Born Gladys Louise Smith on the 8th April 1892, in Toronto, Ontario Canada, she was an award- winning actress and producer, and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which is the presenter of the Academy Awards. Mary came to prominence with such portrayals of Gwendolyn in the film “The Poor Little Rich Girl” (1917), then Judy Abbott in the film “Daddy-Long-Legs”, and Norma Besant in “Coquette” (1929), among many other appearances. Mary passed away in 1979.
Have you ever wondered how rich Mary Pickford was, at the time of her death? According to authoritative sources, it has been estimated that Pickford’s net worth is as high as $40 million, earned through her long and prolific career, which was active from 1905 until 1949. During her career, Mary appeared in 250 film titles and has won an Academy Award in the category for Best Actress in a Leading Role for the film “Coquette”.
Mary Pickford Net Worth $40 Million
Mary was of mixed ancestry; her father John Charles Smith was of English descent, while her mother, Charlotte Hennessey was Irish Catholic. Mary had two siblings, both younger than her, and both actors, Charlotte and John Charles. Her father left the family, and soon after died from a blood clot.
After her mother became a widow she started taking in strangers and one of them was a theatrical stage manager, who soon suggested to Mary that she start pursuing acting as a career. She received two small roles in “The Silver King” play, and then joined Toronto’s Valentine Company with which she had success in the same play, but in their production. She concluded her career in Toronto with the role of Little Eva in the play “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, but her net worth was established.
After Mary’s early success, her mother turned acting into a family business, and Mary and her siblings toured across the USA, but had little success as they only secured roles in small theater groups and plays. After several years without success she was thinking of returning home and forgetting about becoming a star, but luck smiled on her and her siblings when she made her Broadway debut supporting singer Chauncey Olcott in “Edmund Burke”, and then in 1907 she had a supporting role in the play “The Warrens of Virginia”. She used the name Mary Pickford for the show as David Belasco, who produced the play, insisted on the change. After the touring of the show was finished, Mary was again left without engagement, but she signed a contract with the Biograph Company after impressing director D.W. Griffith – she was receiving $10 a week, while most actors were on a $5 a week contract. Mary appeared in many shorts in 1909 and 1910, before leaving the Biograph and joining the Independent Moving Pictures Company, which was two years later acquired by Universal Pictures. Mary wasn’t quite satisfied with the films the studio was making and returned to Biograph; she starred in the Broadway play “A Good Little Devil” in 1912, but since then became entirely focused on film acting.
She joined Adolph Zukor who had formed Famous Players in Famous Plays Company which later became Paramount Pictures. It was in 1916 that Mary signed a record-breaking salary contract of $10,000 a week, and would earn a guarantee of $1,040,000 per film. Her contract lasted for two years, and in that time Mary starred in such films as “The Poor Little Rich Girl” and “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm” both in 1917. After her contract expired, she and Zukor disagreed on a new contract, and as a result Mary joined First National Pictures, but then in 1919, she started the United Artists Company alongside Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks. From then on she starred in numerous successful films, including “Pollyanna” (1920), “The Love Light” (1921), “Little Annie Rooney” (1925), then “Sparrows” (1926) and “Coquette” (1929). She made her last screen appearance in 1933 since the production of sound films – ‘talkies’ – didn’t suit her, and as a result she decided to retire from acting.
Although she wasn’t an actress anymore, Mary focused on being a producer, and worked on numerous successful films until the late ‘40s. Some of them include “One Rainy Afternoon” (1936), then “Sleep, My Love” (1948), and “Love Happy” (1949). She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 for her contribution to the motion picture industry.
After retiring from the film industry, Mary had alcohol-related problems, and had spent her last years away from the public in her Pickford Manor, accepting no visitors, only ‘phone calls.
Regarding her personal life, Mary was married three times and had two children with Charles “Buddy” Rogers with whom she was married from 1937 until her death in 1979. Her first husband was Owen Moore from 1911 until 1920, and she then married Douglas Fairbanks, but the two divorced in 1936. Mary passed away on the 29th May 1979 in Santa Monica, California USA.
May 29, 1979, Santa Monica, California, United States
Place Of Birth
Toronto, Canada
Height
5 ft (1.54 m)
Profession
Actress
Nationality
American
Spouse
Buddy Rogers (m. 1937–1979), Douglas Fairbanks (m. 1920–1936), Owen Moore (m. 1911–1920)
Children
Roxanne Rogers, Ronald Charles Rogers
Parents
Charlotte Hennessey, John Charles Smith
Siblings
Jack Pickford, Lottie Pickford
Nicknames
Gladys Marie Smith , Gladys Louise Smith , Gladys Smith , Gladys Nicholson , Dorothy Nicholson , Baby Gladys Smith , Baby Gladys , Little Mary , "The Glad Girl" , "The Girl with the Golden Hair"
The time is coming when the screen will be controlled by a big-business combine. When that time comes, I shall retire. Neither Douglas nor I will ever again take dictation from businessmen who sit in their mahogany offices back East, with their big cigars, seeking to control a business which they do not understand. The public demands artists, but these men do not understand the temperament of artists.
2
[appearing under the title "Spooning" in 'Daily Talks with Mary Pickford' May 8, 1916] I am not going to put on a pair of old grandmother spectacles, draw my eyebrows together and 'shush!' the happy young engaged couples who seek the cozy corners of the moonlight garden walks to exchange their lovers litany - no indeed, because that is the sweetest and most beautiful time of a young girl's life. But this I do see is dreadful: unengaged couples spooning promiscuously. Is there anything more jarring upon one than seeing a foolish young girl, not out of her teens, allowing a boy to make love to her? And, as is nearly always the case, the silly girl who tolerates promiscuous familiarities has much to regret when the one man comes along for whom she has been waiting for many years.
3
[on Charles Chaplin] I think he descended, I think he should never have played Hitler for instance. He could've gone on until he was 90 years old playing the little tramp. He personified everything that is miserable, all over the world, he was a poor little human being, but had the philosophy to overcome all of the other things that attacked him. And then when he became Hitler and a murderer and Monsieur Verdoux, Limelight I was sad about, I didn't want to see Charlie as an old man.
4
[upon initially hearing her recorded voice on film in Coquette (1929)] That's not me. That's a pip squeak voice. It's impossible. I sound like I'm 12 or 13.
5
I left the screen because I didn't want what happened to Chaplin [Charles Chaplin] to happen to me. The little girl made me. I wasn't waiting for the little girl to kill me. I'd already been pigeonholed. I know I'm an artist, and that's not being arrogant, because talent comes from God. My career was planned, there was never anything accidental about it. It was planned, it was painful, it was purposeful. I'm not exactly satisfied, but I'm grateful.
6
[In her old age] I saw Hollywood born and I've seen it die...
7
I will not allow one picture to be shown: Rosita (1923). Oh, I detested that picture! I disliked the director, Ernst Lubitsch, as much as he disliked me. We didn't show it, of course, but it was a very unhappy and very costly experience.
8
[on success] This thing that we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down.
9
[on Ernst Lubitsch] I parted company with him as soon as I could. I thought him a very uninspired director. He was a director of doors.
10
[on Douglas Fairbanks] In his private life Douglas always faced a situation in the only way he knew, by running away from it.
11
[on Charles Chaplin] That obstinate, suspicious, egocentric, maddening and lovable genius of a problem child.
Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo.
14
Make them laugh, make them cry, and back to laughter. What do people want to go to the theatre for? An emotional exercise... I am a servant of the people. I have never forgotten that.
15
[at her retirement] I'm not exactly satisfied, but I'm grateful.
16
I never liked one of my pictures in its entirety.
17
If you have made mistakes... and there is always another chance for you... you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down but the staying down.
18
We maniacs had fun and made good pictures and a lot of money. In the early years, United Artists was a private golf club for the four of us.
19
I'm sick of Cinderella parts, of wearing rags and tatters. I want to wear smart clothes and play the lover.
20
We were pioneers in a brand-new medium. Everything's fun when you're young.
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Fact
1
One of her happiest memories as a child living in Toronto, Mary would rent a bicycle for ten cents and loved to ride up and coast down University Avenue. On her eighth birthday, her mother surprised her with a bicycle of her own.
2
Mary Pickford reveals in her autobiography, Sunshine and Shadow, that as a young girl living in Toronto she would buy a single rose and eat the petals, believing the beauty, color and perfume would somehow get inside her.
3
Colonel Ralph J. Phaneuf and the soldiers the 143rd Field Artillery of Camp Kearny, California, officially made Mary their Honorary Colonel during World War I.
4
In the 1920s, when prominent Hollywood columnist Herbert Howe asked his banker for advice about Los Angeles real estate, the banker responded, "Go ask Mary Pickford. She knows more about local real estate than anybody I know".
5
When her mother Charlotte Smith died in 1928, she bequeathed $200,000 each in trust to her two younger children Jack Pickford and Lottie Pickford and to Lottie's daughter Gwynne. But she left the large bulk of her estate to her eldest daughter Mary Pickford of $1 million, because she recognized that Mary had sacrificed her childhood to become the family's breadwinner at age 5. Charlotte wrote in her will: "Whatever property I possess at the time of my death has come to me through my association with my beloved daughter in her business and through her most unusual generosity to me".
6
Was the 1st of 3 consecutive Canadian actresses to win the Best Actress Oscar. The others were Norma Shearer and Marie Dressler.
7
She was posthumously awarded a star on Canada's Walk of Fame in Toronto, Ontario in 1999.
8
She was posthumously awarded a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars on November 16, 1993.
9
Was the 2nd actress to receive an Academy Award; she won the Best Actress Oscar for Coquette (1929) at The 2nd Academy Awards on April 3, 1930.
10
Fil Daily-West Coast Bureau-Tuesday, May 7, 1935: Mary Pickford has signed with Henry Duffy, theatrical manager, to appear in "Coquette". She will tour in the play along the coast.
11
Singer Katie Melua wrote a song in homage to Pickford, with her name as the title, which was featured on her 2007 album "Pictures".
12
Was a founding member of The Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers (SIMPP).
Had two adopted children with her third husband Charles 'Buddy' Rogers - a son named Ronald Charles Rogers (born 1937) and a daughter named Roxanne Rogers (born 1944 - died 2007 from osteoporosis).
15
Founder/President of Mary Pickford Company, a production company formed in 1919, and the Mary Pickford Film Corporation, formed in 1916. The former produced films only for Pickford, the latter company produced non-Pickford films.
16
She was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6280 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.
17
She started her film career at Biograph Company (American Mutoscope & Biograph) in 1909, when Biograph's director D.W. Griffith hired her. Her first film was Biograph's Pippa Passes; or, The Song of Conscience (1909), though she only was a face in the crowd. However, this launched her long and illustrious film career.
18
She paid for her grandchildren to go to school, provided that they showed proof that they were registered.
19
She became estranged from daughter Roxanne for a time when she, at age 18, ran off to marry a man her parents did not approve of.
20
When she presented producer Cecil B. DeMille with the Best Picture Oscar for The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) (March 19, 1953), not only was it the first time the Academy Awards ceremonies had ever been televised, it was also her very first television appearance.
21
She and husband Douglas Fairbanks were friends with Edsel Ford (son of Henry Ford) and his wife. In the Edsel and Eleanor Ford home at 1100 Lake Shore Road, Grosse Point Shores, Michigan there hangs in the study an autographed photo of her signed "Mary Pick-A-Ford", c. 1932.
22
In December 1910, she left the Biograph Company to work for Carl Laemmle at Independent Moving Picture Company for $175 a week.
23
In October 1911, a court voided her contract with IMP because she was a minor when she signed it. As a result, she left IMP for the Majestic Company for $275/week.
Her last silent movie was the romance comedy My Best Girl (1927).
26
Was to have made her big-screen comeback as Vinnie in Life with Father (1947), but the role eventually went to Irene Dunne because of Dunne's box-office appeal.
27
She was first hired for the movies by director D.W. Griffith.
28
Her first starring appearance in a film was in Her First Biscuits (1909) for Biograph Company.
29
Her likeness is included as part of the "Canadians in Hollywood" stamp series released by CanadaPost in 2006. The others in the series were Fay Wray, Lorne Greene and John Candy.
30
The romance drama Coquette (1929) was her first talkie.
31
Ernst Lubitsch came to America at Mary's invitation to direct Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall (1924), but when he arrived he had changed his mind and would not do it (it was eventually directed by Marshall Neilan). Instead, he and Mary made Rosita (1923) together.
32
The house in which she lived in Hollywood for most of her life was nicknamed "Pickfair".
Was named #24 on The American Film Institute 50 Greatest Screen Legends
35
First star (along with husband Douglas Fairbanks) to officially place hand and footprints in the cement at Grauman's Chinese Theatre (April 30, 1927). Hollywood legend has it that the very first star to do so, unofficially, thus inspiring the ensuing tradition, was Norma Talmadge when she accidentally walked onto the wet cement prior to the official opening of the Theatre
Was the subject of the first cinematic close up shot, in Friends (1912).
38
She left her children $50,000 and her grandchildren trust funds.
39
Son Ronnie has three children, daughter Jamie (born 1954), son Tommy (born 1955), and son Douglas Pickford (born 1966). Daughter Roxanne gave birth to a daughter, Katina, in the early 1960s.
40
She was the first movie actress to receive a percentage of a film's earnings
41
Became a United States citizen on her marriage to Douglas Fairbanks, but later reclaimed her Canadian citizenship and died an American and Canadian citizen.
She died of complications from cerebral hemorrhage at Santa Monica Hospital, CA. Her third husband, Buddy, was at her bedside. Following her death, she was interred in the Garden of Memory at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, CA.
Stage producer David Belasco gave Mary her stage name in 1908. Her real name, Gladys Marie Smith, was not right for an actress on his stage. "Gladys" did not suit the diminutive actress, "Smith" was too common, "Marie" was too foreign. "Marie" became "Mary". "Pickford" was her mother's maiden name. Years later, a huge fan who traced her family tree found that the name "Mary Pickford" occurred several times in her mother's family going back to the 12th century.
50
Her mansion Pickfair was sold ten months after her death for $5,362,000; later sold to Pia Zadora in January 1988 for just under $7 million.