Mary Pickford - ©Theda Bara

The actress I present in this post is Mary Pickford, who despite being Canadian, became known as “America’s Sweetheart”, being another pioneer of silent cinema in Hollywood, famous for her curly hair. However, she won the Oscar in 1930, starring in her first talkie film: “Coquette”, when she played the character “Norma Besant”, giving up her famous locks for the role, adopting the fashionable haircut of the 1920s, a fact which irritated his fans, to the point that it ended up becoming a controversy on the front page of The New York Times. And although Mary Pickford won the Oscar for Best Actress in 1930, her performance did not attract the expected audience and the star was not cast in any other films in the following years.

Mary Pickford has her star on the Los Angeles Walk of Fame, at 6280 Hollywood Boulevard, in the Cinema category.

The actress, unemployed, ended up off the screen as an important film executive, co-founder, with her second husband, of Pickford-Fairbanks Studios, and later with her friend Charlie Chaplin, co-founder of United Artists, another successful company. But unfortunately, after leaving stardom, she turned to barbiturates and booze, becoming an alcoholic, sad family heritage. In 1976, the former actress received an honorary Oscar for her contribution to cinema. The statuette was delivered at home, as her physical weakness prevented her from going up to the Oscar stage to receive the award.

Mary Pickford, whose real name is: Gladys Marie Smith, was born in Saint-Mandé, on April 8, 1892, in the city of Toronto, Canada and died on May 29, 1979, in Santa Monica, California, United States, with 87 years.

Mary was married to three Hollywood actors. The first was the Irish-born American Owen Moore (1886-1939), from 1911 to 1920, whom she divorced; the second was one of the biggest silent film stars, Douglas Fairbanks (1883-1939), from 1920 to 1936, whom she also divorced; and, lastly, Charles Edward Rogers, known as: Buddy Rogers (1904-1999), from 1937 to 1979, with whom she remained until the day of her death.