Mary Pickford - Parte 4: A UNITED ARTISTS COM CHAPLIN E FAIRBANKS

Mary, Douglas and Charlie Chaplin (Doug’s best friend) participated in a series of personal appearances to sell Liberty Bonds to support American forces in World War I. At a New York appearance on Wall Street, 50,000 people reportedly turned out to see the movie stars. In an era before public address systems, before radio was widely available, it was impossible for the actors to be heard by everyone present. No matter. The crowd thronged to see the stars.

In January 1919 Pickford was the powerhouse who, together with Doug, Charlie and D. W. Griffith, created an organization that was designed to serve the filmmakers rather than the studio heads. They formed their own distribution company, United Artists. “The lunatics have taken charge of the asylum,” quipped one worried mogul.

In fan magazines and newspaper ads, and in the movies themselves, these United Artists humbly submitted their work to the judgment of that audience. During their first years of UA, Mary’s films were successful. Her first for UA was Pollyanna (1920), a delightful, if self-consciously commercial film that drew its appeal in buckets directly from The Poor Little Rich Girl well.

On March 28, 1920, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were wed. The marriage would last fifteen years, but only the first eight years would be truly happy.

Moviemaking was changing. Productions were getting bigger and more expensive. They took longer to make, also. Five Pickford features were released in 1918, four in 1919, only two in 1920. Little Lord Fauntleroy was the third and last Pickford to be released in 1921, and after that Mary settled into making only one film a year. Her control over the finished product was now virtually complete. Little Lord Fauntleroy was ostensibly co-directed by Al Green and Mary’s talented, but alcoholic brother Jack. But cinematographer Charles Rosher recalled it differently to Kevin Brownlow: “She did a lot of her own directing,” he said. “The director would often just direct the crowd. At the end of the scene, whoever was directing, she would always ask me for my opinion.”

Rosher’s assistance was especially important on Fauntleroy, because Mary played two parts, the little boy and his mother. This was the second time Mary had played a “dual role” on screen. The first back in 1918 had been Stella Maris, and many considered that film to contain some of the best dramatic work she ever did. Fauntleroy was especially designed to be a crowd pleaser. The original novel, written in 1886, described an American boy who inherits an English title and vast estate. Tricks of perspective, as well as oversized props and sets were again used, with the added difficulty of having to create the illusion of both Mary as child and a considerably taller adult Mary as mother. The image of the boy Fauntleroy, with long thick Mary Pickford-style curls, comes from the original illustrations for the book. It was a perfect role for Pickford, and Mary who had begun to tire of playing children, took delight in the intentional tweaks to her persona represented by the Little Lord’s desire to have his hair cut, and his mother’s insistence “Cedric, I cannot bear to have you grow up.”

Fauntleroy became Mary’s second highest grossing feature to that time.