Mary Pickford: The Little Girl
97
are being solved about ourselves and the universe around us. There is no
time or space, I leamed” (Pickford, My Rendezvous 1).
In his classic book, Movies in an Age o f Innocence, Edward
Wageknecht assesses Pickford’s importance. “I have often said,” he
writes, “that I do not believe anybody can understand America in the
years during and after the First W orld W ar who does not understand the
vogue o f Mary Pickford” (Wagenknecht 11). Her narratives, which she
often wrote herseif, along with best friend Frances Marion, enabled
audiences to tum back time, to remember what it was like to be young,
alone, and searching for a sense o f belonging. The little girl’s stories
resonated, especially, with new immigrants seeking to find their place in
an urban, industrialized America. With grit, pluck, playfulness, and good
will, the Pickford persona forged forward when all appeared dim,
winning people’s sympathy. This is the Mary Pickford that first
captivated viewers, the starting image that they embraced. If films are
frozen in time, silent film audiences wanted their stars to be too, for no
one had quite figured out stardom yet, how to mature on the screen. In an
often quoted homage, Cecil B. DeMille recalls Pickford’s celebrity:
“Somewhere, sometime, a phrase was bom: ‘Am erica’s Sweetheart.’
Thousands o f such phrases are bom daily in Hollywood. M ost o f them,
mercifully, die young. About once in a generation such a phrase lives,
because it is more than a phrase: it is a fact. I do not know who first
called M ary Pickford ‘Am erica’s Sweetheart,’ but whoever he was, he
put into words the most remarkable personal achievement o f its kind in
the history o f motion pictures. There have been hundreds o f stars. There
have been scores o f fine actresses in motion pictures. There has only
been one Mary Pickford” (qtd. in Lee 17). On screen, in her own life, and
in the culture o f America, her timing was impeccable.
Virginia Weslyan College
Kathy Merlock Jackson
Works Cited
Basinger, Jeanine. Silent Stars. New York: Knopf, 1999.
Beauchamp, Cari. Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the
Powerful Women o f Early Hollywood. New York: Scribner,
1997.
Eyman, Scott. Mary Pickford: America’s Sweetheart. New York: Donald
I. Fine, 1990.
Lee, Raymond. The Films o f Mary Pic/ford. New York: Castle Books,
1970.