Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford, screen name of Gladys Mary Smith (1893-1979). US actress, one of the first internationally known stars of the cinema. Born in Canada, she began acting as a child and made her first film at the age of 16; the director, D. W. Griffith, paid her $5 a day. With her long ringlets and girlish charm, she went on to be-guile international audiences in such films as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917). Despite her image as the World’s Sweetheart’ she was known for her business acumen. In 1919 she founded United Artists with Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, and Douglas Fairbanks, whom she married the following year (they divorced in 1933). She remained at the pinnacle of the Hollywood aristocracy throughout the 1920s but found it difficult to break out of girlish roles. Her career did not long survive the coming of sound and she died a virtual recluse.
