Mary Pickford, 1955 |
 Gladys Smith age five. |
When she was just three years old, she was discovered late one night by her Aunt, Lizzie Watson, sitting outside in her nightgown dangling her feet over the edge of the curbside of their home. "Precious, what in the world are you doing out here at this hour of the night?" The toddler, deep in thought looked up at her Aunt and replied, "I'm frinking". "You should be in bed asleep darling". "No Auntie, I have to frink". It had occurred to her that she had come from "some place" and that if she thought very hard she would remember where that place was and could go back. She reasoned that things must be better where she had came from. |
| In her book, "Sunshine and Shadow", Mary recalls being very young when "frinking" or thinking about such philosophies. She recounts the story of a attending her english Grandmother's Methodist Church and asking her sunday school teacher, "Who is the stronger, God or the Devil?" "Why God of course", said the teacher. One can imagine the beginnings of a frown when, undeterredly she asked, "Then why doesn't he kill the devil so I won't be a bad little girl anymore and have to go to the hot place?" As a youngster she developed a love for flowers and was known to walk down the street to a local florist shop and ask if she could have the fading roses. One day while taking one of the roses, the florist asked her, "What do you do with them child?" "I eat them", she responded. She reasoned that by eating the delicate petals that she would absorb their beauty, color and perfumed smell. |
| Gladys Louis Smith was born on April 8, 1892 in Toronto, Canada. Her mother's family, including mother Charlotte and Grandmother Hennessey, emigrated into Canada from Tralee, County Kerry in Ireland, and her father, John Charles Smith with his family from Liverpool England. The Smiths lived at 211 University Avenue. Photos of the time show the two-story building with double doors in the middle and one on the side near another living compartment. It was here Gladys Smith would spend her childhood, running, playing and living what was then a happy life. One day however, fate dealt the Smith family a blow that would have destroyed most. "In those days it was Father I loved", wrote Mary in her memoirs. She would inherit his golden curly hair that would later become her trademark in film. Her father drifted from on job to the |  |
 John Charles Smith |
next including a stint in a local theater handling scenery. In 1897 he found a job working the candy concession onboard the steamship Corona which travelled from Toronto to Lewiston New York. While hurrying ashore one day, John Charles leapt over a shaft slamming his head into an overhead iron pulley, causing a cerebral hemmorage and on February 11, 1898, John Charles Smith was dead at the age of thirty. Pickford biographer Eileen Whitfield, author of "The Woman Who Made Hollywood", has described John Charles as a man of charm and idealisn, full of |
| personality, whose plight in life was frequent unemployment and a weakness for drink. She goes on to write of a separation that occurred between John Charles and Charlotte in 1895, three years before his death, citing a city directory of John Charles moving out and effectively abandoning his family. In her memoirs, Mary speaks of only hearing her mother's screams in the night and rushing to their bedroom to see her mother beating her head against the wall, screaming in anguish at the loss of her husband. No other event would cause more impact on the life of Gladys Smith than the loss of her father. It would prove to be a catalyst. Soon afterwards she resolved in her mind to become the father-figure of the family. She determined to care for her family as he might have, looking after her younger sister and brother and forging a closer,deeper relationship with her mother that would last until her death in 1928. Still only a toddler, Gladys was often a sickly child, contracting diptheria, tuberculosis and other childhood ailments, all of which made her deathly ill but somehow surviving all. Charlotte, in desperate financial straits, decided to take in boarders for badly needed money. At first she only allowed women until one day a nicely dressed man came to her door inquiring about a room for he and his wife. Charlotte, ever the woman of victorian etiquette, mulled over this decision with her sister and mother, allowing the couple to board with them. For little Gladys Smith, fate had again played its hand. Their new boarder was the stage manager for the Cummings Stock Company of Toronto, a local theater and would soon be needing extras. As Mary would later write, "It was probably the greatest turning point in my life". |
 The Smith Family, ca. 1898 Toronto, CA. (l to r) Gladys(Mary), Mabel Watson, Charlotte, Lottie, Jack(lower middle). |
Baby Gladys
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