Mary and Charlotte Pickford on-screen together!

Mary and Charlotte Pickford by Hartsook Studio.

While the global pandemic has delayed the completion of my book, Cameras & Curls: On Location with Mary Pickford, it has allowed extra time for research and discovery. Many of these new and exciting discoveries will of course be highlighted in the book, but two of them are too good not to share (at least in my opinion.) It is no secret that Mary’s mother Charlotte appears in the 1911 IMP Sweet Memories, but I have uncovered her presence at the Inglewood Station in D.W. Griffith's 1912 Biograph A Beast at Bay as well as on the Abbot Kinney Pier in Arthur Rosson's 1918 100% American. Making her appearance even more special in these films is that she is on screen with Mary. 

Charlotte's presence is significant because, besides the small fact of bringing Mary into the world, “Mrs. Pickford is her daughter’s best friend, confidante and business manager. This shrewd, kindly woman—so versed in the world’s trickery that her managerial cleverness sometimes hits the big heart of her—I dare to say is responsible for the Mary Pickford of today. Mary Pickford in personality is entirely herself, but it is her mother, no other, who has smoothed away the obstacles on that personality’s path toward full expression.” (as put so nicely in part 4/4 of the 1915/1916 Julian Johnson Photoplay article “Mary Pickford: Herself and Her Career.”) And Mary concurs noting in the April 2, 1915 edition of The Day Book, “[My mother] is not only the best mother in this whole wide world, but she has developed into a wonderful businesswoman. I would take her advice before that of any man on earth, and I regard her as he greatest element in whatever success I have.” Indeed, Mary has admitted countless times, it was Charlotte—not Mary—who was the business-end of the whole Pickford affair (but that's a topic for another discussion.) 

In a 1958 interview with George Pratt, Mary recalled her mother on the set of A Beast at Bay but did not add the fact that she had a small part in the film: “. . . here was a train keeping up with me and I drove 50 miles per hour which would be equivalent to 150 today. And my poor mother, standing on the roadside, praying out loud. I mean she was so terrified and of course I wasn’t very good at driving at that time and this was an old car as I recall and open, you know. It had no top and that was made out here in California. And it was right alongside the railroad track and I was racing the engine. I believe as I recall it I won out." (https://marypickford.org/av-element-type/audio-recordings.) The chase scenes Mary is referencing were taken not far from the station. It's not out of the question that D.W. Griffith might have said, "Ma Pickford... since you're here... stand in the background and make this train station look a little more lively... I'll pay you $5." Surely, Charlotte would have wanted more and so after a bit of haggling, she ended up in the background.

It's also worth noting that Mary's brother Jack appears at the station as well in A Beast at Bay, but then again, he pops up in many of Mary's Biographs if you look for him.

Charlotte Pickford in A Beast at Bay (1912.)
Photos and frames courtesy of the Mary Pickford Foundation / Marc Wanamaker.

In 100% American, there is just a hair more interaction between the duo--or in this case, trio. In the film, as Mary and her friend (played by Loretta Blake) make their way into the crowd on the Abbot Kinney Pier in Venice, CA, they nudge a bystander out of the way. It would make sense that during the film's production bumping into a stranger could have yielded an unwanted reaction and, as always, Charlotte was probably around on set so she played the part. Interestingly, it seems that Charlotte is interacting with the few people around her, as if acquainted, but I have been unable to identify them conclusively.

Charlotte in 100% American (1918.) Note the inset image is from a Liberty Loan event and shows Charlotte in the same hat, and quite possibly the same ensemble all together. Photos and frames courtesy of the Mary Pickford Foundation.

On to the next discovery...