The Girls in the Picture

by Melanie Benjamin

  Settling down among all the pillows—heaven, it was! Each pillow like a puff of cloud!—Mary unscrewed the bottle and took a nice long sip. The familiar juniper smell tickled her nose, and the gin was icy hot down her throat. She waited a few minutes, took another long pull, then finally felt herself relax, her blood warming up, her head a little bit fuzzy, fuzzy enough to dull the sharpest, most jagged edges of her memories and fears.

  She didn’t indulge herself in this kind of afternoon very often, so might as well enjoy it, give in to everything that she usually tried to keep at bay with work, both in front of the camera and behind it running United Artists—the public appearances expected of her and Douglas, the never-ending parade of dignitaries that always found their way to the groaning dinner table at Pickfair. She was never off duty—that’s how she was coming to think of it. Being on duty meant being Mary Pickford, no matter how tired she was. Off duty, she could become a Smith again, like Mama and Lottie and Jack. A Smith with a taste for gin.

  So what? She’d earned a little reprieve. Now and then. She deserved to wallow a little, shut the curtains, keep all the prying—worshipful, judgmental, fickle—eyes outside; blur the equally judgmental eyes staring at her inside, from her own reflection.

  As she stretched her legs and wiggled her toes, she thought once more of Owen. When was the last time she’d seen him in person? Before the divorce. He was still working, but the last time she’d seen his face on-screen, she couldn’t prevent a gasp. His features were so coarse, hardened. He looked at least ten years older than he was.

  But he had given her her first sip of gin. On the first night they were together—not their wedding night!—to relax her, she’d been so tense, so afraid and yet feeling as if she couldn’t live one more minute without knowing what this great mystery was. The gin did its job; she remembered how, after the first drink, Owen’s voice turned into the most soothing Irish lullaby, crooning songs of love, of passion, and then songs to soothe her to sleep when her heart was racing with fear and shame and guilt, always guilt. Guilt for hurting Mama, for sinning, for being a bad girl—as bad a girl as most actresses were assumed to be, and she’d tried all her life to live above that, to show that an actress could be good and pure. Pure enough even for Miss Josephine.

  How she’d prayed for her monthly time, after that night! And it had happened, thank God. She kept away from Owen after that, until she couldn’t any longer and then they were married. That whole sham.

  Marriage to Douglas was so different! It was a consecration, in a way. She’d almost felt, standing next to him in his drawing room, with the justice of the peace so starstruck he forgot half of the ceremony, that there should be a rite, something involving Holy Water, for their union was so sacred, so just. Not only for them, but for their careers—for the entire industry. It was what the previous ten years or so had been leading up to—from the moment the first nickelodeon flickered on a dirty sheet hung on a storefront wall, all through the teens as an art form was created, Griffith made his epic, the frenzy of the Poor Little Rich Girl showing and the first time she’d seen that peculiar expression of disbelief and adoration in the public’s eyes, through the formation of United Artists—

  The union of Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford was the natural progression, the capstone. The crowning moment.

  And so there was no shame in their marriage, only happiness and kindness. “This is a house that has never known an angry word,” she’d declared to Photoplay magazine the other day, in one of the many sit-downs she was gracious enough to give, for the good of the industry. And for the good of her career.

  For that was—slipping?

  No. No, of course not. She only needed to regain her footing a little. The public said—she’d even asked them! Asked them to send her story ideas!—that they still wanted her to be Little Mary. But the public was also flocking to films starring Rudolph Valentino and Gloria Swanson and now that little Colleen Moore and saucy Clara Bow, the new rising “flappers.”

  Douglas could still do costume pictures and not suffer at the box office, but every time Mary hid her curls and made one, she took another blow. Rosita had not done well, neither had Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall. Little Annie Rooney and the upcoming Sparrows had been welcome returns to form as the feisty girl again, the scrappy little heroine Fran had created so long ago. But there had been snipes in the press that she’d never seen before; too many reviewers made doubtful remarks about her age, questioned the wisdom of continuing to play children or adolescents.

  A new script had come across her desk; in it, she’d play a contemporary young woman, not quite a flapper, though. Just a simple shopgirl who has a sweet romance with a young man. She was seriously considering it, although her leading man, a youth named Buddy Rogers, would be twelve years her junior—how embarrassing! To graduate, finally, to a contemporary role only to already be too old for it! But she sensed she needed to do it; she needed to move into this new age, speak to a new generation of fans. Or at least she needed to try.

  New generation! Oh, Lord, how old she was getting! She’d turned thirty-four, this April of 1926. Fran was even older, but now she was going to be a mother, which somehow made her seem both young and old. Young enough to give birth, but a child automatically put you in a different category—maternal. Which was fine for a screenwriter.

  Not for an actress, however. Particularly an actress whose image was that of a child herself. She did everything she could to stave off time; she took care of herself, her figure. She slathered so many creams and potions upon her face at night that sometimes, Douglas protested he couldn’t even kiss her good night. She wore a chinstrap to bed. She always slept on her back, to avoid wrinkles.

  Meanwhile Douglas behaved as he always had, and never looked a year older; his tan skin gave him such a healthy, youthful appearance. But Mary feared the sun’s rays; they treated men’s and women’s skins so differently, caressing the former, punishing the latter. So always a wide-brimmed hat and a parasol for her whenever she ventured out under the punishing California sun.

  Mary took another long sip, patting her chin worriedly; it still felt as firm as ever, but for how long? Outside, despite the heavy windows and curtains, she could hear the gardener rolling the lawn, a motor revving up in the garage. Probably one of the chauffeurs was tinkering with it. She imagined that was what chauffeurs did when they weren’t driving, although she wasn’t entirely sure. All she knew is that they needed to be paid.

  Along with the cooks and maids and doorman and Doug’s manservant, her French maid, the gardeners—an army of them! Once she’d gone inside the tool “shed”—larger than any house she’d ever lived in before Pickfair—and been stunned by the rows and rows of gleaming shears and clippers and rakes and hoes, lawn rollers and mowers, bags and bags of seed and fertilizer, wheelbarrows of all sizes, coiled hoses. It was like an armory, the weapons required to keep the rugged California wilderness surrounding Pickfair at bay.

  It all cost money. Money she and Douglas had to earn. Money that United Artists was bleeding, as Charlie had stubbornly slowed his output, deciding to do everything himself—write, produce, direct, compose the music, design the costumes; taking years to make one of his films, films that were instantly hailed as genius but didn’t quite perform at the box office. A Woman of Paris was his first UA film and it had been a disaster! The Gold Rush had done better but it had taken him three years to make it.

  Griffith was no longer with UA: Griffith was no longer doing much of anything, as far as she could tell. They’d forced him out, after one too many failures, in 1924. He hadn’t made a film since, although there were always rumors that he was in preproduction. It was a shame, of course, that she’d had to fire him—the man who had made her! The man who had shown her what she could do in front of a camera. She could remember those early days with him at Biograph with fondness, particularly after the third or fourth glass of gin; those days of pure terror at the strangeness of this new thing called “flic
kers,” the clackety-clack of the camera punching out the sprocket holes while they filmed, the inferno of the lights or the unpredictability of the sun, the feeling that she was slumming, that she had let someone down, some muse or patron of the arts, by agreeing to appear in front of the camera. But then the wonder of it all, the first time she saw herself on the screen—she was absolutely mortified, even as she understood she was witnessing something historic; until films, no actor had ever been able to see his performance as the audience did. But then Griffith peeled her hands from her eyes and forced her to look, really look, at how the camera loved her; at how she seemed lit by a different, more special light than everyone else, even though they’d all been lit the same. She had D. W. Griffith to thank for that; for showing her herself, the self that, over the years, came to be more real than the self who never saw the loving lens of a camera.

  But a business is a business, and despite the memories—which they recalled over a bottle of gin and some tears; shhh, don’t tell Douglas!—she’d had to let Griffith go. Now UA had Gloria Swanson and Sam Goldwyn and Rudolph Valentino in the stable. But still, Douglas and Mary and Charlie were the figureheads. The ones who really paid the bills.

  But oh, how sometimes she did long to be able to walk away! To hole herself up in her room like this, or take Mama away somewhere, back to Toronto, maybe. Mama—oh, Mama! She had to get well, she had to—but if she didn’t, it would be Mary’s fault.

  “Mama, I need help,” Mary had said one day in 1925. And hadn’t Mama come to her rescue as she always did? But Mary didn’t really need help; she only said it to give Charlotte something to do, because Mama spent far too much time down at her cottage with her bottles. It was as if, now that she and Mary had achieved success beyond their wildest dreams, Mama lost her way. She sometimes seemed so sad, so lost, now that they didn’t have trains to catch and theaters to play and contracts to negotiate. So she drank more than usual, and Mary did sometimes worry about little Gwynnie—someone had to, because Lottie had to be reminded that she had a daughter!—and so she started having the little girl over to Pickfair more and more, until now Gwynnie had her own room and a nurse in a separate wing. Which left Mama alone, so Mary asked her to help with the costumes for Annie Rooney.

  “I can’t get this costume designer to understand what I need, Mama,” Mary lied. “I’m a girl on the streets in New York in this one. I need my costumes to look adorable, but rather—raggedy.”

  Charlotte had brightened up; she’d laid off the bottle for a couple weeks, and sketched designs and searched for fabric, before recalling she still had some bolts from the old days up in an attic. “Just the thing, my dear! The cloth is probably all faded by now, but perfect for your new movie.”

  While Mama was digging in the trunk, the lid fell down on her, crushing her ample chest; it was when the doctor examined her that a lump was found. And it was all Mary’s fault! If she hadn’t asked her for help, Mama wouldn’t have been crushed by the trunk and the lump would never have formed.

  Mama refused surgery; she’d become a Christian Scientist, believing fervently in the power of prayer and mind over body. Mary couldn’t persuade her otherwise. And now she was wasting away, inch by inch; no longer was her soft chest a warm memory, a place where Mary had found solace, time and again. Now it was a misshapen bomb ticking slowly but steadily, and one day it would explode. And Mary would be left without the one true thing in her life: a mother’s love.

  Mary wouldn’t think about that; no, she wouldn’t. She would think about other things, happier things. She had a new gown to wear to Douglas’s premiere; his movies were doing well. And he wasn’t bothered by the things Mary was; he didn’t question, he didn’t brood, he only stood with his hands on his hips, feet planted firmly, and laughingly dared the world to change, to come at him. And the world, dazzled as Mary once was by the brilliance of that white gleaming smile, the insouciance in his brown, crinkled-up eyes, did not dare. And so Douglas kept making his films and the public kept flocking to them, and he did not get letters asking how old he was, when was he going to grow up, didn’t he think he was too old to be playing the parts he’d always played?

  He did not get letters asking when he was going to have a baby, if he did have a baby, or why he couldn’t have a baby.

  Fran could have a baby. And she was. So Mary took another drink of gin.

  She should be happy for dear Fran, but she wasn’t and that was another thing to feel guilty about. She should be thrilled that Fran and her husband—her successful cowboy star husband—were having a child together to cement their union. Fran had never particularly talked about children before, only in the vaguest of ways. So it was something of a surprise, and so Mary could be forgiven if she hadn’t quite reacted the way Fran had probably hoped.

  “Mary, darling, I have something to tell you!” Fran had telephoned earlier that day, then driven over to Pickfair in a rush. She’d grabbed Mary in the foyer, and Mary had to laugh and calm her down, and take her into the drawing room so the servants couldn’t hear whatever it was—obviously something important—she had to say. For the servants did whisper and gossip, it was a problem all her movie-star friends had, the help tattling to the press—

  Mary bolted upright, sloshing her gin, her heart thumping. She slid out of bed, tripping over her shoes, giggling a little as she locked her bedroom door after first pressing her ear against it, to make sure no one was standing outside. Then she crawled back into her nest of pillows, these linen pillows, embroidered by nuns in Belgium—how lovely! How perfect! Just for her!

  “I’m having a baby!” Fran had barely waited until they were seated on the Louis XIV sofa and the maid had left to bring in tea, before she blurted her news. Then she sat back and stared anxiously at Mary.

  But Mary didn’t know what to say; she didn’t know where to look. It only took one glimpse at Fran’s joyful countenance to make her own eyes fill with tears, so she couldn’t risk that.

  “I’m—I’m so happy for you,” she heard herself say, and it must have been enough, because Fran let out an enormous breath and began babbling about what a surprise it was, they’d been trying but the doctor wasn’t optimistic, and, yes, she was a bit embarrassed because she would be thirty-nine when the baby was born, that was so old, she knew women who were already grandmothers!

  Fran kept talking, to Mary’s relief; it seemed she was only required to say yes and no and um-hum, now and then. But there was a moment before they said goodbye that Fran seemed to catch herself; she stopped the babbling and put her hands on Mary’s shoulders, gazing at her with those eyes that had always looked up to her for approval, for assurance. Those eyes that had been so touchingly hopeful when she’d first seen them, all those years ago.

  “Mary, dearest, I do hope you’re pleased. Do you remember how we used to talk about things, back in the bungalows? How we wondered if we’d ever love a man as much as we loved our work? If we could ever fit children in?”

  Mary nodded, her eyes misting over; those years seemed so long ago. She should be thankful for how far she’d come—triumphant, even. But right now she was dead inside, impervious to feelings. Had she become so used to pouring them out to the camera that she had nothing left over for her actual life?

  “And here we are, we both have found our true loves. And now—a child! I think I can do it, Mary—be a good mother and a career woman. But if I can’t, I’ve already done so much more in my career than I could have dreamed, and maybe now it’s time for me to be a mother. Maybe that’s the most important thing, after all.”

  “No, Fran!” Mary hugged her friend to her fiercely; she couldn’t let her believe this. Because if she did, what did it say about Mary? “No, I won’t hear it! I’m so happy for you, but you’re still—I need you, Fran! I still need you, the industry needs you. You’re the best there is, and don’t you forget it!”

  Fran gasped, then she pulled away, and there was astonishment in her eyes, a rosy flush mottling her already red che
eks. “Mary! Thank you! I—that you think that! Even after—that you think that means so much to me.”

  “Now go home and put your feet up. Do you still have that little lap desk you used to write on?”

  Fran nodded.

  “Then take that with you and start writing. Something. Prove to the world that a mother’s mind isn’t only good for thinking up lullabies, will you, Fran?”

  “Mary, you’re my dearest friend, and I owe you everything.”

  “No, Fran, I owe you.”

  They hugged, Fran left. But Mary didn’t know when she’d see her again as she shut the door. When she would be able to see her again, that is. She was not going to be able to be Fran’s friend the way she ought to be, the way Fran expected her to be. A friend to accompany her to doctors’ appointments, take her shopping for layettes, commiserate over the inevitable changes in her body. She couldn’t tell Fran why; Fran would never understand. How could she, when Mary herself didn’t?

  All she knew was that she had to protect herself; she had to save herself for the camera because she didn’t know how much longer it would gaze at her adoringly. And in order to do that, she had to cut ties to the real world, with its mess and chaos, its urgent tempo, blaring jazz, dancing flappers. Mothers with fussy babies, mothers with heavy, milky breasts and hampers of dirty, smelly diapers and heads full of nursery rhymes. Mothers who were more enamored of their fussy babies than they were with her. Because babies always came first, didn’t they?