SAXTON B. LITTLE FREE LIBRARY
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Keeping you up-to-date on what's happening at your library. We invite you to join in the conversation!
JUNE 24, 2009
We are ready for our close up, Mr. DeMille...

In this day and age it is not uncommon for ‘movie stars” to receive contracts in the double digit millions for a single film. However, it was today, on June 24, 1916, the most lucrative movie contract for the time and many years to come was signed by silent movie actress Mary Pickford.   Rather than 20 million a film, Ms. Pickford was awarded $250,000 per film, with a guaranteed minimum of $100,000. It occurs to me, that today, this is less than most houses.

 Clearly Ms. Pickford  was just as much a star as Julia, Cameron and  Angelina.  Apparently, she also had gumption!  

 Mary Pickford was born Gladys Smith on April 8, 1892 in Toronto, Canada.  She was one of three children who grew up with a strong mother and a financially uneasy childhood. Gladys was nearly six when her father died from an accidental blow to the head, leaving his family without savings or income, and forcing her mother to open the house up to boarders.
 
It was through the family’s boarding house guests that the young Gladys decided she wanted a career in what was then called “Flickers”. The typical film at the time was a single reel, only eight to twelve minutes long.
 
With high hopes, Mary moved on her own to New York at the age of 15, and the rest, as they say, was history. With a new name, she fairly quickly landed a role on Broadway, met D.W. Griffith, and went to Hollywood, playing everything from Gibson goddesses to Indian maidens. She also wrote a few scenarios, since Griffith occasionally purchased them for twenty-five dollars apiece.
 
Making film after film, at a time when the average annual family income was under $2000, Mary Pickford was making $150,000 a year, thus her record breaking 1916 deal was no surprise at the time.
 
In 1920, Mary would marry Douglas Fairbanks. The marriage lasting fifteen years, but only the first eight years  are reported to be happy ones.  In early 1927 Mary joined other film professionals as one of the founding members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.  
 
June 24, turned out to be a lucky day for Mary. On June 24, 1937, Mary Pickford and Charles “Buddy” Rogers married at the home of Hope Loring, the writer who had introduced them ten years earlier. Mary’s new husband was twelve years her junior, but he had pursued her for some time. Their partnership proved an enduring one, lasting more than 40 years until her death.
 
Over the next several decades Mary continued to act, then produce.   In 1956, she ended her career in the film business, selling all her shares in United Artists. She and Charlie Chaplin were then fifty-fifty owners of the Corporation, and the last of the original founders to leave the company. Instead of film work, Mary turned her attention to charity.
 
At the suggestion of her lawyer and accountant, the Mary Pickford Foundation (originally the Mary Pickford Charitable Trust) was established in 1956, in order to create an enduring charitable organization that could address Mary’s concerns on a continuing basis. Finally, in 1976, Mary was given an Honorary second “Oscar” by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The presentation was filmed in advance at Pickfair, and inserted into the live broadcast. It was Mary’s last public appearance as she died on May 29, 1979 at the age of  87.
 
Mary Pickford was a remarkable lady for her time, but not alone. Check out these books @  the Library of other remarkable women.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

And thanks to the Mary Pickford Foundation for much of the information provided in this blog entry!


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