Personal Narrative: Mary Pickford

I was the best at what I did. I was “America’s Sweetheart, Blondilocks, The girl with the golden curls”. I was everything they wanted me to be but everything they feared at the same time. I was the perfect picture of innocence and delicacy but also a merciless shark in an industry of piranhas. I was revolutionary I was inspiring. I was Mary Pickford.
I was born Gladys Louise Smith in Toronto Canada. My father always had his troubles with alcohol and left my mother to raise my brother Jack, Sister Lottie and I by herself. My father passed 1898 from a fatal blood clot most likely caused by the very disease that would haunt me for the rest of my life. MY mother newly widowed began to take in boarders who paid for rent and meals, fortunately one
My mother took the family to Buffalo, New York in hopes of finding more success there. For the next few years we lived on the road travelling from city to city searching for small roles living off of moldy bread and dirty water. In 1907 my mother urged me to end this life on the road. I went to audition for David Belasco on Broadway and he told me that he envisioned great things for me, but as somebody else. From then on I became known as Mary Pickford. I made my debut in Warrens of Virginia which was a major success. Once the play was done it was hard for me to find work for months so my mother insisted that I find work in film. At first I was disgusted by the idea, theatre was my true passion and film was this new lower cast pathetic excuse for theatre. But we needed the money. I joined the American biograph company under the direction of DW Griffith. That entire year seemed like a blur,In 1909 I appeared in more than 40 short movies. I negotiated my salary to $40/ week which was 4x the average rate. I knew my worth and I was prepared to fight tooth and nail for what I deserved. He moved his company to
It took away from the pure simplicity that were silent films. “Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the venus de milo”. By my late 30s I could no longer play young children, teenage spitfires or feisty herounes, and they told me that I was not suited for the glamorous heroines of early sound. I became outdated compared to the rising popularity of the flapper girls. I did release a few films ins sound but they flunked compared to my previous silent films. I retired in 1933 but my last film secrets was release in 1934. I tried to venture in radio shows and releasing my own cosmetic line however nothing filled the hole in my heart that silent films left in