Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood

by Eileen Whitfield

One of the 10 Best Books of 1997 - Quill & Quire

One of the 100 Best Books of 1997 - Los Angeles Times

Co-winner of the University of British Columbia Medal for Canadian Biography

Shortlisted for the Viacom Nonfiction Award

A silent Film star. A woman who played children, wide-eyed and gamine. Skipping around in frills and cute curls. That’s how most people remember Mary Pickford. In reality, as Eileen Whitfield makes clear, Mary Pickford is a towering figure in movie history.

Born in Toronto in 1892, Pickford began acting as a child, helping support her family after her father’s accidental death. She switched from stage to film at age 17, joining D.W. Griffith’s Biograph company, and became almost unimaginably popular. This allowed her to develop her own production company at Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players, and in 1919 she co-founded (along with D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, and her husband Douglas Fairbanks) United Artists, seizing not only creative control but also the marketing and distribution of her films.

Eileen Whitfield recreates Pickford’s life in meticulously researched detail, from her trying days in turn-of-the-century Toronto to her reign as mistress of Pickfair, the legendary Los Angeles estate at which she and Fairbanks entertained the world’s elite, to her sadly moving demise. Along the way, Whitfield explores the intricate psychology that tied Pickford to her mother throughout her life, and analyzes Pickford’s brilliant innovations in the art of film acting; her profound influence on the movie business (paving the way for such powerful Hollywood women as Jodie Foster and Whoopi Goldberg); and her role in the history of fame (she was the object of a mass adoration that prefigured today’s cult of celebrity).

Eight years in the making, Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood is definitive biography. It brings Pickford to life as a complex knot of contradictions and establishes her as a ground-breaking genius, casting new light on one of the influential – and least understood – artists in the history of popular culture.

Pickford was the subject of lengthy, appreciative features in The New Yorker and Film Comment, and was the basis of two television documentaries: on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Life and Times” and on the History Channel.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Film, History, Media Tie In, Biography Memoir, American History

456 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Rachael · Rating 5 out of 5]

WHAT an incredible book! Mary Pickford is my favorite actress so I have seen many of her films, read several things about her, and I've watched the documentary PBS did about her life. I felt I knew a lot about her. But I couldn't have been more wrong. This book was so chock full of fascinating Mary information, I couldn't put it down and I loved every minute of it. What I knew about her before reading this book seems almost shameful now.
The author is obviously a Mary fan and definitely has opinions about certain aspects of her life and the people in it but she makes it clear when she is giving her opinion as opposed to a fact.
Mary's life itself was a great story and one that too few people are aware of. Her magical allure, her great importance in movie history, her deep, deep sadnesses. She didn't just live a full life, she seemed to have lived several lives at once.
I love Mary Pickford and I hope more people will come to learn more about her and watch her films and read this book.

[Graceann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please see my review at Amazon.com: Grace's Pickford Review

Eileen Whitfield has gotten to the essence of Mary Pickford, and writes an even-handed, yet kind, biography of this complex lady. I'm so glad I purchased this book so that I could go back to it for reference as the years go by, and I was further blessed to get to meet Eileen Whitfield later on.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read a lot about old Hollywood and over the years I read bits and pieces about Mary in other books. But I'd never known her whole story. I'm not a big fan of silent movies. Louise Brooks is the only silent film star I have ever enjoyed watching (because she acts so fresh and modern). Mary Pickford seemed to belong to that style of acting that drives me crazy. Over blown and histrionic. I was right, she does act that way. And Mary was aware of how dated her movies seemed, which is one of the reasons not many people have seen her movies or even know who she is. She destroyed a lot of her early movies - which I find so disturbing, on par with people burning their private letters. I mean, everyone still knows who Charlie Chaplin is but I have met very few people who have heard of PIckford. Yet she was even more famous than Chaplin. And she founded United Artists, along with Chaplin, DW Griffith (who people have still heard of, even if only as the director of that old racist movie Birth of a Nation), her husband Douglas Fairbanks (whose name is probably more familiar to people because of his famous actor son Douglas Fairbanks Jr) and some other guy. Sorry other guy whom I have already forgotten about!
She was one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences(i.e. The Oscars). During WWI she raised more money in war bonds than anyone has ever done. Basically, she was a big fucking deal in the development of the film industry. Yet today people are clueless - "Mary who?"

The part I enjoyed most in the book is the part about her insane celebrity status in the 1910s-1930s. INSANE. Like The Beatles and Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson and Brad/Angelina all mashed up together. A fame that I can't really even comprehend. The first movie star. The ONLY movie star for a while. I mean, when she walked into a room people would stand up and applaud. Really! A standing ovation just walking into a restaurant or even a private party. When she cut her hair in was on the front page of The New York Times! Everyone wanted to meet her and she seemed to meet every single other famous person on the planet. (Back before there were a ton of famous people so all the famous people hung out together.) Her house was deemed second in importance in the country, only after The White House. (and that was debatable - a lot of people that her house more important). The accounts of her fame are so over the top they are hard to believe.

I found the many details about the silent films days rather dull and dry. Not my cup of tea. But I suppose necessary to include in the book. Parts were interesting but there was just too much detail for me and it bogged down the book. I also thought the author spent way too much time on her early years. He should have gotten to the movies a lot sooner. At points I was really slogging through the book - it took a long time to finish.

I also had a hard time finishing the book because it turned out that I don't like Mary Pickford the person. She seemed humorless and I didn't care for her conservative nature and politics. She should have gotten together with Hearst instead of Marion Davis. Her boring interests were right in line with Hearst. I bet Marion Davis and Fairbanks would have been a blast as a couple. Oh well. The fact that Mary didn't like Chaplin made me like Chaplin a lot more than I ever have. Hell, even Mary's cat liked Chaplin better. She would get angry at him because her cat preferred to wander down the road to Chaplin's house and hang out there. Jeez, who wouldn't! Her parties were so boring and her house so dry and cold. She was a TERRIBLE mother to her adopted kids. Yikes. Not quite as bad as Joan Crawford but up there. Basically, she just rubbed me the wrong way. Mary was an asshole. Maybe she had to be in order to hold her own in early Hollywood? I do respect her as a businesswoman and feel sorry for the way her celebrity status messed up her life. But on a personal level I find her unpleasant.

I'm glad I now know the full story of Mary Pickford. I wish I'd enjoyed learning about it more. At least I now want to read a biography of Chaplin and one of Gloria Swanson and one of Lillian Gish - three people who did seem cool. Mary was square all the way.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this biography has a lot of information about America’s first silver-screen sweetheart, I found it lacking in many ways. For one thing, it seems to skip over a lot. At the beginning of the book, it goes on for about 50 pages saying how nobody in the family wanted to turn to acting, but they had to because they were so poor, and they made good money, which they needed because they were so poor, and it made them feel better about taking jobs as actors because they really needed the money. After that section, once Mary Pickford enters “flickers,” it gets much more bearable. However, it still skips a lot. Her relationship with Douglas Fairbanks comes up sparse. They spend an entire chapter about their growing distance between each other, and their eventual divorce. There’s little tidbits about them before getting married, and a few lines about their marriage, such as “they held hands during dinner,” which is nice, but that can’t possibly be their entire relationship. After their divorce, they each remarry, but it’s said that they would sit by a pool together, sometimes holding hands, without going into further detail about this complicated relationship. When it talks about United Artists, it’s impossible to know what’s going on if you don’t have prior knowledge to the situation the artists and studios were facing when it came about.

There's many time when the focus is so narrow just encompassing Pickford that we fail to grasp the full situation, like when United Artists was started and the transition into talking pictures. I really wanted a little more of the world around her, since her story is so intertwined with early Hollywood.

It seems more like, instead of the woman who made Hollywood, Mary Pickford was really just in the right place at the right time. She was there when movies got their start. She was the first actor who had their name revealed to the public at a time when people watched movies based on the studio it came from. Overall, I’m not very impressed with Mary Pickford, or this book, but it sparked my curiosity enough to look forward to watching some of her movies to see if I form a different opinion of her.

[LeeAnn Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was so well written and thorough. I inspired me with a wonder and deep appreciation for those early founders of Hollywood, the mountains they forged, and the vision and creativity with which they established the film industry as we know it. Mary was a great pioneer in her field, and in the foundation of American history. By the end of the book, as she became more detached from reality and sunk into a self-diminishing state of being, I found myself weeping for the loss. My heart ached that someone so inspired and important could succomb to greed and superficiality. But for the reader, you must know that her work lives on! She and her artistic contemporaries laid very important groundwork for an inspired industry and a powerful medium. I thank the author, Eileen Whitfield, for her tireless efforts to bring this amazing woman to life for us today.

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent biography of the most important figure in Hollywood history. Mary Pickford is often overlooked in favor of her enigmatic husband Douglas Fairbanks, but it was Mary's solid determination, fiery ambition and business acumen that created a Hollywood dynasty that is still going strong. More than just an early silent-film star (although her films are arguably as important as her work), Pickford forged a place for herself in an industry and a nation that was notoriously sexist.

[Winter Sophia Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Charming, Insightful & Sweet!!! A Fascinating Read!!!

[Kayla Steiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wasn't sure I would enjoy this biography as much as my other Hollywood biographies because I don't have a huge interest in silent film....but this was a very enjoyable and very interesting biography on the first "America's Sweetheart".

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not exactly sure why I chose to read this book. I'm not very familiar with Mary Pickford's movies but I am interested in early Hollywood and her role in it. One amazing thing I learned is that early Hollywood was not that different from current Hollywood! The life of an actor is a hard-scrabble one but once you've "arrived," you have the ability to command anything you want--from the choicest table at a restaurant to the amount of money you earn. Yesterday and today. Not too long ago, there was much lamenting the lack of female directors, producers, and other positions of power. It has gotten better recently but Mary had all that over 90 years ago! She was so beloved, she was mobbed everywhere she went. She made so much money for her studio she could demand anything she wanted. Her life seemed like a fairy tale--a loving marriage to Douglas Fairbanks, a beautiful estate called Pickfair, and access to the Hollywood elite. Alas, as is often the case, things were not as they seemed. Mary and Douglas loved each other but were not faithful to each other. Mary was not able to have children. She could not afford the upkeep of Pickfair and it was eventually torn down. And she turned to drinking to cope with all the disappointment. The fairy tale fell apart. But sometimes I wish I was still blissfully unaware of the sadness in her life and that I still believed in the fairy tale.

[Samantha Glasser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mary Pickford was an immensely popular and important star whose career began in the early days with D. W. Griffith and which blossomed on its own and peaked in the 1920s. Her sweet young girl characters were brought to life by a shrewd and stubborn woman with an excellent head for business.

Whitfield is an excellent writer. She is both scholarly and readable, which makes this dense biography enjoyable as well as informative. I've read several books about Mary Pickford and this is certainly the most impressive overall, especially for the facts about her later life, which other biographers skim over, especially her relationship with her children. I do not believe the definitive Pickford biography has been written, but this is as close as you can get.

Some of the information is outdated. Whitfield believed that some of Pickford's films were lost which were not, including Fanchon the Cricket, which was screened at Cinefest in 2014. But this is an incongruity that I am grateful for; I hope more of her films are found in the future.

[Karie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood is an insightful and well crafted biography. Author Elieen Whitfield is an actress in her own right and she offers a keen understanding to Pickford's evolution as an actress and her immense contribution to the art of film. The book also navigates the numerous transitions in Pickford's life with a clear eyed honesty that is not always present in star biographies. One is left with a complex and fully fleshed out portrait of the artistry and inner life of a woman light years ahead of her time.

[Jeannine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engrossing read. A biography of Mary Pickford with a detailed history of silent film woven through. Fascinating accounts of Pickford's business relationship (contentious!) with Charlie Chaplin one of her partners in United Artists, Pickford's 40 year marriage to Buddy Rogers, and her sad (tragic) decline. The Pickford/Fairbanks marriage is summarized but not delved into very deeply (there are entire books dedicated to this subject but it would've been nice to have it fleshed out more here).

A book that will have a permanent place in my home library.

[Aine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mary Pickford had a long and abundant life. A fascinating story of success as well as what can happen when a child is forced to grow up too soon. Throughout her life she accomplished so much and is rapidly becoming forgotten in contrast to her friend Charlie Chaplin.

[Cake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was a wonderful book. The tale of Mary Pickford is also the story of the birth of silent film and celebrity culture. It's sad that someone who was once the most famous woman and film star in the world is almost missing from our collective knowledge of the past.

[Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not only a fantastic and illuminating biography on Mary Pickford and her important role in shaping early Hollywood, but also a great work of film history and how Hollywood and the movies developed and took over the world in the first decades of the 20th century.

[Dianne Salerni]

Gave this up for lack of time, and it was difficult to trudge through. May return to it in the future.

[Jeff · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned that Mary Pickford was an alcoholic.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Straightforward biography -- I'm not sure I understand the raves for this book, but I did enjoy reading it.

[Steve Shilstone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Little Gladys Smith, sole breadwinner for her family from the age of 7, was one canny businesswoman. Her only experience as a carefree child was pretending to be one in the movies.

[Joy H.]

Added 2/12/16

[Timothy Reinhardt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mary Pickford is a fascinating person. From poverty she rose to be the first movie star and went onto found United Artist with Chaplin and Fairbanks. Unlike other movie figures, she kept her wealth. So I had a keen interest to read about this key individual in early films. Whitfield collects a large quantity of stories about the historical figure. Unfortunately, the book relies on interviews, done long after events, which was distracting for me. An example, "He (Pickford's son Ronnie) was probably only eighteen when he stood at the altar." Probably? Was there a search for a marriage license? It may seem like a small point, but this happened many times throughout the book. I kept feeling that each time the author started to shed light on the mysterious parts of Pickford, I questioned whether the information provided had been carefully vetted. Whitfield also tends to throw in hyperbole, once when describing Griffith's later screenplays as dreadful. After such a statement I would have liked an example of how "dreadful" his writing was. Finally, Whitfield breezed over topics such as Pickford's admiration for figures like Mussolini without much analysis.

[Edward · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent biography of the silent screen actress Mary Pickford, and the impact she had on Hollywood.

[Lucas · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood" was a fascinating, well researched, cohesive and easy to read book about the life of silent film legend, Mary Pickford.

As a fan of the silent era, I have seen some of Pickford's work over the years and knew the minimum about her life; she was born in Toronto, married Douglas Fairbanks, started United Artists & helped sell war bonds (with incredible success).

After reading Whitfield's "The Woman Who Made Hollywood" you get an incredible appreciation for Pickford's dedication, hard work, perseverance and business acumen. What an incredible female role model, especially having accomplished all this in an era where women were not allowed to vote. Pickford helped push for women's rights, using her star power and connection with the audience to change people's views and opinions.

Overall, this book was very entertaining and enlightening and a wonderful representation of a woman pushing her way into a "man's world" with immeasurable success.

[Mike Trippiedi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does not sugarcoat. The author, Eileen Whitfield, has given the reader not only an intricate look at Mary Pickford, the pioneer woman of Hollywood's early years, but also the flip side of America's Sweetheart. Without being sentimental or exploitive, this informative biography is one of the best I've read on the silent era.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really well written profile about the beginning of Hollywood and it's first star.

[Estott · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very good book, but I don't understand the raves over it.

[Frances · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent biography. If you like reading about early Hollywood you will love this.

[etherealfire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Library hardcover