Mary’s marriage to Buddy Rogers is only touched on, and I had to (reluctantly) omit one major aspect of Mary’s life—her adoption, in the 1940s, of two children. That could be a novel in itself! There are many rumors as to why Mary never had biological children, but when she and Buddy decided to adopt, it had terrible consequences. Simply put, Mary was not cut out to nurture children. She fussed over them as babies and then when they grew, she couldn’t handle them. The two children were never fully part of her life; at early ages they were sent off to boarding schools. And at the first opportunity, they each struck out on their own.
Mary didn’t retire from Hollywood as abruptly as I depict here. She never performed in another movie after Secrets, but she toyed with ideas, one of which was to star in a live action/cartoon version of Alice in Wonderland for Walt Disney, although the project never was made. She produced movies through United Artists, and at one point hoped to have Shirley Temple star in a biopic of her life. She remained active on the board of United Artists—continually clashing with Charlie Chaplin, the other remaining founding partner—until 1956, when she finally sold her shares.
In her golden years, Frances traveled widely but maintained a small apartment in Hollywood. Near the end of their lives, Mary and Frances did write each other often, sending flowers for birthdays or holidays. I don’t know that Frances had one final visit with Mary, as I’ve written. I do know that their last letters were full of emotion; they both wrote that they were at their best with each other, back in the early days. They seemed to come to peace with their legacies, and with each other.
Both women wrote memoirs, and both are frustrating. In her autobiography, Off with Their Heads!, Frances does not write with depth about her own life; even Fred’s death garners only a couple sentences. She seems always to cover her true feelings with a joke or a quip. Mary’s autobiography, Sunshine and Shadow, is similarly unfulfilling. Always conscious of her image, she glosses over every setback, and omits quite a lot, especially about her first marriage and her siblings’ tragic lives. And her own drinking, of course.
But for further information, these two books, as well as Cari Beauchamp’s Without Lying Down, are worth your time, as are these others: Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood by Eileen Whitfield; The First King of Hollywood: The Life of Douglas Fairbanks by Tracey Goessel, and Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks by Booton Herndon. For further information about United Artists, I recommend the book United Artists: The Company Built by the Stars, vol. 1 by Tino Balio.
For more reading about early Hollywood, I highly recommend The Parade’s Gone By by Kevin Brownlow; American Silent Film by William K. Everson; My First Time in Hollywood by Cari Beauchamp; Silent Lives by Lon Davis and Kevin Brownlow; Silent Stars by Jeanine Basinger; The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930, Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer, and Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille, all by Scott Eyman; and Adela Rogers St. Johns’s autobiography Love, Laughter, and Tears.
All my novels ask the reader to step back into another era and accept that era’s limitations and conventions, no matter how unacceptable they may seem to us today. The Girls in the Picture is no different; we must remember the different expectations imposed upon women more than a century ago, for example. We must also recognize that one of the films I mention, The Birth of a Nation, was very important to early Hollywood and to filmmakers like Mary and Frances, even as we shudder at the despicable racial stereotypes and glorification of the KKK depicted in it. But to ignore its impact on these two women, and to Hollywood in particular and the movie-going public in general, would be wrong; the film represented such an enormous leap forward, technically speaking. And for this, it deserves to be included in a novel about early Hollywood.
Too often we think of silent films as ridiculous, jerky images on a screen; silly relics, dull as dust. I hope, after reading my novel, you see this era for what it was: a breathtakingly innovative time in which literally anyone with a new idea could suddenly become the head of a department, and women were just as important as men.
I also hope you remember Mary Pickford and Frances Marion as not just long-forgotten names in a book or screen credits from an old movie, but as innovators, artists. As loving friends who helped each other grow and flourish; as passionate people who fell in love with an idea, and made it into an art form.
As courageous women who were just as responsible for creating Hollywood as Louis B. Mayer or Sam Goldwyn, and who paved the way for the women working in film today. Hopefully, one day soon, there will be more of them.
By Melanie Benjamin
Alice I Have Been
The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb
The Aviator’s Wife
The Swans of Fifth Avenue
The Girls in the Picture
Reckless Hearts (short story)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MELANIE BENJAMIN has written the New York Times bestselling historical novels The Aviator’s Wife and The Swans of Fifth Avenue, the nationally bestselling Alice I Have Been, and The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb. She lives in Chicago with her husband, and far enough from her two adult sons not to be a nuisance (she hopes). When she isn’t writing, she’s reading.
Melaniebenjamin.com
Twitter: @MelanieBen
Look for Melanie Benjamin on Facebook.
To inquire about booking Melanie Benjamin for a speaking engagement, please contact the Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau at [email protected].
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