American Experience Mary Pickford (Season 17, Episode 6)
TV Episode | 90 min | Documentary, Biography, History

American Experience

Mary Pickford (Season 17, Episode 6)

TV Episode | 90 min | Documentary, Biography, History

Through interviews with film historians and biographers, and through archival footage, the rise and fall of the professional life of actress and businessperson Mary Pickford (1892-1979) - born Gladys Smith - and the associated ebbs and ...See moreThrough interviews with film historians and biographers, and through archival footage, the rise and fall of the professional life of actress and businessperson Mary Pickford (1892-1979) - born Gladys Smith - and the associated ebbs and flows in her personal life, are presented. At the height of her fame, she was dubbed "America's Sweetheart" despite being born in Canada. Mary's widowed mother, Charlotte Smith, got herself, Mary and Mary's two siblings into the somewhat disreputable profession of acting - first on the stage, then into the emerging form of moving pictures - as a means of economic survival, but it soon became clear of Mary's star quality compared to her other family members. Mary and Charlotte's foray into the business side of show business was in a means to take control of Mary's own career, against the actions of impresarios and studio executives who may not have had Mary's best interests at heart. Arguably the biggest maneuver in Mary's business life was the formation of United Artists in 1919 with director D.W. Griffith, fellow actor Charles Chaplin and who would become her second of three husbands, fellow actor Douglas Fairbanks, that marriage the most famous of the three despite not being the longest. United Artists was not only a means to distribute the movies made under their production company under their control, but to provide an outlet for all creative artists in the motion picture business some financial security. Mary's slide began in the late 1920s having overextended herself in her own human resource on the business side, and her adoring fans not allowing her to grow up on screen, the advent of talking pictures only one of the many aspects which showed a Mary with who the public could not relate. Mary's Academy Award win as Best Actress in 1930 for Coquette, not a typical Pickford role and the first speaking role to win the award, is largely seen as an award to her contributions to the film industry as opposed to an award for this particular role. Written by Huggo See less

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Cast	+ Add Cast
22 cast members

Name	Known for
Jeanine Basinger Self - Film Historian Self - Film Historian See fewer	A Better Way to Die (2000)
Scott Eyman Self - Biographer Self - Biographer See fewer	Why Be Good? Sexuality & Censorship in Early Cinema (2007)
Robert Cushman Self - Film Historian Self - Film Historian See fewer	Summerspell (1983)
Kevin Brownlow Self - Film Historian Self - Film Historian See fewer	It Happened Here (1964)
Tino Balio Self - Film Historian Self - Film Historian See fewer	American Experience (1987)
Malcolm Boyd Self - Friend of Mary Pickford Self - Friend of Mary Pickford See fewer	Playboy After Dark (1969)
Eileen Whitfield Self - Biographer Self - Biographer See fewer	American Experience (1987)
Laura Linney Self - Narrator (voice) Self - Narrator (voice) See fewer	The Big C (2010)
Victoria Flexner Dramatization Actor Dramatization Actor See fewer	American Experience (1987)
Glenn Stockton Dramatization Actor Dramatization Actor See fewer	American Experience (1987)
Jeannette Stockton Dramatization Actor Dramatization Actor See fewer	American Experience (1987)
Sarah Hutt Dramatization Actor Dramatization Actor See fewer	Disappeared (2009)
Jesse Sweet Dramatization Actor Dramatization Actor See fewer	City of Joel (2018)
Mary Pickford Self (archive footage) Self (archive footage) See fewer	Coquette (1929)
Douglas Fairbanks Self (archive footage) Self (archive footage) See fewer	The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
Charles Chaplin Self (archive footage) Self (archive footage) See fewer	The Great Dictator (1940)
D.W. Griffith Self (archive footage) Self (archive footage) See fewer	The Birth of a Nation (1915)
Amelia Earhart Self (archive footage) Self (archive footage) See fewer	Xavier Riddle and the Secret Movie: I Am Madam President! (2020)
Jack Pickford Self (archive footage) Self (archive footage) See fewer	Brown of Harvard (1926)
Lottie Pickford Self (archive footage) Self (archive footage) See fewer	Fanchon, the Cricket (1915)
Charlotte Smith Self (archive footage) Self (archive footage) See fewer	The Impalement (1910)
Charles 'Buddy' Rogers Self (archive footage) (as Buddy Rogers) Self (archive footage) (as Buddy Rogers) See fewer	Wings (1927)