This superior portrait of movie star Mary Pickford will absorb readers in the life and times of a woman who was at least 50 years ahead of her time. Pickford was born Gladys Smith in 1893 in Canada; she began her acting career as a child to support her widowed mother, sister and brother. The impoverished family moved to New York City, where theatrical impresario David Belasco gave the curly-haired girl the name that became world renowned. Playing innocent if mischievous roles in the silents, Pickford was the first bona fide movie star. As actor, producer and a writer, she earned another sobriquet, "tough little mick," striking hard bargains offscreen. Hers was always the decisive voice in United Artists, the company she formed with Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith and her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, while being the highest paid woman of the day. Although this biography emphasizes Pickford's achievements, it also records her failings--bigotry, alcoholism, her part in causing the marital break with Fairbanks. Included are vignettes about many film folks, among them Buddy Rogers, who was Pickford's husband from 1937 until her death in 1979 at age 86.
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