' maid convinced Bates to allow Pickford to use her name to gain access to the great producer.  Armed with Bates' messages, the girl stormed the casting office, but she was met with an equally tenacious office boy, a row ensued causing Belasco's manager, William Dean to come out to see what the fuss was about.  After speaking with Pickford, he agreed to arrange a meeting with her and Belasco.  A few weeks later, she was spaced to face with the producer.  She was in awe.  She said later that she saw him as a god.  But she never lost her nerve.  I think that's something about being a teenager.  Pickford told him she wished to be a good actress and that she needed to earn more money to care for her family.  When he asked her why she approached him and not another Broadway producer, Pickford responded with a charming frankness.  "Well, mother says"--"Well, mother always says I should aim high or not at all."  Belasco, maybe taken with her chutzpah, gave her two things, a small role in his next production "The Warrens of Virginia" and a new name.  Gladys Smith was now Mary Pickford.  Mary comes from her middle name which was Marie and Pickford was a family name.  Pickford appeared in "The Warrens of Virginia" throughout the play's six-month Broadway run which opened in December of 1907 and she was in the national road show.  The production ended its full run in March of 1909 and the actress found herself out of work with a theatrical season near its end.  Theaters closed in the summer in the days before air conditioning and so actors were kind of left to their own devices.  Her mother Charlotte encouraged her to try her hand at the movies.  Pickford was horrified.  A Belasco actress slamming in the galloping tintypes, but she obeyed.  In the spring of 1909, Pickford ended up at the Biograph Studio working for DW Griffith who is now considered one of cinema's great directors.  Pickford was a natural in front of the camera and she began her rise to the top as--to the top as a fan and critics favorite.  On December 6th, 1911, the New York Dramatic Mirror, a popular theatrical journal put Pickford on its cover.  The magazine reported on movies, I think with hands over its nose to be honest with you, but only on its final pages after Vaudeville and Burlesque.  This was the first time someone from the flickers, as they were dubbed, made the cover.  The following year, the press had dubbed Pickford the Queen of the Movies.  1913 saw the rise of the feature-length film and while many fan favorites fall through in movie's extended format, for Pickford, it only added to her popularity.  Her fame skyrocketed with a blockbuster success of two 1914 pictures, "Hearts Adrift" and "Tess of the Storm Country."  The following year, she was considered to be the most famous woman in the world.  I love this.  They took a poll in an American magazine to decide if she was the most popular girl in the world.  But she really was the most popular girl in the world.  Now, sitting at the top of her profession with financial security for herself and her family, Pickford could have set back and enjoyed the ride.  Yet, like the determined child prepared to take a hammer to a piano and free a nickel--my pages were sticking together, sorry.
^M00:20:10 Pickford was equally resolved to get everything she wanted out of the film industry.  She believed an actor's career was at best short lived and she planned as she told an interviewer, "to make hay while the sun shines."  In 1916, the 24-year-old had enough power and business savvy to negotiate what would ultimately be a landmark movie contract.  It not only revolutionized how films were distributed, but it offered an actor creative control, as well as an extraordinary salary highlighting the growing power and influence of the movie star in the 1910s.  Pickford and her mother Charlotte, who helped manage her daughter's career, hammered out the details together.  I can tell you one thing, you wouldn't want to meet these two in an alley.  Famous Players, the company Pickford worked for would pay the actress 50 percent of the profits of her film guaranteeing her a salary of over a million dollars over a two-year period.  She would be paid in weekly installments of 10,000 dollars.  At the time, the average salary of a movie star was between 1,000 and 5,000 a week.  Now, these are remarkable figures when you consider the average American's yearly income was 750 dollars.  Pickford--there was more.  Pickford also received 300,000 dollar signing bonus and the additional 40,000 dollars for the four weeks she and her mother had spent working on the agreement.  I think she was annoyed that it took so long for them to agree so she was going to make them pay for that.  Other perks included her own first class studio in New York, a private stage for filming in Los Angeles, a parlor car for train travel to and from the west coast and her own press agent or secretary.  Industry insiders were shocked to learn that the contract also gave Pickford her own production company within Famous Players.  And although she did not have complete autonomy as a producer, she did have an impressive amount of control.  The Pickford Film Corporation gave her a voice regarding a selection of her directors and final approval over cast, advertising and marketing.  She also had a say in the choice of her characters and stories and the film's final edit.  Finally, she was required to make only six films a year.  She had been making twice that amount and she was guaranteed a reasonable amount of time off between.  In 1918, when Pickford's two-year contract with Famous Players was set to expire, she received an even greater offer from First National.  It's kind of hard to believe that there was a greater offer than that 1916 contract, but there was.  First National offered her 750,000 dollars for just three pictures and 50 percent of her film profits guaranteeing her between one to two million dollars a year.  Maybe more important to the already very wealthy actress, they would allow her to have complete creative control.  Adolph Zukor, the founder of Famous Players and Pickford's producer for several years could not match First National's offer.  But he didn't want to lose the actress to a rival company.  His counter offer was unique.  He would pay Pickford 250,000 dollars a year if she would simply retire.  Obviously, she declined.  Pickford was still making her first film for First National when rumor spread that the major movie companies were planning to supplant the star system by stressing stories and production values.  Movie companies were really tired of movie stars.  They don't want to pay movie stars all those.  They don't want to give them this much control, so if they promoted movies about great books that had great directors and high production values that maybe they could get from under the star system.  An even greater threat was the rumored merger between Paramount Pictures and First National, Adolph Zukor, Pickford's former boss was running Paramount now that it had merged with Famous Players.  So this meant that Pickford would again be under Zukor's control.  But she refused to seed any hard one ground.  The idea for United Artists, Hollywood's first independent distribution company, was not Pickford's but she and her mother were certainly influential figures in its formation.  The actress agreed to partner with actors Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks, and her former director, DW Griffith.  United Artists was a risky venture.  Each partner would have to cover the company's startup class as well as finance and star in their own productions.  And with much of the industry against these independent upstarts, the company might have trouble booking their films into theaters.  But if UA were successful, the benefits would be great.  Pickford would retain creative control over her work and although she now had to finance her own productions, she alone would receive the profits.  So there's a lot of information and a lot of detail in the book, and I didn't want to spend a whole lot of time telling Pickford story because you can certainly read about it, but these are some of my favorite stories.  And so I was glad to share them with you.  So now I would like to kind of take you inside the book.  I want to just check really quick how we're doing for time.  This will be brief.  We have a number of essays in the book that talk about other aspects of Pickford's life and career.  We have a piece on her philanthropy, that's Douglas Fairbanks.  They were not married.  They were certainly having an affair, but I doubt anyone knew it.  They were frequently paired during World War II publicity and promotion for the war effort.  It was one of the ways they could be together publicly without people really questioning.  Pickford had a number of causes that she believed in during her lifetime, the Actors Fund, the elderly, children.  She was also very much involved with the Motion Picture Relief Fund and was a major player in the Motion Picture Country House which is in Woodland Hills.  It's a retirement home for the movie community.  Pickford was truly a national icon and this happened--this transition from just being a popular actress to being a national icon happened during World War I with [inaudible] on-screen.  This is a film frame from the prologue to a film she made called "The Little American."  Isn't that a gorgeous poster?  I can tell you, that is the size of a conference room table.  It's a gorgeous, gorgeous poster.  This is another image from "The Little American."  But she also did a lot of work for the cause.  She worked for the Red Cross, she worked for the US Treasury and she--this is her selling war bonds in Washington on April 6th, 1918.  This is kicking off the Third Liberty Loan Drive.  This is exactly one year after the war began.  This is right across the street at the US Capitol.  You can hardly see, but she's there.  I love this because you can see this wonderful faces of the people who are there.  And she spent a lot of time with soldiers.  This group of soldiers at Camp Kearny which is in San Diego, she was their honorary colonel and she spent a lot of time with them.  She sent them cigarettes and chocolate and try to do a lot of extra special things for them.  Of course, there's Pickford and Fairbanks.  I wrote an essay, a small essay about their marriage that they--it was a partnership of equals.  That's from their honeymoon.  They're leaving on their honeymoon in the summer of 1920.  That's beautiful.  That's from Douglas Fairbanks personal collection, that's the George Eastman house.  And this, I just love.  This is a strange photo.  They're not really appropriately dressed for whatever they're doing there in the Swiss Alps.  [laughter]  And I love those weird glasses.  We also have a piece on Pickford's childhood.  We wanted to scratch the surface of what those roles were about, how they connected with popular books and plays at the era.  And you can also see from this image how she could pass for a child, at the same time, it's very clear that she was an adult.  There she is in the foundling.  And there she is in "Little Annie Rooney."  An aspect of her career that's not really discussed which is also--she made as many films playing characters that weren't white, she didn't do black face, but she certainly did yellow face, what we see here and brown face.  This is her as Cho-Cho-San in 1950s--1915s Madame Butterfly.  This is "Less than the Dust."  She plays a girl from East India who strangely not in the film's final real discovers that she's not really Indian at all, that she's really white.  There's a wonderful sequence where she actually looks at her skin, does this and looks at the camera.  It's like she couldn't believe it herself when she was filming it.  [laughter]  What is this, you know?  And this is her playing Mexican in Fate's Interception which is a biograph short from 1912.  I also wrote a piece on Pickford's hair.  She had world famous hair.  She probably had the most--one of the most famous head's of hair in all of history.  And there're the Pickford curls.  And that's what she looked like after she cut them.  I think she looks fabulous.
^M00:30:01 And there they are.  Yes folks, they survive today.  [laughter]  I'll tell you a little bit more about that as we go on.  So because this was going to be an exhibition and because I'm an archivist and I've done a lot of archival research and I've looked at a lot of things in institutions all around the world, I really wanted this book to have a strong archival component.  Clearly, I'm at the Library of Congress and we wanted the Library of Congress' collection.  We have the largest collection of Pickford films in the world and we wanted to showcase it.  This is a frame enlargement and this looks so good because Glenn Krankowski who's in the digital scan lab is tremendous.  He worked really hard and I'm really grateful for his efforts because that really looks like a photo.  So we wanted to promote the Pickford film collection here and we needed to do that by having nice scans of film frames which if you've seen a lot of film frames in other books, they look awful and I could not have the Library looking awful, and I certainly couldn't have Mary Pickford looking awful.  There is her in "Wilful Peggy," one of our most popular shorts.  That's her, she's a man.  She's dressed as a man.  That's "The Dream."  This is not from the Pickford collection but one of the many things the Library has acquired over the years, adding to her collection.  This is a nitrate frame from "Rags" and that's of course, "Sparrows."  Now, the Library has other Pickford items in the collection and we wanted to showcase that as well.  So the Motion Picture Division has glass slides.  We also have in the General Collection magazines with Pickford on the cover, sheet music, posters, drawings, and photos.  So I want to tell you about this photo.  This photo is in the manuscript division, it's not in the Princeton Photographs Division, and I was down there kind of digging around trying to see what--you know, I looked everywhere, what did the Library have, anything at all.  And there was paperwork about Mary Pickford being a member of the National Women's Party.  And I had not heard this.  I contacted Pickford biographer Eileen Whitfield, she did not know this.  So this was one of my big finds that Pickford was a supporter of equal rights and a part of the National Women's Party.  And when I contacted--initially I saw it in a paper.  I didn't see a photo and I called the Sewall-Belmont House and said to them, "Is this the same Mary Pickford?"  And they said, "Yeah, indeed, this was Mary Pickford."  We needed to collaborate with other institutions, I mean obviously, when you're doing an exhibition, you want to have the best thing and the Library doesn't have everything.  So we wanted to collaborate with other institutions, but we also wanted to showcase three important Pickford collections that survive in the United States.  The Library has the film collection, the Academy has Pickford's papers and her photographs.  They also have acquired a number of really beautiful posters which we have in the book.  But what was special to me were these photos because without them, we would not have some of the images that we have.  We wouldn't have Pickford at various stages of her life, 14 months, adolescence, as a young woman, as a middle-aged woman, and as an older woman.  This is--Pickford is just shy of her 70th birthday here and that's a Polaroid.  I love finding that.  We also had access to a lot of personal photos.  This is a photo of her mother.  It's never been published and the reason probably for that is it was written on the back, unidentified Pickford relative.  And I was like, "That's Charlotte, I'm pretty sure that's Charlotte."  And I'm lucky enough to know Charlotte's granddaughters, one of which told me, "Oh yeah, that's Charlotte.  We have that--that was on display in Pickfair, that's her."  So that was good.  That was my--you know, the--a hundred percent was important to me.  There's also this photo of her father which has also never been published.  The same photo of Mary's father has been published for decades anytime anyone showed it.  And I came across this one, she only had two and I was beside myself that I didn't have to use the same image everyone else had used.  Again, we got photos of all the children and of course, we've got Mary with her niece.  So I wouldn't have had access to these wonderful personal photos without that.  We also had access to, because Pickford had them, scenes of her on film sets.  So, you know, they're not film stills, they're movie stills.  They're actually behind-the-scene shots.  So you can see how she could play a little girl.  She's not that much bigger than her.  This is her on the set with [inaudible].  They had a little feisty relationship.  You can see with the hands on the hips who probably won many of the arguments.  This is what it was like to work on a Pickford production.  You might be her director, but this was her show.  And of course, this beautiful intimate portrait of her and Douglas Fairbanks.  So I want to share something with you that didn't get in the book.  I know Robert is going to laugh at me when he sees it.  Maybe he can guess what it is, this telegram.  So in 1931, Pickford and Fairbanks' marriage was not in good shape.  Their careers were faltering and you know, Fairbanks' solution was just to run away.  He actually pretty much was gone in Europe for three years.  And this is early in his absence but Mary sent him this telegram.  Duber was the nickname that she had for him and it says--if you can't read it, "Beverly Hills, Newark without Duber."  I adore that.  So if you're from Newark, you probably don't.  So we also collaborated with the National--Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.  I know you think dinosaurs, what are they doing with silent film memorabilia.  They were also an art museum and one of their--one of the things that they are tasked with collecting is California industry, Los Angeles industry, and of course, that's movies.  So this is Mary's hair in 1932.  She donated five of her 18 ringlets to them.  That really is her hair.  They haven't tested it against the family members, but they have tested to be human hair and I don't know why she would give them someone else's hair, it doesn't make any sense.  They also have costumes.  So here we see Pickford in this beautiful dress from "Rosita" and there's that dress today.  And I'll just tell you briefly, when I met Beth Werling, the collections manager, she said to me, "You know, we have this beautiful dress, but in surviving--there's one surviving print of the film out of Russia," and she is like, "It's not complete, and there's no scenes of Mary wearing this dress so I don't think we can say that Mary was in it."  And I said, "You're not going to believe this, that the Library of Congress has a photo of Mary in that dress."  Here is another costume from "Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall."
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This is from "Little Annie Rooney."  There's the [inaudible] and there's the dress and that's it.  Do you have any questions?
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>> How tall was she?  She seems awfully short.
>> She is little.  She was called Little Mary and there was a reason 'cause she was 5 feet tall.
>> Did she have any children?
>> She did adopt two children.  She adopted them in the '40s after the war.
>> In terms of who was the recipients of her estate, [inaudible].
[Multiple Speakers]
>> Oh, yeah, yeah, he's asking about who benefited from her estate.  There was some money that went to family members.  The bulk of the estate went to the Pickford Foundation and some of it also went to her third husband, Buddy Rogers.  The Pickford Foundation is still very well funded some, you know, over 30 years after her death.  Yes.
>> Did she ever have any formal education or [inaudible].
>> No, and that's what's really amazing.
>> Repeat the question.
>> She's asking me if Pickford had any formal education.  You know, I think some of this was just innate.  I mean, I kept trying to figure out how she could be so smart and I think, you know, when you want something, when you want to achieve something, you either don't do it or you figure out how to do it.  I think she asked the right questions.  I think she was self-taught and I think she was so obsessive as she was with that nickel in the piano that she was going to do whatever she had to do.  And I think she learned a lot.  I mean Chaplin said she knew all the legal language and documents.  I mean she really--you know, Fairbanks sought her business advice, you know.  Samuel Goldwyn who was no friend of hers, they had a very complicated friendship, working relationship, you know, said she knew more about movie business than any man he ever met.  So, you know, it is kind of remarkable, but I think a lot of it had to do really just with her determination.  This was what she wanted to do and I think that she was so concerned about kind of putting distance between that childhood and that poverty and that struggle that she did what she had to do to attain what she ultimately attained.  Anybody else?  Okay, start there.
>> Hi, with United Artists, how did she work Fairbanks, Chaplin and Griffith?  Did they work well together?
>> How did she work with Chaplin, Fairbanks, and Griffith?  She worked very well with Fairbanks because they were married, and they were very similar.
^M00:40:06 There were problems with the United Artists.  Partly, Charlie Chaplin still was obligated to--on his previous contract and he was very slow bringing in his film and that really ticked off Pickford and Fairbanks.  Pickford said in her book that, you know, Fairbanks often let her be the bad guy which I think a lot of women can relate to.  And so, you know, sometimes, there are more tensions, but Chaplin was very unnerved by Pickford's business sensibilities.  You know, he basically said that, you know, her business reputation flourished, you know, in spite of her beauty.  But I found this really great quote of his saying that the combination of a woman with beauty and brains was a rare thing and if you ever met it--met that combination, he would marry it.  So he did meet that combination in Mary Pickford, but he didn't seem to like it very much.  Griffith and her, you know, they worked together at Biograph and he wasn't very smart with business and I think she was frustrated with that.  But he left the company in 1924 and you know, I think that they still stayed on a pretty good, you know, friendship and business relationship.  Hi, still have a question?
>> Was she only in silent movies?
>> She made over 205 films.  She appeared in over 205 films.  She made four sound films.  Her first sound film, "Coquette," she won the Academy Award.  She will--It wasn't successful.  Her second film was "The Taming of the Shrew" which was successful.  But then her last two pictures, "Kiki" and "Secrets" were not.  You know, it's kind of difficult for me, I'll just put it bluntly.  I don't she has a good voice.  It personally makes my ears bleed when I hear it.  It's very tiny.  It's very reprimanding.  It's kind of like a schoolmarmish voice, and I just don't think it played well.  So, that's just my opinion.  Other people have other thoughts.  They're--It's a much more complicated thing because she was turning 40, she had to totally change her image, she cut her hair off, people could hear her voice, it's a complete breakdown of the on-screen persona.  She was playing very much different characters and of course, what was popular in the roaring '20s was not very popular in the depression era where they liked, you know, hookers with hearts of gold, gangsters, chorus girls, and that wasn't Mary Pickford.  She--It was going to difficult for her to survive in the 1930s.  How are we doing with time?
>> Still have time.
>> We still have time?  Any more questions?
>> Followup.
>> Okay, followup.
>> Do you think she deserves the Academy Award or [inaudible].
>> Oh, she must certainly deserve the Academy Award.  She founded the Academy.  She is hands down the most important woman of the silent era, one of the most important figures man and woman of the silent era.  The movie industry benefitted greatly from her.  You know, she made those early films--she started in 1909.  You name a silent--a major silent film star, they did not start in 1909.  She was there first and the fact that she was so talented and so popular, brought respectability to the industry, she preached it as an art form.  You know, she's really a focal point in almost every turn.  She sold movie magazines, she sold movie tickets, she preached for uplifting the movies, from being, you know, working class, entertainment seen in a Nickelodeon to being in a movie palace.  I mean, she is a major figure.  So most certainly, Academy Awards are given for lots of reasons, not just great performances.  And you know, the film was her most successful film.  I think there's a curiosity factor.  But, you know, early talkies, you know, aren't really great anyways.  I mean, they're often very stilted performances.  And she was one of the first silent film stars that faced it.  She said, "This is what's happening, I got to do it," and she did do it.  So I think she did deserve it.  So, Tom?
>> Those early amazing deals she got, are those done with--without an agent?
>> Yes, it was her and her mother.  Yeah.  She had discovered in 1915 basically coming home from the studio that there was a long line outside of that movie theater that was showing one of her films.  And then next week, there was no line.  She went in the theater and there was no one in there and there was a thing that they did when they distributed films called block-booking which meant, you can have the Mary Pickford films but you also have to take these Ken Dodds.  And so, she really realized that they were making all these additional money off of her.  And they used to say at the studio, they were going to wrap everything around her neck.  Well, she wrapped everything around their neck and she said, "You're going to give me what I want or I'm going to leave."  And just having her was so prestigious, when famous players announced that she would be exiting, their stock plummeted just from the announcement that she was living.  Anybody else?  Yes?
>> Does she have any [inaudible] distance between her early poverty and then her extreme wealth and having [inaudible].
>> You know, there are these stories about her--you know, first of all, there were people who could call her Gladys.  She would supposedly mutter to herself, that she was surprised that Gladys Smith was drawing a bath for the Queen of Sheba who would come and stay at Pickfair.  I think that comes out in her philanthropy.  I think she really felt that she needed to give back, she understood poverty, she understood--she saw lots of people not make the various transitions in the film industry and I think that that really comes into play with how generous she could be.  Yes?
^M00:45:41
[ Inaudible Remark ]
^M00:45:47
Yeah, that's--
[Multiple Speakers]
That's a quote.
>> Do you kind of suggests that the [inaudible] is not going to show, it won't be showing it for [inaudible].
>> Yeah.
>> And I was just wondering why--did you have any thoughts on why [inaudible].
>> Well, it's interesting because for a stage actor, you could--the same role you could play at 23 was not--was the same role you could do at 73.  There's a distance and there was--you know, people accepted certain things.  But in the movies where you blow people's faces up, that doesn't happen and she saw a lot of careers falter.  There were a lot of people who were very popular in one and two reelers who features game, they didn't have careers.  And I think it's like anyone else.  You always believe, "Oh my God, I can't believe this tremendous success, it can't last forever."  And it didn't last forever, it did end.  And so, I think she was afraid of it.  And I think when you're at the peak, you're always wondering when--you know, when you're going to start going down the other side of the ladder.  Sharon [phonetic]?
>> When was her last film?  And then after that, did she ever get back in the theater or television or you know, was there ever talk of a comeback?
>> She--Her last film was 1933 and she immediately started trying to find something else.  She did radio, she wrote books, she produced other people's pictures, but as many people said, Mary didn't want to do anything else ever except make movies.  And she didn't deal with it very well.  She said that "Taming of the Shrew" really destroyed her confidence.  I don't think she felt good enough to make a come back.  She did some theater.  She had an opportunity to star on a couple of films, one is a film called "Storm Center" that Bette Davis took her role.  The other one is "Sunset Boulevard" which would've been a much different film.  And sadly, a lot of people say that Mary Pickford was--her life was like Sunset Boulevard and that's not really--that's not really fair.  But, yeah, I mean, for me, the film that she should've done was a film called "The Night of the Hunter" that Lillian Gish took.  Because Lillian Gish is playing a Mary Pickford role.  That is a Mary Pickford role and she should have that role, but I don't have any information that anyone even considered her for it.  So, it's a shame 'cause they should have.  Rosemary, did you have a question?
>> Yeah.  I was going to ask what were her final years like?
>> You got to ask that question.
>> Okay, never mind.
>> You know, everybody has ups and downs.  Mary Pickford had a lot of personal loss.  A lot of things happened all at once.  She lost--Her art from died, her career went bust, her marriage went bust, her mother died, her siblings died.  All in 10 years, she lost everything she ever knew in 10 years.  Fairbanks died in 1939 just three years after they divorced.  And I think that, you know, she says that she struggled for at least three years after her mother died to try to get back on her feet.  She didn't have much confidence and alcoholism really was very destructive in that family.  Lots of family members have died from alcoholism and she did struggle with alcoholism really 'till the end of her life.  A lot of people don't like to talk about it, it is sad.  But everybody has happiness.  She had children, who I do believe that she loved and she had her nieces, her two great nieces and her great nephew that she had a very good relationship with.  So, I think there's some joy, but there is certainly a lot of pain, there's certain--and her last marriage wasn't a great marriage.  How are we doing?
>> Two more questions.
>> Two more questions.  Let's start back there.
>> What does she think of Clara Bow and Lilian Gish?
>> Lillian Gish was her best friend.  One of the things I had the most fun doing was looking in a Lillian Gish papers of the New York Public Library.  They are correspondence which was much more formal than I expected, but it was lovely.  They met in childhood working in New York.  Both of them had fatherless families and they stayed friends throughout their life.  And one of the things that really kind of touched me is that Lillian Gish kept a clipping file on Mary Pickford until Lillian Gish died.  So, she was still tracking what was out there about her friend.  And one more.
^M00:50:14
>> Did she ever actually visit the Library of Congress?
>> She did visit the Library of Congress.  She was actually here for an event.  There's a photo of it in the book.  She really was pushing film preservation.  There's a photo with her and Mumford--Quincy Mumford with a senator in between 'cause there was sometimes intense relationship with her and the librarian.  He's kind of bridging the distance there.  So, anyways, thank you all for coming out.  I hoped that you'll at least look at the book, consider buying a copy from me, and I hope you learned something about Mary Pickford today.  [applause]
>> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.  Visit us at loc.gov.