Two Brave Youngsters

Both Laura Secord (1775–1868) and Mary Pickford (1892–1979) were courageous women in their day. I think the fact that both had suffered personal tragedy at a very young age may have contributed to their later strength and courage.

Laura Ingersoll lost her mother when she was eight, and following on the heels of that tragedy, her baby sister was taken from her home, adopted by relatives. Four years later, Laura's stepmother also died.

Massachusetts was in turmoil after the War of Independence, and Laura's father was away much of the time. By this time Laura was capable of running the household herself and caring for her younger sisters. In 1795, with more little siblings and a new stepmother who was pregnant, the family undertook the long trek to Upper Canada. As the eldest, Laura was the one who had to remain strong when their schooner nearly capsized in a sudden gale on Lake Ontario.

Mary Pickford's beloved father (Mary's name was Gladys Smith when she was a child) died when she was only six. Her distraught mother, Charlotte, dispersed the three children to various relatives. After her mother came to her senses and reunited the family, little Gladys became determined to keep them from ever splitting up again. She would take over the role of  head of the family, responsible for providing for them and keeping them all together. She took the task of bringing up Lottie and Jack very seriously. It was a responsibility she felt for the rest of her siblings too-short lives.


More stories about the lives of these women can be found in Laura Secord, Heroine of the War of 1812  and Mary Pickford, Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart. 

In Defense of Mary Pickford

The many faces of Mary Pickford

According to biographer Scott Eyman (Mary Pickford: America's Sweetheart), Pickford was "criticized by the highbrows for her extraordinary appeal to the masses." Her audiences were mainly women and children. She was the "girl next door," and she didn't go too far afield because she knew who her fans were and what they wanted.

Personally, I'm not sure it's fair to criticize Mary for that. It makes good business sense, and Mary was a shrewd businesswoman.

Certainly Mary Pickford was more conservative than her swashbuckling husband Douglas Fairbanks, and she worked on a smaller scale. But that was her choice. Eyman contends that she could have done more, been more versatile.

"My career was planned," Mary said later. "There was never anything accidental about it. It was planned; it was painful; it was purposeful. I'm not exactly satisfied, but I'm grateful."

What more can anyone ask?

On Switching Gears

I've had to do some switching of gears lately. I am preparing for presentations and launches, and readying myself to answer questions about a number of different books I've written.

Now, a journalist is doing an article about the early movie industry in Trenton that was the subject of my first book, The Movie Years, back in 1989. Can we arrange a time to talk about it? I dig through the pile of boxes that hold my research notes. NOTE TO SELF: Keep that box on top. Every few months someone inquires about the story.

With the publication of my biography of Mary Pickford still fairly recent (it was released seven months ago) and still very much on my mind, I am about to launch the biography of Laura Secord. I am giving a talk on each of them on successive days. Sometimes I worry about  getting the significant dates in Mary's life mixed up with those in Laura's!

At least it's easier to keep track of the names of the characters in the biographies. Last month saw me delivering a talk to school children about one of my middle grade novels. I had to keep reminding myself that Joel was the name of the main character in that particular story. Not Martin, or Jesse, or Mark.

But I do remember that it was Laura Secord who rescued her husband from the battlefield at Queenston Heights, and Mary Pickford who won the first Oscar for an actress in a talkie.

The Wedding of Mary Pickford & Douglas Fairbanks

Today, March 28th, marks the anniversary of the 1920 marriage of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. The "wedding of the century," as it was dubbed, took place twenty-six days after Mary's divorce from the troubled Owen Moore.

The wedding itself was a private ceremony in Los Angeles, at the home of a Baptist minister. Mary wore a gauzy white dress with apple green trim.

When the news of the marriage broke two days later it incited a fan frenzy, and the world acknowledged the popular couple as Hollywood Royalty.

Mary & Douglas setting off on their honeymoon.

According to Pickford biographer Gary Carey, "Their honeymoon was the most conspicuous in the history of marriage. They reigned at Pickfair [their Beverly Hills home] as the king and queen of Hollywood for more than a decade."

You can find out more about this famous celebrity couple in my book, Mary Pickford, Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart.

Toronto's Most Famous Daughter

Mary Pickford and friends.

The late Herbert Whittaker, distinguished Canadian theatre critic, once dubbed Mary Pickford "Toronto's most famous daughter." Although Mary was the most stunning example of a Canadian performer adopted into the American theatrical family, there were others.

Clara Morris (1848–1925), an actress, dancer, and writer, was also Toronto-born. Vaudevillian Eva Tanguay (1878–1947) was born in Marbleton, Quebec; and comedienne May Irwin (1862–1938) and her sister Flo were from Whitby, Ontario.

I've already written here about the tragic life of Florence Laurence (1886–1938), who was born in Hamilton, Ontario. The original "Biograph Girl," she never recovered from the trauma she suffered during a studio fire, and Laurence ended her own life by ingesting ant paste.

Like Mary Pickford, these women all began their professional careers as children. The theatre provided the means of escaping poverty for them and their families. Unfortunately there was not enough happening in Canadian theatre in the early years to allow them to stay in this country.

Mary Pickford Got it Right

Mary Pickford, one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

The silent movie The Artist took seven Oscars last Sunday at the 84th Academy Awards ceremony. It was only the second silent film to win the prestigious Best Picture Award. The first was the 1927 film, Wings, starring Mary Pickford's future husband, Buddy Rogers. 

Now, eighty-four years later, a silent movie wins again. I can't help thinking that Mary Pickford got it right all those years ago when she said, "Adding sound to movies would be like adding lipstick to the Venus de Milo" 

Mary Pickford, Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart.

 

"And the Oscar goes to . . ."

Mary Pickford in Coquette, 1929.

February is "Oscar" month, so here's a bit of trivia about Mary Pickford's relationship to the Academy Awards.The Oscars took on a whole new significance for me when I began writing the biography of Mary Pickford.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences began as an idea discussed over dinner with actor Conrad Nagel, director Fred Niblo, and producer Fred Beetson at the home of Louis B. Mayer, MGM studio chief.

Mary Pickford and her husband, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., became two of the founders of the organization. The Academy was officially announced at a gala banquet in Los Angeles in May 1927. Mary used to refer to the organization as "the motion picture league of nations."

The first-ever Oscar (as the awards were later dubbed) for Best Picture went to Wings, a silent film made in 1927. Co-starring in the movie were the "It" girl, Clara Bow, and Charles "Buddy" Rogers, who would within ten years become Mary's third husband.

The first Academy Award for an actress in a talkie went to . . .  ? You guessed it: Mary Pickford, in 1930 for Coquette. The film was the first talking picture made by a major star of the silent screen.

For more about Toronto-born Mary Pickford, the most important woman in the history of motion pictures, check out Mary Pickford: Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart.

Making History Interesting

Happy Labour Day! Tomorrow all the students will be going back to school. This always seems a better time for New Year's than January 1st. Time for new beginnings and for making resolutions. A few years back I used to resolve to make writing a priority in my day. Then, lo and behold, it happened!

I now write an average of eight hours a day, largely because I'm under contract for two biographies, with only six months to deliver each one. Laura Secord is proving to take many more hours to write than Mary Pickford did. There's so much history to research. Laura was born during the American Revolution, and her feat of heroism took place during the War of 1812. I used to love history back in my student days.

What am I saying! I'm still a student, learning something new every day.

For instance, did you know that in February 1813, during the War of 1812-14, two hundred American soldiers and some volunteers crossed the frozen St. Lawrence River from Ogdensberg, N.Y. and freed a group of American citizens held in the Brockville jail. Before they fled back across the ice, they seized arms, supplies, and forty-five of Brockville's most prominent citizens.


The good news is that those prominent citizens were soon set free, but it conjures up some interesting pictures in my mind. Were those people snug in their beds when the Americans came calling? Or in formal dress attending a fancy event? They definitely were not planning on a stroll in the dark across the frozen St. Lawrence.

That is the kind of tidbit that makes history come alive for me!

Blogging in Summer

For the first time in months I missed posting to this blog last week. Even through the long days of writing Mary Pickford's story, I posted a weekly entry.

But now that summer is here with a vengeance, with extraordinary heat, my energy has disappeared.

We've packed up and moved to the cottage for a few days. It's not a lot cooler out here, but there is usually a breeze to be found on one side of the cottage or the other. And when the temperature becomes unbearable we can refresh ourselves with a dip in the always-refreshing water of Lake Ontario.

There is no Internet access out here and I miss that. But that's no excuse not to work on my research notes or compose a few new blog posts.

Write on! And happy vacationing!

Reviewing the First Copy Edit

I have just finished my review of the first copy edit of Mary Pickford, Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart. Because I'm used to writing fiction, I was surprised by how thorough the editing was and how long it took to go over every point the editor made. It was not just a case of reading and accepting his better choice of phrase; there were numerous queries to reply to, points that needed to be clarified. By the time I sent it back, my notes filled seven pages.

Every manuscript can benefit from a professional editing, but in the case of non-fiction it's crucial. There were several spots where what I'd said was unclear. That comes from being so close to the project that you lose your objectivity. I was grateful for the opportunity to make the story a better one.

This was my last chance for any re-writing. The pages go to the design department next. There will be one last chance to review the final copy edit, to make sure we didn't miss any typos, but it will be too late to do any rewriting at that stage. Then it's off to the printer.  

Look for the book in September!

(The photo above is of my lilies last year, minus the red beetles that polished them off this summer!)

Allan Dwan, Silent Movie Director

Allan Dwan, born in Toronto, Canada, April 3, 1885 was another contempory of Mary Pickford. "Joseph Aloysious" Dwan moved with his family to the US when he was eleven. He attended the University of Notre Dame, studying engineering. He went to work for a lighting company in Chicago, and it was there that he developed an interest in the brand new motion picture business.

When Essanay Studio (Spoor and Anderson) offered Dwan a chance to come on board as a scriptwriter, he jumped at it. In 1911, he began working in Hollywood. A number of movie companies had relocated to the west coast in order to take advantage of a 360 days of sunshine per year.

Allan Dwan directed both Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in a number of their early pictures. He directed Pickford in A Girl of Yesterday in 1915, the film that made Mary the first actress ever to fly in a plane in a movie.

In 1922, Dwan directed Robin Hood, starring Douglas Fairbanks. In an interview the year before Allan Dwan died, he said of Fairbanks that the actor was athletic, "but not always smart." Once while Dwan was directing, Fairbanks insisted on leaping off a balcony onto a horse. Dwan told him that the idea was insanity. But Fairbanks did the leap -- and ended up in the hospital.

 Dwan admired Douglas Fairbanks Sr. According to the famed director, unlike Faribanks's son Doug Jr., who had a reputation as a ladies' man, Doug Sr. was "devoted to Mary." Well, for a few years anyway.

Allan Dwan died in Los Angeles in 1981, at the age of 96.

Mary Pickford and the Nickelodeon, Part II

It was Mary's mother, Charlotte, who broached the subject of her eldest daughter applying for work at Biograph, the leading film company in New York in 1909. The Biograph studio was sending two reels of film every day to the exhibitors, and word had it that the company was paying five dollars a day for actors in their movies.

"Would you be very much against applying for work at the Biograph studio, Mary?"

Go into the movies? Mary was incredulous. How demeaning! She was a Belasco actress; the flickers were beneath her dignity.

But a job in moving pictures would mean the four members of the Pickford family could stay together in New York for the summer, and Charlotte wasn't long in pointing that out.

 Charlotte wasn't above a little bribery either. If Mary would agree to try her luck at Biograph, her mother would allow her to wear a pair of silk stockings for the first time. And a pair of high-heeled shoes.

Because she always did as Charlotte told her, Mary swallowed her pride. She dressed in her navy blue serge suit, striped shirtwaist, and a new, rolled brim straw hat, and boarded the streetcar to West 14th Street.

Mary had planned her route to the Biograph studio very carefully, in order to spend only one nickel on the cross-town trolley. Why waste precious money on such a pointless trip, anyway? She would step inside the hated studio, pay the call she'd promised her mother she would, and get out of there as quickly as she could.

The above is an excerpt from my upcoming book, Mary Pickford, Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart.
Look for it in bookstores in September, or preorder now, online.

Mary Pickford and the Nickelodeon

Seventeen-year old Mary Pickford believed that nice people didn't go to nickelodeons. In 1909 there were thousands of these makeshift theatres in America, showing the latest rage -- motion pictures -- and they were often housed in converted storefronts, the plate glass windows covered over. Most stage actors like Mary, considered moving pictures, or "the flickers" as they were often called, beneath them.

 Nickelodeons were so called because the price of admission was usually a nickel. For that price, one might see three reels of motion picture film and an illustrated song. Tickets for a Broadway show or vaudeville were expensive, out of reach of most of the working poor. But nickelodeons were affordable.

Often located in downtown neighbourhoods, nickelodeons were potential fire traps, cramped and fetid, the seating a collection of rickety old chairs. A piano player or violinist would be seated at the front next to the screen (usually a white sheet hung up) to provide musical accompaniment to match the action in the silent film.

The stock stage companies of which Mary had been a part and which had provided her and her family with a living, shut down for the summer months because the theatres got too hot. But the voracious appetite for motion pictures created by the nickelodeons meant the film studios were busy year round.

And Mary Pickford was looking for work.

TO BE CONTINUED

The King of Comedy

Mack Sennett, founder of Hollywood's Keystone Studio and hailed as the "King of Comedy," was another of Mary Pickford's contemporaries. Like Mary, Sennett was a Canadian. He was born January 17, 1880 in Danville, Quebec, the son of a blacksmith. The family moved to Connecticut when Mack was 17.

Although he originally hoped to become an opera singer, the story goes that it was meeting Marie Dressler, the Canadian-born star of vaudeville, that led him to New York in search of work on the stage. Dressler was appearing in The Lady Slavey in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1898 when Sennett told her he wanted to break into show biz. Marie Dressler wrote a note to David Belasco, famed Broadway producer, on Sennett's behalf.

After appearing in burlesque and vaudeville shows, Mack Sennett apprenticed at the Biograph studio in New York from 1908-1912. This was where he first met Mary Pickford. They were both appearing in the early silent movies directed by D. W. Griffith. Both Sennett and Mary were also writing screen stories and having friendly competitions with each other to sell their work to Griffith.

There's an amusing story in my soon-to-be-released book, Mary Pickford, Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart, about how Mack wanted to put Mary's name on one of his scenarios because he thought Mary's writing was being accepted only on account of her long, blonde hair.


 Mack Sennett became a producer and director himself, founding the Keystone Studio where he became famous for his slapstick comedies, including the zany Keystone Cop series. During his career, Sennett directed most of the well-known comedians of the silent film era. He has to his credit more than 1000 silent movies as well as a number of talkies.  Sennett died in 1960, just before his eightieth birthday.

The World's Top Three Movie Stars

I love this picture of the happy trio, the three most popular movie stars in the world in 1919 when, along with director D.W. Griffith, they founded United Artists in order to produce and distribute their own films. 

Sitting on the shoulders of the ever-athletic Douglas Fairbanks Sr. are Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. Their fans came to expect antics like this of the three. So much so that when they formed U.A. some wit was heard to say, "Now the lunatics are running the asylum." How wrong they were!

Melbourne Spurr, Celebrity Photographer of Silent Era Stars

I recently came across a Facebook page devoted to the work of Melbourne Spurr, another of Mary Pickford's many photographers. Spurr arrived in Hollywood around 1917 and went to work for noted photographer Fred Hartsook (see my previous blog post). Spurr, who happened to be deaf, took many exquisite portraits of Mary, and his work so impressed her that she helped launch his career. By the 1920s, he had become one of the top celebrity photographers in Hollywood.

One of Mary Pickford's Favourite Photographers, Hartsook Studios

During the course of researching and writing Mary Pickford, Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart, I often came across portraits of Mary that had been taken by Hartsook Studios. I was interested in knowing more about this chain of portrait studios which, in 1921, was the largest photographic business in the world.

Fred Hartsook was born in Indiana in 1876, into a family of photographers and studio owners. Although trained as a civil engineer, Fred became a wandering photographer after he and his wife, also a photographer, arrived in California, about 1906. They travelled the state taking pictures and using a team of oxen to pull Fred's homemade darkroom.

Eventually, Fred opened a photographic studio in Los Angeles and did so well that he was able to expand into other cities along the west coast of the U.S. He became famous for his portraits of celebrities, including many of Hollywood's stars of  the silent films such as Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. 

Hartsook was also able to take up life as a rancher, and he and his wife became resort owners, developing Hartsook Inn on 37 acres of California redwood forest. The inn became a favourite of many Hollywood celebrities, including Bing Crosby and Mary Pickford. Fred died of a heart attack at the age of 54. His widow continued to operate the inn until 1938.

The photograph above is my favourite Hartsook photo of Mary. Let me know if you have favourites of your own.

The Writer While Travelling

I suspect, like any writer, I'd be lost away from home without some writing supplies. I'm never without the pocket-size notebook anyway, the one that comes in handy in my day-to-day routine, to pass the time during long waits or to jot down sudden insights. This is where I record the current trip, hour by hour: the miles we cover, at what time we set out each morning, the stops we make along the way, the weather, the scenery, even the traffic flow. All this is useful for future reference, providing us with the most reliable way of knowing exactly how long it takes us to get to Myrtle Beach, or elsewhere. And it's entertaining to look back at these notes during cold Canadian Marches, if only to remind us of where we were a year ago.

One of my lined yellow scratch pads comes along on the journey too. In fact I used it when drafting this post to my blog. I also pack my regular daily journal into my bag. This is where I'll record any particularly remarkable days we spend, a place or an event that deserves preserving in the best way I know how.

And because I'm usually in the process of writing or editing something, this time the Mary Pickford biography, I take my notes for that along. I also made sure I had the manuscript on a flash drive, in case I heard from my editor.

Because I never want to be caught without some paper and a pen, I make sure my writing supplies go into the suitcase along with the bathing suits and walking shoes.

Happy trails!

Mary Pickford Postcards

Ever since I began work on my book, Mary Pickford: Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart (Quest Biography), my cousin, who collects vintage postcards, has been on the look out for cards featuring portraits of Mary. The other day I was delighted to receive in the mail a package of several postcards from my cousin.

I never paid much attention to postcards before this, except to enjoy those sent by friends and family visiting far away places, or those I purchased myself to augment my own vacation pictures. But collecting postcards -- buying, selling and trading them -- is right up there with collecting stamps and coins as a popular hobby . I decided I should learn a little more about this fascinating pastime.

The collection and study of  postcards is called deltiology. When the first postcards to use real photos appeared around 1900, many featured portraits of entertainers or family members. For a while, in the "undivided back" era (December 24, 1901 to March 1, 1907), anyone sending a message on the card had to write over the picture on the front. The back was reserved for the address and postage. After March 1, 1907, postcards came with a divided back, allowing space for the message.  That fact could help to narrow down the year a particular postcard was printed.
 
Mary Pickford was just one of a number of early film stars to be pictured on vintage postcards. And now I'm going to pay a little more attention to the postcards I come across.

Another Canadian Star of the Silents

It was interesting to discover, while researching the life and times of Mary Pickford for my upcoming book, several other Canadians who were working in the silent picture industry at about the same time.

One who preceded Mary as "The Biograph Girl" was Hamilton-born Florence Lawrence. Born Florence Annie Bridgwood on June 2, 1886, she was billed for her earliest theatre performances as "Baby Flo, the Child Wonder Whistler."

Six years older than Mary, Florence was already a member of the permanent company at the Biograph studio in New York when seventeen-year-old Mary Pickford arrived, looking for work in the "flickers."

Unfortunately, Florence Lawrence's story has a tragic ending. She was seriously burned in a staged fire that got out of control at another studio in 1915, and as a result, she was in shock for months. Although Florence had already made hundreds of movies, she never fully recovered from the trauma and was never able to regain her previous stature as a star. She took her own life by ingesting ant paste just after Christmas, 1938. 

Look for mention of Florence Lawrence in Mary Pickford: Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart, available in September, 2011.