The Friend of an Autocrat

Newspaper advertisement for the March 26, 1916 Sunday Night event at the Hippodrome.

On March 26, 1916, Mary Pickford participated in a burlesque sketch at New York City’s Hippodrome Theatre. Perhaps not as grand as Belasco’s The Warrens of Virginia or The Good Little Devil—the March 27, 1916 New York Herald even noting it “wasn’t much of a sketch”—the performance was scripted, casted, and set on the theatre stage, and, as such, is deserving of at least some kind of recognition. While it can’t be visually seen today as with her films, thanks to Mary’s recollection and contemporary accounts, we can at least experience the event within our imagination.

Written by Alexander Leftwich, The Friend of an Autocrat parodied motion picture production and featured Little Mary (La Belle Marie,) alongside boxer/actor James J. Corbett (Wreckless Reginawald, a desperate demon,) Donald Brian (Lovely Lorimer, the hero, who reportedly replaced John Barrymore at the last minute,) her director at the time, John B. O’Brien (Burnedout Pshaw, a dynamic director,) Emmett Flynn (Poz I. Tively, a crisp cameraman,) Joseph Goodrich (Sond A. Sleap, almost assisting,) and supporting members of the Famous Players company. Billy Whiskers, A.K.A. Gwendolyn—the goat from Hulda From Holland, even had a part in the show. 

The Sunday night program also consisted of several other acts, including more than a dozen of the nation’s greatest composers on stage together, each playing their best known works; opera singers, including Robert Cavendish who sang William C. Polla’s “Mary” in dedication to Mary; and even a Dutch Hulda from Holland dance by Mary herself. In the end, Mary Pickford’s gross receipts totaled some $2000 which she donated to the Actors’ Fund to benefit those in the "biz" in need.

James J. Corbett, Mary, and Donald Brian pose for a photo by White Studio.
Photo courtesy of Pamela Short.

In the Wednesday, April 26, 1916 Daily Talks by Mary Pickford, Mary (via Frances Marion) recalls the performance:

"If you ever strolled across the stage of the New York Hippodrome, facing such a vast audience as I did on the Sunday night I appeared for the Actor’s Benefit Fund, you would decide that this round old world had been sliced in two and the the stage was the greediest half of it.

"One might stroll from the Flatiron Building to Columbus Circle and consider it a pleasurable promenade if no eyes were upon you, but just try to act at ease walking across the Hippodrome stage, with thousands of curious people staring at you, and see how well you succeed!

"Oh, but it’s awful skeery business—this appearing in public, and I am no half so lionhearted as I was in those days when I had to brave great merrymaking audiences daily. So this is why I had shivery quivers running down my spine when our turn was called on the program.

"As the little act was a burlesque on the taking of moving pictures, we began with the directors, camera men, assistants and assistants’ assistants landing at Forty-second street and Broadway in full-dress suits, looking for a quiet location.

"Of course there were a few teasing lines about the Mary Pickford star being late, and that gave them a chance to set upon me like a pack of snarling wolves when I drove up in a limousine.

"'Excuse me, Mr. O’Brien,' I said to my director, 'I would have been here an hour or so earlier, but unfortunately we had a blowout.'

"At this all of the company looked at each other with wise eyes, and laughed behind their hands when Mr. O’Brien asked, 'When—last night?'

"Along came my maid to take off my coat, and as I was preparing to enter into the spirit of this Time Square performance the director suddenly decided at the last minute he would change the location, and, instead of the scene being laid in the city, we would play the parts assigned to us as if we were in the heart of a burning desert. Of course that meant I had to crawl back into the machine, take off my evening dress and get into my overalls.

"You can’t guess who played the doubled-dyed villyun hiding behind fierce mustachios—James Corbett! [Who, according to the March 27, 1916 New York Herald, "leaped at her and attempted to strangle her. The powerful Corbett apparently was having it all his own way, although Miss Pickford upper cut and shin kicked cleverly."] And who was the adventuress around whom the most bloodcurdling lines of play were written, such an adventuress that I dragged her by the throat from my automobile? It was Mrs. William Whiskers, the goat [from Hulda From Holland,] in pinafore and boudoir cap!

Mary and a stubborn Billy Whiskers in Hulda From Holland (1916.)
Frame courtesy of the Mary Pickford Foundation.

"Of course, we did not rehearse the goat’s part very much, and I want to confide in you I kept one eye upon her! Why? Because once during the taking of 'Rags,' when I looked the other way, the goat came up behind me at full speed and almost tossed me into the middle of next summer! Of course, if such a thing happened on the Hippodrome stage, it might have raised a thundering laugh, but undoubtedly the results would have been that I would be the first to draw upon the Disabled Actors’ Benefit Fund!

"Donald Brian was the handsome leading man who at the last moment we called from his box to climb upon the stage and join us in the dramatization of our playlet. He came in the nick of time to save the villyun from choking me to death, from stealing the papers and eloping with Gwendoline, the adventuress. [The March 27, 1916 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, "He dashed to the stage, grappled with the ‘bad man’ and hearing the strains of the ‘Merry Widow Waltz,’ danced him off the stage, hissing ‘curses’ at the camera man."]

"This much—I do not think the audience enjoyed it half as much as we did, because there is ever so much real pleasure attached to reel work.

"After the little playlet was over, I did my first dance upon the American stage, in the Dutch costume I wear in the comedy drama we are now taking, 'Hulda From Holland.' It was a little dance I told you about the other day, the little hop-clickety-click dance [In the Thursday, April 20, 1916 Daily Talks by Mary Pickford, Mary noted that  “. . . dancing in wooden shoes, hop-clickity-click, hop-clickity-click, is about the most violent form of pleasure you ever indulged in.”], and by the time I got through I decided there was no hope—I should never become a Pavlowa of the ballet! I felt quite as if I had taken a forty-mile jaunt on horseback through the wildwoods, and when I had to face the audience to make the last little speech of 'Thank you,' I was so breathless I had to gasp out my apologies for this, my first feeble effort at dancing. [The March 27, 1916 edition of the New York Sun reported that Mary said that "it was the first time that she had danced on any stage—and that she hoped it would be her last."]

"How kindly are the eyes of an audience when they look down upon us! We wonder if the people know how often we feel as if we wanted to stretch out our arms to them and spiritually embrace them! And when they smile, it is just a little bit of heaven to all of us who try so hard to please them."