Mary Pickford (1892–1979) was a Canadian motion picture actress, producer, and writer. During the silent film era she became one of the first great celebrities of the cinema and a popular icon known to the public as "America's Sweetheart".[1]
Pickford was born Gladys Marie Smith in Toronto and began acting on stage in 1900. She started her film career in the United States in 1909.[2] Initially with the Biograph film company, she moved to the Independent Motion Picture Company (IMP) in 1911, then briefly to the Majestic Film Company later that same year, followed by a return to Biograph in 1912.[3] After appearing in over 150 short films during her years with these studios she began working in features with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company, a studio which eventually became part of Paramount Pictures. By 1916 Pickford's popularity had climbed to the point that she was awarded a contract that made her a partner with Zukor and allowed her to produce her films.[4] In 1919 Pickford teamed with D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, and Douglas Fairbanks to create United Artists, an organization designed to distribute their films.[5] She married Fairbanks in 1920. Following the release of Secrets (1933), Pickford retired from acting in motion pictures, but remained active as a producer for several years afterward.[6] She sold her stock in United Artists in 1956.[7]
The timeline offered here presents significant events in Mary Pickford's life and juxtaposes them against notable events in the history and development of cinema. More emphasis is placed on the silent era, when she was most active, with particular attention to her three United Artists partners. Also presented are notable events that occurred in the United States.
June 19 – The Horse in Motion by Eadweard Muybridge is made using sequential photographs of the horse Sallie Gardner, owned by Leland Stanford, running at a 1:40 pace over the Palo Alto track; this is a precursor to motion pictures[14]
February 19 – The phonograph is patented by Thomas Edison[15]
c. August – While working for the Niagara Steam Company, John Charles Smith suffers a serious injury when he hits his head on a dangling pulley[31][nb 2]
Late in the year, to make extra money, Charlotte rents a room to the manager of the Cummings Stock Company of Toronto, who suggests that Gladys and Lottie be cast in a play[24]
November 21 – Garret Hobart, Vice-President of the United States, dies of heart disease[34]
1900
January 8 – "Baby Gladys Smith" makes her stage debut at Toronto's Princess Theatre playing in The Silver King[24]
April 9 – Baby Gladys begins touring in the play The Littlest Girl[35]
September 14 – McKinley dies; Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt is sworn in as President[40]
1902
From this year until 1906 Gladys, Charlotte, Jack, and Lottie tour in numerous plays. Among the ones Mary appears in are Wedded But No Wife, The Gypsy Girl, For a Human Life, The Convict Stripes, and, for nineteen weeks, The Fatal Wedding[41]
The Smith family becomes acquainted with fellow stage actors Lillian and Dorothy Gish and their mother, Mary, when both families share a room in Manhattan one summer
Gladys tours in the play The Gypsy Girl
October 2–28 – Gladys, Jack, and Lottie appear in the play Edmund Burke starring Chauncey Olcott(pictured) at the Majestic Theatre in New York
At the suggestion of theatrical producer David Belasco, Gladys Smith becomes Mary Pickford; Charlotte, Lottie, and Jack take the name of Pickford as well[56][24]
March 20 – The Warrens of Virginia ends its run; with no more stage work scheduled, Charlotte suggests that Mary try entering the motion picture industry[66]
April — Mary successfully auditions for director D. W. Griffith at the Biography Film Studio in New York City; she signs with him for a salary of $10.00 per day; later on she helps her mother and siblings to become employed with Biograph[66][24]
August 21 – A review in the New York Dramatic Mirror writes of They Would Elope: "This delicious little comedy introduced again an ingénue whose work in Biograph pictures is attracting attention"[24]
June 9–August 7 – Alice Huyler Ramsey becomes the first woman to drive across the United States[76]
1910
January – Mary travels to Southern California with the Biograph Company, where they will film through the winter; during this time, Florence Lawrence(pictured), known as "The Biograph Girl" moves to Carl Laemmle's IMP Company, and Mary Pickford becomes the new "Biograph Girl"[77]
October 11 – Theodore Roosevelt, former President of the United States, becomes the first U.S. President to fly in an airplane[78]
December – Mary leaves Griffith and signs on with IMP at $175 per week[80][nb 6]
March 10 – IMP announces: WE NAIL A LIE, refuting a story published in the Motion Picture World that Florence Lawrence had been killed in a car accident; IMP stated that the story was false and that Lawrence was "in the best of health"[81]
January 9 – Mary stars with Owen Moore in her first IMP short, Their First Misunderstanding; shortly afterward, the IMP company moves to Palacio del Carneado, just outside of Havana, Cuba[82][83]
September – After returning to New York from Cuba, Mary leaves IMP and signs with the Majestic Company at $225 per week[24][nb 7]
April 8 – Release of Little Nemo, an animated film by cartoonist Winsor McCay(hand-colored frame pictured)[84]
April 17 – At the Big Easter Vaudeville Carnival at Chicago's American Music Hall, singer Emma Carus gives what is probably the first public performance of a new song by Irving Berlin called "Alexander's Ragtime Band"[86]
1912
January – After filming five short films with Majestic, Mary returns to the Biograph Company with a reduced salary of $175 per week[87][nb 8]
June 17 – Release of Lena and the Geese, a film based on a short story written by Mary[88]
Summer – After seeing Mary on-screen in Lena and the Geese, Lillian and Dorothy Gish come to Biograph where Mary introduces them to D. W. Griffith, who hires them both[89]
December 5 — Release of The New York Hat, the final film Mary made for Biograph and D. W. Griffith[90][nb 9]
December – Mary leaves Biograph and Griffith when David Belasco casts in his new stage production, A Good Little Devil[91]
April 14–15 – On route to New York, the ocean liner RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg and sinks with a loss of 1,514 lives[94]
1913
January 9 – Mary debuts as Julia in A Good Little Devil at Belasco's Republic Theatre, and receives glowing reviews[24]
April – Mary signs a one-year contract with Adolph Zukor at Famous Players for $500 a week[95]
May – Zukor films a feature version of A Good Little Devil in which Mary reprises her role as Julia; Zukor shelves it for eleven months and releases it in 1914[96][nb 10]
March 20 – Tess of the Storm Country is released to great success; Variety declares "Little Mary Pickford comes into her own," and that she has stuck "another feather in her movie crown"; Mary's fame soars and her salary is doubled to $1000 a week, making her the world's highest-paid actress[24]
April – Mary meets artist and writer Frances Marion and a lifelong personal and professional relationship begins[24]
May 7 – The RMS Lusitania is sunk (pictured) on passage from New York to Britain by a German U-boat, killing 1,198; this leads indirectly to the United States' entry into World War I[131]
November – Mary attends a party at the home of friend Elsie Janis in Tarrytown, NY where she meets Douglas Fairbanks (pictured); both are married and at the party with their spouses, but the two strike a friendship[133]
December – David Belasco refers to Mary as "The Queen of the Movies"[134]
Unknown date – Lottie Pickford, Mary's sister, marries New York broker Alfred Rupp[135]
May – Mary and Adolph Zukor renegotiate her salary again, settling on $10,000 a week and giving her the power to choose her own projects, writers and directors, releasing films under the Artcraft name[24]
August – Mary Pickford Film Corporation is formed and will produce only Pickford films to be distributed by the Artcraft division at Famous Players–Lasky[24]
October 25 – Jack Pickford marries actress Olive Thomas(pictured)[141]
December – Mary and Douglas Fairbanks share an emotional drive through Central Park after Fairbanks' mother dies, and the two begin their love affair; shortly afterward, Mary moves permanently to Los Angeles[24]
February – Douglas Fairbanks forms the Douglas Fairbanks Picture Corporation; with this he will produce his films for release by the Artcraft Pictures Corporation[153]
November 17 – Release of Heart o' the Hills, Mary's final release for First National Pictures[177]
April 22 – Douglas Fairbanks purchases a former hunting lodge in Beverly Hills; it will be revamped and expanded into the home later known as Pickfair[178]
March 2 – Mary travels with her mother, Charlotte, to Nevada to obtain a divorce from Owen Moore on grounds of desertion[184]
March 28 – Mary and Douglas Fairbanks marry in an intimate ceremony at the Glendale, California, home of Reverend J. Whitcomb Brougher; they move into a converted hunting lodge in Beverly Hills owned by Fairbanks, later to be dubbed "Pickfair"[185]
June–July – Mary and Doug honeymoon in Europe, visit London and Paris where they are swarmed by fans[186]
Lottie Pickford and her husband, Alfred Rupp, are divorced; Lottie relinquishes custody of her daughter, Mary Pickford Rupp (later known as Gwynne), to her mother, Charlotte[189]
April 2 – Release of Pay Day starring Charlie Chaplin[218]
April 12 — Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle is acquitted on manslaughter charges; one week later Will H. Hays has him banned from working in the motion picture industry[207]
April 13-July 20 – Mary and Doug board the RMS Olympic to England, where they meet Noël Coward and visit Haddon Hall; they travel on to France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Norway; the return to New York on the SS Leviathan[238]
September 3 - Mary, Doug, Gwynne, and Charlotte return home due to Charlotte's illness, thus forcing them to abandon plans to go to China[24]
1927
April 30 – Mary and Doug become the first stars to imprint their hands and feet in cement in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood[260]
September – Mary and Doug embark on a "world tour," visiting London, Paris, Switzerland, Egypt, China, and Japan, returning to the US via San Francisco on the Asama Maru[24]
December 2 – President Herbert Hoover goes before Congress and asks for a $150 million public works program to help generate jobs and stimulate the economy[289]
Mary begins filming Eternally Yours (an early version of her later film Secrets), but eventually abandons production[290][nb 23]
February – Mary begins hosting Parties at Pickfair, a CBS radio program that will be canceled after 13 weeks, proving unpopular with a Depression-era public[24][344]
July 2 – Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan disappear after taking off from New Guinea during Earhart's attempt to become the first woman to fly around the world[358]
1938
Mary develops Mary Pickford Cosmetics, a range of make-up products designed to be affordable to the masses[359]
March–June – Mary's own version of her life story is published serially in issues of McCall's magazine; these articles will serve as the basis for Sunshine and Shadow, her autobiography published in 1955[438]
^Pickford later claimed that she was born in 1893.[21]
^Whitfield does not state the date on which this accident occurred. However, she states the date of his death as February 11, 1898, and that this was six months after the accident.
^Mary has an uncredited cameo in The Black Pirate.[255]
^A Technicolor test of Mary was made for The Gaucho. However, Fairbanks decided not to use color in the final print of the film. The test survives.[271]
Whitfield 1997, p. 133 "Calling Mary 'America's Sweetheart' was not exactly a stroke of genius. I was simply putting down in two words what everyone in America seemed to be thinking about her." — B.P. Schulberg, publicist for Famous Players and scenario writer for In the Bishop's Carriage (1913) and Tess of the Storm Country (1914)
^Lott, Eric (1993). "Chapter 8: Uncle Tomitudes: Racial Melodrama and Modes of Production". Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 211–233. ISBN978-0-19-507832-9.
^Kreuger, Miles (1990) [1977]. Showboat: The Story of a Classic American Musical. New York: Da Capo Press. p. 53. ISBN978-0306804014.
^"Lottie Pickford divorced in Paris". Lowell Sun. February 16, 1928. p. 3. Lottie Pickford, sister of Mary Pickford, obtained a divorce in Paris seven months ago from Allan Forrest Fisher, know on screen as Allan Forrest
^"The 1st Academy Awards (1929)". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved July 21, 2020. Note: Click on "View More Memorable Moments" under the photograph of Janet Gaynor
^Morin, Relman (September 1, 1935). "Happy Ending For Story That Started With Wrong Guess 20 Years Ago; Lasky and Pickford Teamed Up". The Sunday Avalanche Journal. Lubbock, Texas. p. 13.
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