Editing Mary Pickford (section)

=== The film industry ===
[[File:MaryPickfordHoover.gif|right|thumb|Mary Pickford giving President [[Herbert Hoover]] a ticket for a film industry benefit for the unemployed, 1931]]
Pickford used her stature in the movie industry to promote a variety of causes. Although her image depicted fragility and innocence, she proved to be a strong businesswoman who took control of her career in a cutthroat industry.<ref name=":0">{{cite book |title=The Star System: Hollywood's Production of Popular Identities |url=https://archive.org/details/starsystemhollyw00mcdo |url-access=limited |last=McDonald |first=Paul |publisher=Wallflower |year=2000 |isbn=978-1-903364-02-4 |location=London |page=[https://archive.org/details/starsystemhollyw00mcdo/page/n44 33]}}</ref>

During [[World War I]], she promoted the sale of [[liberty bond]]s, making an intensive series of fund-raising speeches, beginning in Washington, D.C., where she sold bonds alongside [[Charlie Chaplin]], [[Douglas Fairbanks]], [[Theda Bara]], and [[Marie Dressler]]. Five days later she spoke on [[Wall Street]] to an estimated 50,000 people. Though Canadian-born, she was a powerful symbol of [[American culture]], kissing the [[Flag of the United States|American flag]] for cameras and auctioning one of her world-famous curls for $15,000. In a single speech in Chicago, she sold an estimated five million dollars' worth of bonds. She was christened the U.S. Navy's official "Little Sister"; the Army named two cannons after her and made her an honorary colonel.{{sfn|Whitfield|1997|pp=8, 25, 28, 115, 125, 126, 131, 300, 376}}
[[File:Fairbanks - Pickford - Chaplin - Griffith.png|thumb|220x220px|[[Douglas Fairbanks]], [[Charlie Chaplin]], and [[D. W. Griffith]], with whom Mary Pickford founded United Artists in 1919]]
In 1916, Pickford and [[Constance Adams DeMille]], wife of director [[Cecil B. DeMille]], helped found the [[Hollywood Studio Club]], a dormitory for young women involved in the motion picture business.<ref name=varobit/> At the end of World War I, Pickford conceived of the [[Motion Picture & Television Fund|Motion Picture Relief Fund]], an organization to help financially needy actors. Leftover funds from her work selling Liberty Bonds were put toward its creation, and in 1921, the Motion Picture Relief Fund (MPRF) was officially incorporated, with [[Joseph Schenck]] voted its first president and Pickford its vice president. In 1932, Pickford spearheaded the "Payroll Pledge Program", a payroll-deduction plan for studio workers who gave one half of one percent of their earnings to the MPRF. As a result, in 1940, the Fund was able to purchase land and build the [[Motion Picture & Television Fund|Motion Picture Country House and Hospital]], in [[Woodland Hills, California]].{{sfn|Whitfield|1997|pp=8, 25, 28, 115, 125, 126, 131, 300, 376}}

An astute businesswoman, Pickford became her own producer within three years of her start in features. According to her Foundation, "she oversaw every aspect of the making of her films, from hiring talent and crew to overseeing the script, the shooting, the editing, to the final release and promotion of each project". She demanded (and received) these powers in 1916, when she was under contract to Zukor's Famous Players in Famous Plays (later Paramount). Zukor acquiesced to her refusal to participate in block-booking, the widespread practice of forcing an exhibitor to show a bad film of the studio's choosing to also be able to show a Pickford film. In 1916, Pickford's films were distributed, singly, through a special distribution unit called Artcraft. The Mary Pickford Corporation was briefly Pickford's motion-picture production company.<ref name="ushistory"/>
[[File:Mary Pickford signing the entrance to the Mary Pickford War Funds bungalow.jpg|left|thumb|Bungalow Mary Pickford War Funds, 1943]]
In 1919, she increased her power by co-founding [[United Artists]] (UA) with Charlie Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, and her soon-to-be husband, Douglas Fairbanks. Before UA's creation, Hollywood studios were vertically integrated, not only producing films but forming chains of theaters. Distributors (also part of the studios) arranged for company productions to be shown in the company's movie venues. Filmmakers relied on the studios for bookings; in return they put up with what many considered creative interference.{{citation needed|date=December 2015}}

United Artists broke from this tradition. It was solely a distribution company, offering independent film producers access to its own screens as well as the rental of temporarily unbooked cinemas owned by other companies. In 1919, Pickford established The Mary Pickford Company, that was devoted exclusively to producing films distributed by United Artists. With the film ''Pollyanna'' being Mary's first film distributed by The United Artists.<ref name="Mary Pickford Foundation">{{cite web |title=Mary Pickford Chronology |url=https://marypickford.org/mary-pickford-chronology/ |website=Mary Pickford Mary Pickford Foundation |access-date=March 22, 2023}}</ref> Pickford and Fairbanks produced and shot their films after 1920 at the jointly owned Pickford-Fairbanks studio on [[Santa Monica Boulevard]]. The producers who signed with UA were true independents, producing, creating and controlling their work to an unprecedented degree. As a co-founder, as well as the producer and star of her own films, Pickford became the most powerful woman who has ever worked in Hollywood. By 1930, her acting career had largely faded.<ref name="mdecline"/> After retiring three years later, however, she continued to produce films for United Artists. She and Chaplin remained partners in the company for decades. Chaplin left the company in 1955, and Pickford followed suit in 1956, selling her remaining shares for $3 million.<ref name="ushistory">{{cite web|website=u-s-history.com|title=Mary Pickford biography|url=http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h3890.html|access-date=January 24, 2007}}</ref>

She had purchased the rights to many of her early silent films with the intention of burning them on her death, but in 1970 she agreed to donate 50 of her Biograph films to the [[American Film Institute]].<ref name=Katz/> In 1976, she received an [[Academy Honorary Award]] for her contribution to American film.<ref name=Katz/>