Mary Pickford Timeline 1892-1930

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			Mary Pickford Timeline: 1892-1930



		1892

		8/4 –	Born Gladys Marie Smith at 211 University Avenue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada [ADD]


		1898

		11/2 –	Her father dies of a cerebral haemorrhage six months after banging his head on a pulley while at work as a purser on a Niagara Lines holiday steamer three years after leaving his family - although Pickford will later claim to have witnessed her mother distraught with grief after discovering his body. [ADD]


		1900

		8/1 –	Makes her stage debut with the Cummings Stock company at Toronto‘s Princess Theatre at the suggestion of a lodger at her mother‘s house named Murphy. Her wage is $8 per week, and her debut role is that of Ned in The Silver King. [ADD]

		9/4 –	Wins a role in The Littlest Girl at Shea’s vaudeville house at $15 per week after The Silver King folds. [ADD]

		Nov –	Plays the heroine’s role in The Silver King for the Valentine company, and becomes their official child actress. [ADD]


		1901

		Apr –	Pickford’s sister Lottie plays her boyfriend in the play At the Little Red Schoolhouse at the Princess Theatre. The play's author promises to cast both sisters and their mother in a touring version of the play in the autumn. [ADD]

		26/11–	The Little Red Schoolhouse begins its tour in Hamilton, near Toronto - without Pickford or her family. However, when the leading lady, a young actress named Lillian Gish leaves the company, they send for Pickford. The entire family tours the United States in travelling stage plays for the next five years. [ADD]


		1905



		2/11 –	Appears with her younger siblings Lottie and Jack in the Broadway production of Edmund Burke, supporting Chauncey Olcott. [ADD]


		1907

			– Despite receiving good reviews for her part in Edmund Burke, Pickford is back on the road in a travelling version of For a Human Life. Dejected by life on the road, she seriously considers giving up acting. [ADD]

		3/12 –	Appears as Betty Warren in William C de Mille‘s The Warrens of Virginia at the Belasco Theatre on Broadway for theatrical impresario David Belasco, who gives her the stage name Mary Pickford. De Mille’s brother, Cecil B. de Mille is also in the cast. [ADD]


		1908



		May –	The Warrens of Virginia show comes to a close and Pickford embarks on a tour with the Company. [ADD]


		1909

		Jan –	The touring version of The Warrens of Virginia plays the Alexandra Theatre, Toronto. [ADD]

		20/3 –	The touring version of The Warrens of Virginia finishes its run at the West End Theatre in Harlem. With no work, Pickford seriously considers working in pictures for the first time. Although she had visited the offices of Kalem and Essanay in previous years she had changed her mind at the last moment on both occasions. [ADD]

		19/4 –	Attends a screen test for a role in the American Mutoscope & Biograph film Pippa Passes. Although she fails to win the part, director D. W. Griffith offers her a contract at $5 per dollar. Because she is a Belasco actress, Pickford successfully holds out for $10. [ADD]

		20/4 –	Begins her first day as a movie actress as an extra in Griffith’s film Her First Biscuits, a comedy starring The Biograph Girl, Florence Lawrence. [ADD]

		21/4 –	Plays the lead role in Griffith’s The Violin Maker of Cremona. [ADD]


	1910



	Jan –	Travels to California with Griffith and other members of the Biograph company to make the most of the climate and long hours of daylight. [ADD]

	Mar -	Upon Florence Lawrence’s departure from Biograph to Carl Laemmle’s IMP, Pickford assumes the mantle of ‘The Biograph Girl.’ [ADD]

	Dec –	Leaves Biograph for the Lubin Company but signs with Carl Laemmle‘s IMP for $175 per week. She is reunited there with former Biograph star Owen Moore. [ADD]


	1911



	7/1 –	Secretly marries Owen Moore in Jersey City. [ADD]

	Jan –	Co-stars with Moore in Their First Misunderstanding. Production is disrupted by Trust enforcers who throw stones at actors and crew, prompting director Thomas H. Ince to take the company to Cuba. Pickford confesses her marriage to her mother. [ADD]

	Oct –	Unhappy with the quality of her work, Pickford has her contract with IMP annulled because she was a minor when she entered into it. She joins Majestic where she is paid $225 per week. Her contract also stipulates the employment of her husband, Owen Moore, as an actor and director. [ADD]


	1912

	Jan –	Accepts a pay cut in order to return to Biograph after making only five films for Majestic. [ADD]

	Dec –	Accepts an offer from David Belasco to return to the stage in the role of the blind girl in A Good Little Devil. [ADD]


	1913



	9/1–	A Good Little Devil opens at Belasco’s Republic Theatre on Broadway. [ADD]

	May –	Joins Adolph Zukor’s Famous Players Film Company at $500 per week. Her first role for Zukor is in a screen version of A Good Little Devil. The film is so bad that Zukor delays releasing it for 11 months. [ADD]

	Sep –	In the Bishop’s Carriage, Pickford’s first feature, is released. [ADD]

	Nov –	Caprice, her second feature is released. Shortly after filming is completed, Pickford enters hospital for an appendectomy operation which might in fact have been an abortion. [ADD]

		– Leaves Moore, who has become a problem alcoholic, and heads to Los Angeles with her mother and director Edwin S. Porter. [ADD]


	1914



	Mar –	The release of Tess of the Storm Country, following the success of Hearts Adrift (which Pickford also scripted) in February 1914, turns her into one of the world’s biggest movie stars. She requests – and receives – a pay rise to $1,000 per week from Zukor. [ADD]


	1915

	Jan –	Pickford’s wage is once again doubled to $2,000 per week, plus half the profits from her films, at her request. [ADD]

	Spring –	Renews her marriage vows with Owen Moore at the Mission San Juan at Capistrano in a joint ceremony with director Allan Dwan and actress Pauline Bush. [ADD]

	Nov –	First meets Douglas Fairbanks at a party at Elsie Janis’s mansion in Tarrytown. They begin an affair sometime in 1916. [ADD]


	1916

	24/6 –	Signs a new contract with Zukor which sees her films produced by her own production unit, the Pickford Film Corporation, and released under the Artcraft Picture Corporation in order to avoid the common studio practice of block-booking (forcing distributors to accept poor quality films in order to obtain the prime material). Her salary increases to the greater of $10,000 per week (paid annually) and a half-share of the profits from her films, or $500,000. The deal was one of the reasons for Famous Players' merger with the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company a week earlier. [ADD]


	1917



		– Appears in The Poor Little Rich Girl in which, at the age of 25, she plays a 12-year-old girl. [ADD]


	1918



	6/4 –	Begins a tour of the US with Douglas Fairbanks and Charles Chaplin to promote WWI Liberty Bond sales. One speech Pickford gives in Pittsburgh raises five million dollars. [ADD]

	Apr –	Beth Fairbanks announces to the press that her marriage to Douglas is over because he is having an affair with another - unnamed - woman. Fairbanks publicly rebuts her claims, but Owen Moore names Pickford as the other woman. [ADD]

	22/10 –	Beth Fairbanks files for divorce from Douglas Fairbanks for infidelity. [ADD]

		– Becomes an independent producer with the First National Exhibitor’s Circuit with whom she signs a three-picture deal worth $675,000 plus a half-share of her film’s profits. [ADD]


	1919



	14/1 –	Signs a notice of intent with Douglas Fairbanks, D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin and W. S. Hart to announce the creation of United Artists. [ADD]

	5/2 –	Officially co-founds United Artists with Douglas Fairbanks, D. W. Griffith and Charles Chaplin. W. S. Hart dropped out of the new organisation after receiving an offer from Adolph Zukor. [ADD]

	1/9 –	His Majesty, The American, the first film from United Artists, is released. [ADD]


	1920



	18/1v	Pollyana, Pickford’s first film for United Artists, is released. [ADD]

	2/3 –	Travels to Nevada to obtain a divorce from Owen Moore on the grounds of desertion, after paying him $100,000 to agree. [ADD]

	28/3 –	Marries screen heartthrob Douglas Fairbanks at the home of Reverand J. Whitcomb Brougher. [ADD]

	Jun –	The newly-married couple visit Europe on their honeymoon, where there appearance causes riots in London and Paris. [ADD]


	1921

		– The Motion Picture Relief Fund, a charity for out of work actors which was conceived by Pickford after the war, is officially incorporated. Pickford serves as its first vice-president. [ADD]


	1922



	Oct –	Brings Ernst Lubitsch to Hollywood to direct Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall (1924). Lubitsch declines to make the film, choosing to direct Pickford in Rosita (1923) instead. [ADD]

		– Allied Producers and Distributors, an offshoot of United Artists through which other independent production companies can distribute their product, is formed in an attempt to raise money to pay for United Artist’s day-to-day expenses. [ADD]


	1925

		– Purchases 132 reels of prints and negatives of films she made at Biograph between 1909 and 1912. [ADD]

		– Asks Josef von Sternberg to direct her, but the pair fall out before a project can begin. [ADD]


	1926

		– Forms United Artists Theatre Circuit with Douglas Fairbanks and Joe Schenck to distribute United Artist films. [ADD]


	1927



	Early –	Becomes a founder member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. [ADD]

	30/4 –	Together with husband Douglas Fairbanks, has her hand and footprints encased in cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. [ADD]

	Oct –	My Best Girl, Pickford’s last silent film, is released. [ADD]

		– Denounces talking pictures following the release of The Jazz Singer, describing them as ‘like putting lip rouge on the Venus de Milo.’ [ADD]


	1928

	21/3 –	Pickford’s mother, Charlotte Smith, dies of breast cancer after refusing surgery. Her death prompts Pickford to turn to Christian Science for comfort and support. [ADD]

	21/6 –	Her decision to cut off her famous curls creates headline news. [ADD]


	1929



		– Fires Charles Rosher, her cinematographer on every film since 1918 by letter after an altercation on the set of Coquette, her first talking picture. [ADD]

	Apr –	Coquette, Pickford’s first talking picture, is released. [ADD]

	30/11–	Appears in The Taming of the Shrew with her husband, Douglas Fairbanks. The film is a success but Pickford is unhappy with her performance and claims to be infuriated by Fairbanks’ alleged lateness on set. [ADD]


	1930

	3/4 –	Wins the Best Actress in a Leading Role Academy Award for her performance in Coquette. [ADD]


		Mary PickfordTimeline: 1931-Present