I don’t have much to say about her from sheer memory. Mary Pickford. I noticed today is her birthday, on this April 8th, having entered this world in the year 1892. I could tell you that she was an actress, in the early goings of film. I know she started on Broadway, and that D.W. Griffith somehow “happened” upon her acting, and that was her big break. That’s from recollection.
What I do know is that Mary Pickford cost me a lot of shots of beer when I was in college. I had a couple of different “circles of friends” that I ran around with in college. Since I was on scholarship for softball, I had my jock friends. Not only did we live, eat, sleep softball for most of the year, we were also good pals who liked to party together when we had the chance.
Then I had my — the best way I can describe them is — my Big Chill friends. They were mostly brainiacs. We were of various “majors” from chemistry to pharmacy and on. Trivial Pursuit was a big thing for us. The board game had just been released in its first version, around the year I started college. We couldn’t get enough of it. We played at nights, mostly on weekends, and somehow made it into a drinking game.
At any rate, any time someone had a Pink Question for Entertainment, and they didn’t know the answer, “Mary Pickford” became the standard answer. And if you said Mary Pickford and you were wrong? Everybody drank.
So when I saw her birthday face this morning, the memories flooded back in, of those people, that group, those amazingly fun times. I haven’t seen one of those old friends in 35 years though. Not a one.
Nor have I seen any of my high school friends in nearly 40 years either. The exception for all of these college or high school connections is through occasional Facebook sightings. I’m not sure what that says about me. But there are times when I look back fondly at those friendships and my light-hearted manner in that other lifetime. But the clock ticked on.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t give you the low down on Pickford. She was quite an actress, businesswoman, and a bit of a character. For her time, she truly “blazed” her own way.
Her career got underway at the young age of 16 when she made her screen debut in 1909. In fact, D.W. Griffith (a big Hollywood director) was so taken with Pickford, that she appeared in 51 films in 1909. Almost one a week, for crying out loud. From there she just kept rolling, becoming the first female film star to get a million-dollar contract. That was in 1916. Can you believe it? 1916. A million. A woman. I don’t know how many films she appeared in all-together, but she starred in 52 feature films.
She was a go-getter, all the way. In 1919, she teamed up with Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith to found United Artists, the mega Hollywood Film Studio. Throughout her life, she married three times, most notably to Douglas Fairbanks. But there were divorces and not-so-happy endings.
After retiring from the screen, Pickford became an alcoholic. It seemed to be in the family genes, as her father had also died an alcoholic. Her siblings, Lottie and Jack, both died of alcohol-related causes. These deaths, her divorce from Fairbanks, and the end of silent films left her deeply depressed. Pickford’s life was turbulent at best. She withdrew and gradually became a recluse, remaining almost entirely at Pickfair (her mansion in Beverly Hills). She only allowed visits only from Lillian Gish, her stepson Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and a couple of others.
In May of 1979, Pickford died at a Santa Monica, California, hospital of complications from a cerebral hemorrhage.
Looking at all of this makes me a little sad for Mary Pickford. And also just a little melancholy about those early years in my life. But thankful, all the same. The passing of time, experiences, people. Our memories become a part of us. But all of this reminds me of the greatest treasure too. This moment, right now, is by far the best one we have. It’s the only one we have. And, if we can realize that deeply. Then.
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“The present time has one advantage over every other – it is our own.”
— Charles Caleb Colton
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“Nothing is but what is now”
― Ron Rash, Serena
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“The past informs the present. Memory makes the map we carry, no matter how hard we try to erase it.”
― Cara Black, Murder in the Bastille
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