 |
| Childhood |
| "I was always older than my years" Mary Pickford, 1955 |
| When she was just three years old, her Aunt Lizzie Watson found her sitting in her nightgown dangling her feet over the edge of the curbside. "Precious, what in the world are you doing out here athe this hour of the night?" "I'm frinking", she replied. "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 hard enough she would remember where that "place" was and could get back there. She thought things must be lots better there than where she was now. Very heady thoughts for young girl. In her book, "Sunshine and Shadow", Mary recalls being very young when "frinking" or thinking about God and other such philosophies. She recounts the story of attending her english Grandmother's Methodist Church and asking her Sunday School teacher, "Who is the stronger, |
| God or the Devil?" When her teacher replied, "Why God of course", undettered 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?". Very heady indeed. As a youngster she developed a love for flowers and was known to walk down the street to a local florist and ask if she could have the fading roses. One day after taking another of the flowers, the florist asked, "What do you do with them child?" "I eat them". She reasoned that by eating the delicate petals that she would absorb their beauty, color and perfume. This little curious three year old who would become known around the world as Mary Pickford was born Gladys Louise Smith 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 Charls Smith with his family from Liverpool England. The Smith Family lived at 211 University Avenue. Photos of the time show the two-story brick building with double |
| Gladys Smith about 5 years old |
 |
| Mary Pickford's birthplace in Toronto Canada. |
| doors in the middle and one on the side near another living compartment to be well kept and livable. It was here Gladys Smith would spend her childhood, such as it was, running, playing and living what then was a happy life. But then one day fate dealt the Smith family a blow which would have destroyed most. "In those days it was Father I loved", wrote Mary in her memoirs. She would inherit his goldn curly hair that later became her trademark. Her father drifted from one job to the next including a stint in a local theater handlind scenery. In 1897, he found a job working the candy concession onboard the steamship Corona which travelled from Toronto to Lewiston, New York. One day while hurrying ashore, John Charles leapt over a shaft slamming his head into an iron |
 |
| John Charles Smith, Mary's Father |
| as her father had passed away. She was only five years old. No other even you 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 her 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 diphtheria, tuberculosis and other childhood aliments of the time all of which made her deathly ill but somehow surviving all. Charlotte, in desperate financial straits decided to take in boarders for badly needed extra money. At first Charlotte only allowed women to board with them until one day a nicely dressed man came to her door inquiring about a room for himself and his wife. Charlotte, ever the image conscious woman of victorian etiquette, muller over the decision with her sister and mother, and allowed the couple to board with them. For little Gladys Smith, fate had again played its hand. Her new boarder was the stage manager for the Cummings Stock Company of Toronto, a local theater. As Mary would later write, "It was probably the greatest turning point in my life." |
| pulley causing a bloody wound to his forehead. He soon developed complications resulting in a cerebral hemmorage and died on February 11, 1898 at the age of thirty. Pickford biographer Eileen Whitfield, author of "The Woman Who Made Hollywood", describes John Charles as a man of charm and idealism, 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 only of hearing her mother's scream in the night and rushing to their bedroom to see her mother beating her head against the wall, screaming in aguish |
 |
| The Smith Family, ca 1898 in Toronto.. (l to r) Gladys (Mary), Mabel Watson, Charlotte, Lottie, Jack (lower middle) |
 |
 |