The Girls in the Picture

by Melanie Benjamin

“We’ve got to get out of here.” Frances snapped into action, waving for an usher, who pushed his way through the growing circle surrounding Mary.

  “Yes, but we need to be careful—I don’t want to hurt anyone!” Mary smiled at one and all, blowing kisses, acknowledging the cheers.

  But then the air became close, pushed in by the pressing crowd, and she did panic, just a little, until she felt herself lifted—her feet now dangling, someone else’s arms about her waist—by a policeman in a dark blue uniform.

  “Sorry, Miss Pickford, but it’s the only way,” he said in an Irish brogue.

  “That’s all right,” she replied with a smile, relief now mixed with triumph. “C’mon, Fran, this way!” And Frances picked up their coats—actually, she had to tear Mary’s coat out of someone’s hand—and Mary laughed even more gaily.

  “Leave it if you must! I can get another!”

  “Nope!” Frances brandished the coat triumphantly and jumped to Mary’s side, holding on to the policeman for dear life.

  Mary looked down from her perch upon the policeman’s shoulder; she caught one woman’s eye, shouted, “I like your hat!” and the woman fainted. Dead away, and Mary felt awful. And wonderful.

  “Take that, Miss Josephine,” she cried, and Frances shouted, “Who?” But Mary only shook her head and giggled.

  “Mary! Mary! Our Mary!”

  The chants rang in her ears, and she closed her eyes for an instant, allowing herself to be carried away not only by the love and frenzy but by the stalwart policeman, and she never, ever wanted this moment to end.

  Because it was hers. Because she’d been proven right, after all.

  “We’ll never trust them again,” Mary shouted down at Frances as they finally made it out of the theater, through a back door that led to an alley; a lone rat stared at the hubbub before scurrying away with a banana peel in its mouth. The policeman deposited Mary down on the ground with a grunt and blew his whistle, calling for reinforcements; she half expected the Keystone Cops to appear. Soon their car arrived and they were shoved into it like pies into an oven, and they made their escape by turning onto the street in front of the theater. Mary jumped to her knees on the backseat to gaze at all the masses of people running after them, waving their arms frantically. She even blew kisses.

  “Dear God!” Frances slumped back into the plush cushions of Mary’s new car. Mary’s chauffeur stepped on the gas pedal, and the sedan roared around a corner, right into the middle of the traffic on Broadway. “What on earth was that?”

  “It was victory, Fran, dear!” Despite the torn pocket on her dress, the lost gloves, the disheveled hair—someone had actually tugged on a curl, as if he could remove it from her head!—Mary felt so serene. Peaceful. Right. “Those awful men who told us how wrong we were—who punished us!—for making this movie. How I’d love for them to have seen this! Frances, we were wrong. So wrong.”

  “What do you mean? Didn’t you see what happened? We were right!”

  “No, we were wrong. First, we were wrong to allow those awful men to screen this film in private, without an audience. From now on, I’m previewing my movies with an audience. I’ll get it in my contract. That’s why no one laughed—because there wasn’t anyone else in the room but those men—and you know they came in there wanting us to fail.”

  “Of course.” Frances nodded thoughtfully.

  “But we were mostly wrong because we allowed those men to shake us. Oh, Fran!” Mary grabbed her friend’s hand, clutching it tightly. “We let them make us feel stupid and small—these men! How could we allow it to happen? We’re smart, we know what we’re doing—we have good instincts. Sound judgment. We don’t need any man to tell us that we don’t, or to make us question ourselves. Promise me, Fran—promise me you won’t let them do this to you again!”

  “And promise me you won’t, Squeebee!”

  Mary hugged her friend—her dearest friend, besides Mama—and she kissed her on her cheek.

  “We’ll never let any man get between us, Fran, dear. Never!”

  “Never,” Frances whispered in her ear.

  Then Mary sank back into the cushions and replayed what had just happened, picking out special moments to hold on to—when the woman fainted away; when the man held on to her curl so desperately. When the entire audience roared to its feet.

  Mama had already cut the first glowing reviews from the newspapers by the time she’d dropped Frances off and returned to her hotel. Mama handed Mary a stack of telegrams, pointing to the one on the top.

  RICH GIRL A GLORIOUS SUCCESS.

  AM THRILLED FOR BOTH OF US.

  CAN’T WAIT TO HEAR WHAT YOU HAVE

  PLANNED NEXT. LOVE, PAPA

  Mary raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips. Then she reached for the phone, to read it to Frances.

  These are the golden years, I’d remind myself at the oddest times; when I was sitting down for a hasty lunch between setups, or choosing tomorrow’s extras after the day’s shooting, or even alone in my office—my own office!—sharpening my pencils, a task I didn’t allow my secretary. Sharpening my pencils was the most tangible aspect of my new status, those sharp points smelling of fresh-ground wood and lead, and it was a delight I didn’t want to share.

  These are the golden years, we assured each other, sometimes solemnly, sometimes with a giddy laugh, before one of us jumped up with an idea or a bit to add to a scene, and then we were off and running, Mickey scrambling up a ladder behind the camera to shout out the new setup to the extras, while Mary got down on her knees and tickled the children in the cast to get them to act more naturally around her, and I raced off to the prop department to retrieve the items required: a dirt-covered baseball, maybe, or an extra-long jump rope for Mary to clown around with.

  These are the golden years, I would whisper right after my head hit the pillow every night, too exhausted to muster any other prayer. Long gone were the lengthy, serious prayers of childhood. Now I only had time to remind myself how lucky I was tumbling into sleep, the best I’d ever had in my life. Sleep well earned, sleep absolutely necessary because tomorrow would be exactly as exciting, fulfilling, and exhausting. It’s only when you have no idea what you’re going to do tomorrow that sleep is elusive, I realized. Because you haven’t given yourself permission to deserve it.

  But I did deserve it now. After the phenomenal success of The Poor Little Rich Girl, Zukor gave Mary everything she wanted. And what she wanted was Mickey Neilan and me; the three of us together again in Hollywood, our own production unit under Famous Players. And we proceeded to make movies. Movies the way we wanted to. Without interference from the men, as Mary and I referred to them in ironic whispers.

  For some reason Mickey, while definitely a man, didn’t fall into that category. We treated Mickey like a playmate, the little boy we allowed inside our clubhouse whenever we needed someone to be the groom in a pretend wedding. Mickey—darkly handsome, still a drinker, yet so quick and inventive as a director, unafraid to tell Mary what to do. And she listened to him. He tagged along as Mary and I improvised scenes on set, and he contributed his own ideas because he saw what we were doing and believed in it.

  We were molding Mary into a child—and not just any child. The child, America’s cherished little girl, the embodiment of innocence and playfulness and vulnerability and spunk; a person the entire audience wanted to wrap up in its arms after each and every film to cherish and protect.

  And Mary was finally having the childhood she’d been denied; in front of the camera, she played out her every long-forgotten childish dream. Jumping, skipping, discovering, frolicking. The camera had always loved her but now it could barely contain her; when I watched the rushes, I felt as if I were peering over a fence and observing a child unaware she was being watched, Mary was so natural, so pure. So joyful.

  We were making films come alive. Of course, just by their presence, children had a tendency to do that, and we always had a lot of children on set. Child actors had no techn
ique; they hadn’t been taught to give stylized performances. I only had to write “Mary and children play tug-of-war” and they did it naturally, spontaneously. No direction needed, because Mickey was brilliant at camera setups, so the children and Mary simply played.

  But it wasn’t only the presence of children, and childlike stories such as Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and The Little Princess that made our films so unique and beloved by the public. It was the fun we had on set. Joy that seemed to make its way into the finished product; for the first time, I understood that a mood could be captured on camera.

  When I saw the finished movie in a theater—I never got over the thrill of seeing my ideas in a notebook turned into a complete, edited, and scored film; my words turned into images, emotions I had imagined played out on faces thirty feet tall on a screen—I was as enthralled as anyone in the audience.

  The three of us shared an equal collaboration of the sort that I sensed, even then, I might never enjoy again. Mary and I picked the stories, often based on popular books or plays. I chose stories based on my gut but Mary always considered the grosses of her last film, and what made it a success, and how it could be repeated. I did the bulk of the writing, winnowing the story down for the screen, suggesting camera angles, writing the majority of the titles, but Mary always added a few things herself. All three of us cast the supporting parts while I took care of the extras and then, on set, Mickey—even when he didn’t show up until after noon due to an epic bender the night before—worked swiftly, seemingly making up shots on the fly, shots that a taskmaster like DeMille would have plotted out for months. Yet when you saw the completed film, you were startled by the artistry, the immediacy.

  Overseeing it all, like a tiny general in bloomers, was Mary. Hiring only the best: the best cameramen, the best art directors, spending Zukor’s money wisely but freely, knowing that she’d make it up to him, a hundred times over, in box office. Then, like a magician’s illusion—try as I might, I could never understand how she did it—she somehow shrugged off all the responsibility of running her own production company and stepped in front of the camera fresh, dewy, at least ten years younger: Mary as the little rich girl, as Rebecca, as Sarah Crewe, the little princess. She was so natural on camera that fans now assumed she was that little girl in real life, yet I never met anyone who worked harder at her “natural” performances. Mary spent hours in front of her dressing room mirror trying to get a child’s stance precisely right; every morning while I sipped coffee and ate breakfast, she stretched and exercised to maintain a supple body in order to perform all her childlike stunts—jumping on and off beds, scampering up ladders, skipping and running and cartwheeling, keeping up with the actual children on set.

  Our set! It was fast becoming notorious on the Famous Players Lasky lot. Every week we’d get a letter from Zukor informing us that other directors on the lot complained, rather snottily, about the noise we made, the laughter, the songs and games. (Mickey, at the end of the day, always burst into some naughty Irish drinking song that caused the mothers of the child actors to hurry their little darlings away, their hands covering their ears.)

  Once, Cecil B. DeMille himself stopped by in his jodhpurs, carrying his whip, and he looked so aghast at our merriment, the uncontrollable laughter, that abruptly, we all froze when we saw him.

  But as soon as the Great Man walked away with a single raised eyebrow, everyone burst into laughter.

  “Whatever will he tell Zukor?” I wiped my eyes, we were laughing so hard we were crying. “I can’t imagine what he thinks of us!” I’d been down on my knees, teaching Mary and four little girls on set how to play jacks; to my astonishment, Mary had never before played. But once taught, she played with abandon and pure joy—another little fact that pierced my heart on behalf of my friend, and made me proud that I was giving her this second chance to be a little girl. I looked down; my stylish dress was wrinkled, my manicured hands grubby.

  “Doesn’t matter what he tells him. We’re making money hand over fist!” Mickey grinned and leaned back in his director’s chair. He was defiantly not wearing jodhpurs; he was so slight and muscular he looked like a teenage boy. But he did grab a jump rope and crack it, just like DeMille’s famous whip.

  “Oh, poo!” Mary jumped to her feet. She put her hands on her hips and stuck her determined little jaw out, and the little girls she’d been playing with did the same.

  Mickey and I exchanged a glance; “poo” was quite a strong word, coming from goody-goody Mary.

  “I don’t care what he says,” she declared. “Although I do still owe him a film, which I suppose I’ll have to make one of these days. But poo to him—our films are making three times what his are. I just saw his latest grosses.”

  I was tickled, as always, by the contrast between her childish appearance and her fiercely pragmatic mind. But I also had to admire her, for it was true. She had nothing to fear from DeMille anymore. Mary Pickford had nothing to fear from anybody, and it showed.

  Something else showed as well, and I wondered if Mickey had noticed. I hoped he had—and I hoped he hadn’t. Mickey still had a massive crush on his “Tad,” and although I knew Mary was aware of it, she never encouraged him.

  But I saw the occasional flash of pain in his dark eyes, the way he tried, very hard, not to be quite as affectionate around her as he’d once been. The teasing was still there, but not the easy, physical way they’d once had; it had been a very long time since Mickey had put his arm, even casually, around Mary to discuss a scene. He sometimes balled his hands into fists when she happened to brush against him.

  And the irony was, Mary, in general, was more relaxed than she’d ever been, freer with her affection, her praise, even her anger; it wasn’t all bottled up any longer. Yet even so, there was something—separate—about her now that we were all back in California. Something I couldn’t share. I’d assumed we’d return to those quaint little twin bungalows; I’d looked forward to resuming our easy, in-and-out intimacy. But Mary and Charlotte bought a house instead—Charlotte had looked around at Los Angeles, at the houses sprouting up like mushrooms, and declared that it was now time to buy, not rent, and so Mary bought.

  I didn’t; I couldn’t afford to buy where they did. So I rented a place of my own.

  We did still spend cozy evenings lingering at the studio in Mary’s bungalow, provided and furnished by a penitent Zukor. We’d have dinner brought in if we were going to work on the next day’s shooting script, or I’d resume the old habit of reading out loud to Mary, either the classics she’d missed growing up or new novels that might be potential vehicles. We hashed things out equally, arguing freely without fear of hurt feelings; I remembered our first real argument, on the set of Rags, with astonishment. Had I ever been so unsure of myself? Mickey had said I was a nobody then. Not any longer; my name was almost—but not quite—as big as Mary’s in the titles.

  Away from the set, we still made time for each other, riding horses in Griffith Park, going to movies, and Charlotte frequently invited me over for her hearty stews.

  Still. I sensed Mary wasn’t quite as dependent on me as she once had been. I also suspected why.

  This suspicion was confirmed one Saturday morning, when, unexpectedly, my telephone rang. “Oh, Fran,” Mary cried in her gay, conspiratorial way, “let’s go for a ride! It’s such a lovely day!”

  Of course, I dressed in my riding habit and jumped in my car. Even though I’d planned to meet Adela for lunch, I canceled and came running to Mary—I still felt the privilege of her friendship, and I doubted I would ever tire of it.

  We met each other at the stables at Griffith Park, parking our cars side by side. I loved the three-thousand-acre park, full of paths and streams and untamed greenery. Studios often shot outdoor scenes there; it was where Griffith (no relation to whoever the park had been named for) had shot the battle scenes for The Birth of a Nation. The stables were large and always bustling with Hollywood folk; even in this modern era of the motorcar, peop
le still rode, and Mary and I had had many a heart-to-heart while trotting our horses up and down the bridle paths.

  “Fran, dear.” Mary smiled over at me once we’d mounted our usual horses and were on our way up a favorite path. She was looking exceptionally pretty in a yellow linen shirtwaist paired with wide-legged riding pants and polished black boots; her skin was glowing and her eyes danced with anticipation. “I’m going to ask a favor of you.”

  “What, Squeebee, darling?” I inhaled, filling my lungs with the jasmine-and-pine-perfumed air. It felt good to be outside; sometimes I longed for the days when our movies were shot out of doors and not on a stuffy set full of blinding, artificial light. My skin welcomed the gentler sun, and I looked forward to a lazy day of riding. Maybe we’d go shopping later. Or to a movie; there was a new Charlie Chaplin film just out.

  I always remembered the first time I’d seen Chaplin; he was that black-haired ballet dancer cop I’d applauded that day I stumbled upon the filming in the street, back when I was still a sleepwalker. Now I was alive, and Chaplin was almost as big a star as Mary, having perfected his character of the Little Tramp. Yet whenever I saw him at parties he was so soft-spoken, almost shy, unless he was with his best friend, a new actor named Douglas Fairbanks, who had recently moved to Hollywood from New York. Together, the two would clown around and perform stunts for hours.

  “Well—you’ll see in a minute!” Mary let out a little cry of joy and kicked her horse into a canter; I did the same, thinking we were going to race—until I spied, up ahead on the path, two other riders on horseback. And one of them, I was—and was not—surprised to see, was Douglas Fairbanks.

  I slowed my horse to a walk. I’d heard the rumors at the studio, but I’d dismissed them, defending Mary to anyone who might whisper about this new romance. Still, I’d wondered. For the last several weeks, Mary had, well—Mary had started to look sexy. That was the only way to describe the change in my friend. While she was always startlingly pretty, there was something very prim and Victorian about Mary; she had a tendency to purse her lips up in repose, and sit very rigidly, every muscle tense even when she was supposed to be relaxing. But lately, her skin was burnished to a glow, and her lips plump and rosy and eager to smile.