Mary Pickford

Mary Pickford (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979) was a motion picture star and co-founder of United Artists, known as "America's Sweetheart" and "the girl with the curl." She was one of the Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood. Mary Pickford is mostly known as the first Movie Star in Hollywood.

Early Life

Pickford was born Gladys Louise Smith in Toronto, Ontario, Canada (for some reason, Pickford always claimed "Marie" as her middle name). Her father, John Charles Smith, was the son of Methodist English immigrants, and worked as a purser on a steamship, dying of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1898. Her mother, née Charlotte Hennessy, daughter of Irish Catholic immigrants, began taking in boarders, and through one of these lodgers Gladys, aged seven, gained a part in Toronto's Princess Theatre production of The Silver King as Baby Gladys Smith. She subsequently played in many melodramas and became a popular child-actress in Canada. Pickford's mother baptised Mary in a Catholic church, but did not raise her children in that faith, to the dismay of her own mother, a devout Catholic.

Related Topics:
Toronto, Ontario - Canada - Methodist - English - Irish - Catholic

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