Alcoholic Recluse Mary Pickford Invited the Cameras Into Her Sprawling Mansion (Pickfair) in 1976

OMG, so campy it's like an SNL skit. It's like the announcer is about to give a tour of the White House or Balmoral. MARY!

Wow - very sad and touching. Mary is obviously totally out of it and there's an overwhelming feeling of loneliness and sorrow to Pickfair - a monument of something long past and illusory.

I saw this when it was originally on and couldn't understand why someone would allow themselves to be seen like that.

I saw a document and this was part of it. People at the Oscars began to applause when they saw Pickfair and then saw how much older she was from her movie star years. It was touching and sad to see her, the biggest female super star from silent movie era.

She's old, but still looks reasonably good, not a lot of wrinkles, and while she hesitates a bit when she speaks, she still does a lot better than some of the younger set does reading off a teleprompter. It's sad to see the faded beauty, especially when the camera had just shown her beautiful portrait right before, but nice that she lived so long in such a beautiful place and that she had such a wonderful career.

Then along came Pia.

Her 3rd Charles "Buddy" Rogers didn't look very heterosexual. They marries in 1937. Rogers was 33 (his 1st marriage) and Pickford was 45. Rogers remarried in 1981. Rogers attended the Academy Awards ceremony that year.

I thought that too, R7.

Pickford's real name was SMITH.

Here's Buddy kissing Richard Arlen in the first Best Picture Oscar winner - "Wings"

Threads like this one are what keep me coming back to the DL. Thanks, OP.

What ever became of Pickfair? (Yes, I'll call myself a cunt and go Google it now.)

She played young innocent girl part for a long time. People wanted to see her in the role long after she was too old to play it.

R12,

It was demolished by Pia Zadora's husband. The excuse was that it had termites, but the truth was that a 1920s mansion was too small for him.

Pia Zadora happened to Pickfair R12.

Mary was a good business woman and kept Buddy on a short leash. Before they married she had him sign papers similar to what today is referred to as a "pre-nup".

LA LA LAND!!!!!!!

I remember how disappointed I was when I watched that video for the first time - I always wanted to see what Pickfair looked from the inside but when the doors in that clip opened (and one of the door handles looked like it was broken) and I saw that tacky zebra rug I was really underwhelmed. Didn't they also give Myrna Loy an Oscar via live broadcast from her home?

[quote] The excuse was that it had termites, but the truth was that a 1920s mansion was too small for him.

Nope, the truth was that it was demolished because it was HAUNTED!

Mary Pickford was Canadian, btw.

I believe the pickfair mansion was something like 8,000 sq ft. Pretty big! But I guess not big enough for pia and her then daddy war bucks husband.

It is beautiful

Old Hollywood partied

R19, it was big, but the scale of the rooms were too small for them. The new mansion is over three times the size of Pickfair at 25,000 square feet.

I'm not very fashionable, but what exactly is she wearing? It looks like a fur lined night gown.

Dinner at Pickfair

Thanks r24 - Mary, Doug, Valentino and "Mrs. Valentino" (Natascha would have hated that), Buster Keaton, Chaplin, Joe Schenk, all the Talmage sisters and their mother, William S. Hart, Sidney Chaplin, etc.

R10, Thanks! I'm a bit ashamed to admit that that old silent clip made me cry.

[quote]Formed United Artists company with Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith and Charles Chaplin. The first artist to have her name in marquee lights. The first international star.

At this point, she's probably best remembered as a silent screen star, but she was actually one of the architects of the old Hollywood machine. And imagine this: she was once Joan Crawford's Mother-in-Law!

I think I read that after she retired she kept to her bed and drank and slept away the rest of her life because she had started work so young and worked so hard supporting her family.

She was widely considered the most famous woman in the world from between about 1914 to 1930.

Working those silent movie star eyes and the tilt of the head to the very end. God love her.

She looked pretty good for an eightysomething drunk.

[quote] I think I read that after she retired she kept to her bed and drank and slept away the rest of her life because she had started work so young and worked so hard supporting her family.

She came from a family of alcoholics:

After retiring from the screen, Pickford became an alcoholic, as her father had been. Her mother Charlotte died of breast cancer in March 1928. Her siblings, Lottie and Jack, both died of alcohol-related causes. These deaths, her divorce from Fairbanks, and the end of silent films left Pickford deeply depressed. Her relationship with her children, Roxanne and Ronald, was turbulent at best. Pickford withdrew and gradually became a recluse, remaining almost entirely at Pickfair and allowing visits only from Lillian Gish, her stepson Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and few other people. She appeared in court in 1959, in a matter pertaining to her co-ownership of North Carolina TV station WSJS-TV. The court date coincided with the date of her 67th birthday; under oath, when asked to give her age, Pickford replied: "I'm 21, going on 20."[35]

In the mid-1960s, Pickford often received visitors only by telephone, speaking to them from her bedroom. Buddy Rogers often gave guests tours of Pickfair, including views of a genuine western bar Pickford had bought for Douglas Fairbanks, and a portrait of Pickford in the drawing room. A print of this image now hangs in the Library of Congress.[29] In addition to her Oscar as best actress for Coquette (1929), Mary Pickford received an Academy Honorary Award in 1976 for lifetime achievement. The Academy sent a TV crew to her house to record her short statement of thanks – offering the public a very rare glimpse into Pickfair Manor.[

Pickford was a treasure and a true lady. She and Douglas Fairbanks were the most beloved couple in America at one time, and their exquisite home, Pickfair, was legendary. It's a real treat to see it here in all its glory. Truly one of the great crimes of all-time that common ethnic trash like Pia Zadora was allowed to destroy it.

I cannot believe some of the comments here. Pickford was an absolute delight in this clip. Those remarkable eyes had not lost an ounce of their sparkle, and she was genuinely moved by the tribute and the award. She probably had a drink to calm her nerves. Most people used to, before the normal consumption of alcohol (which is actually a wonderful social lubricant) was completely pathologized. I wish women today were more like her.

Yes (R17) Myrna was given an honorary Oscar and it was equally awkward.

Later that night, Mary had her first DP with both awards.

Buddy Rogers allegedly had a relationship with Gene Raymond

Thanks for posting, OP!

That clip upthread from Wings with Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen is a must-see! Go to r10.

Devastating. Gorgeous. And something you would never see in a mainstream film today.

Pickford's "competitive" Oscar for "Coquette" is one of the most (if not THE most) undeserved in history - amazingly bad performance.

I recently watched her on Dick Cavett r33. For a classic Golden Age actress, she really didn't have a larger than life (or even actress-y) personality.

So many of those old-timey actresses ended up as alcoholic recluses.

So Buddy Rogers was pretty much Gary to Mary's Lucy

Not just actresses r40. Singers, dancers....it must be hard when age takes it's toll.

Yes, I knew Buddy was linked to a handsome blond actor...there’s a website that details the stolen moments that they shared during an ocean cruise with their wives non the wiser.

What a delight!

Leave Pia alone. She's a fabulous lady and always willing to donate her time and money to many causes.

She plays at a little restaurant/club in Las Vegas to keep busy and enjoys her money from that beast of an ex. Her detective husband is a hottie.

Plus, she has her own Warhol of herself.

It’s crazy to me that in ninety years we haven’t seen a more affecting scene between two men than the one in that clip.

The clip at R10 is devastating. I dare anyone to see it without shedding a tear.

Pickford's face looked alright for 80 but had she suffered a stroke ? Her tiny body looked slumped on that settee, her speech hesitant and slurred, and that awful wig. You can understand why Garbo decided to retire & retreat from public life to keep the image alive.

Out of necessity, I had to watch that video without sound. That Academy jackass kept putting his head in Mary’s light, casting a shadow on her little face. She kept trying to move back into it, and I swear he was doing it on purpose. He had to have seen what his stupid head was doing.

Also, she looked like a creepy doll. Darling, but a little scary.

Did she not have a career after the silent era? Was that buddy at the end?

Did Harvey try to........?

Thanks, R10.

Myrna Loy's affectless "You've made me very happy, thank you very much" is real fuck-you to an Academy that never gave her a nomination, let alone a win.

[quote] Most people used to, before the normal consumption of alcohol (which is actually a wonderful social lubricant) was completely pathologized.

Prohibition?

That’s “Golden Globe-winner Pia Zadora”.

[quote] It’s crazy to me that in ninety years we haven’t seen a more affecting scene between two men than the one in that clip.

She was rumoured to have had a facelift in 1933, near the end of her acting career, which left her unable to smile. I don't know if this was from nerve damage or simply from over-tightening.

The whole thing was weird and creepy, and the guy was fawning over her as if she were Queen Elizabeth II.

That's some clip in R10's post. That is pre Hollywood codes. Quite moving really.

She’s goals.

And can I add the obvious about the clip at r10: it's only a short clip and yet we're all mesmerized by it, without even knowing who the characters are. Devastating!!

They're best friends who went to war together. There was a misunderstanding and then one of the guys died after a battle, but not before a deathbed reconciliation and final kiss.

It's universal, so it resonates.

Never fear, Buddy ends up with spunky girl-next-door Clara Bow in a little epilogue. For some reason, though, his hair has turned quite grey.

I also remember that during one dogfight scene you can totally see Richard Arlen mouthing "Shit! Shit!" as his plane is hit or whatever. The director, the understated but extremely competent William Wellman, did spectacular aerial scenes and also a superb long tracking shot through a Paris nightclub, passing tables of all sorts of amusing denizens including an obvious lesbian couple.

Clara Bow. Who was more famous Mary or Clara or does it even matter?

Wings is so gay.

Fun story about Mary Pickford & Hedda Hopper: Mary & Hedda (they were not fond of each other) were at a gathering, Hedda walked by Mary & snarled, "Good afternoon, Miss Snot". Mary didn't deign to answer her, however, the following Christmas, she sent Hedda a card with the greeting "Merry Christmas, Miss Snot".

We shouldn't forget her

Or me r66. She had a sister fer chrissakes!

She not only had a sister, she HAD her sister, if one believes the rumors.

Here is a nice radio interview Mary gave in 1959.

Well she didnt go broke in old age. The garden looks immaculate and very elegant.

Thank you R37. I had skipped past it because I had seen the film long ago. I knew it was a beautiful film but I had forgotten much of it. People are right, you could not show that kind of affection and tenderness in a scene today. Nice they could do it then.

Man! It really did pull you in, didn't it? Wonderful.

Thanks R69, that was interesting to listen to.

At least Mary had the good sense to do her drinking at home where no one could see her, instead of getting shitfaced drunk in public all over LA and totally embarrassing herself.

The pic linked in r56's link definitely looks like botched plastic surgery.

Mary's "botched plastic surgery" at r74 looks like a work of art compared to what actresses achieve today!

Mary's fame and popularity began in the 1910s so Clara Bow was hardly a rival. Bow's stardom was between 1925 and the advent of talkies, essentially over by 1931, even earlier than Mary's retirement in 1933.

Mary, at the height of her stardom, would have been a contemporary of Theda Bara, the movies' original vamp. But Theda Bara's career was over before the 1920s began, even if the term "vamp' is regarded as a term from The Roaring Twenties.

"As for Ron and Roxanne, sadly the family portrait belies the truth..."

This blogger found some pics of Mary at home in the "50s or 60s" and notes how the photo of the children gets moved around to be displayed in each shot.

Wasn't Mary kind of cunty and cold to Joan Crawford?

R79, Mary supposedly told Joan "If you ever make me a grandmother, I'll kill you".

I would imagine that the moment she saw OP's video, Georgia Engel must have leaped to the phone to call her agent...

While she was married to Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Mary Pickford was horrified that her step-son, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., was married Joan Crawford. She feared that Joan would have a baby and thus would make her a grandmother. Also, she perceived Joan as low class and common. Joan was a flapper in the 1920s and was a party girl. Mary Pickford was very snobbish and had conveniently forgotten that she, too came from a humble and poverty stricken family, as did Joan. Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., however, was warm and friendly to Joan.

Toward the end of her life, Mary Pickford wanted to destroy her old films that she owned. Lillian Gish, however, talked her out of it.

It's like a mausoleum for living people. The entrance with that narrow bulky staircase looks like you're entering the house from the cellar.

And was everything so badly lit back then? Thank Apollo for modern lighting props and lighting masters.

I suggest Georgia Engel for the biopic about the day a camera crew visited Pickfair. OP's pic looks just like her.

She was a lush.

Look at this bizarre little film called "A Memorable Day at Pickfair" on Vimeo. No description about when it was filmed or why.

Prisspots Pickford and Zukor some time in the 50s (I'm guessing) meet at Pickfair under Mary's portrait to "remember the time when..." and discuss how the "people today" don't know how to make movies correctly, behave properly, or appreciate greatness.

She looks like a gaga absurdity.

I highly recommend My Best Girl with Mary and Buddy being both of them incredibly charming and delightful.

You can easily see how the world was in love with her.

The kind of charisma nobody has today.

The scene where he takes her to the boss's house is pretty wonderful and a masterclass in acting.

Cunt. A real Monster-in-Law

Did Mary ever speak on record about Theda Bara?

Thanks to you R37. I had bypassed the clip originally. It's amazing how touching and moving that short clip is. It really does reach in and pull your heart out through your chest. Just lovely.

I watched something on PBS a few years ago about Mary & Fairbanks Sr. It really sold the love story between them. The thing that I remember though is that you got to see the impact that movies and their stars had on the public. This was whole new thing for the world to experience. These huge, huge crowds wanting to catch a glimpse of them and their fame was overwhelming. It was how all that stuff started way back when. There had never been people with that kind of giant impact before.

I can't seem to get that clip out of my head. Very powerful.

She turned into Cousin Geri.

[quote] the guy was fawning over her as if she were Queen Elizabeth II

Mary Pickford and Pickfair, WAS like visiting Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace. She was the original movie star and the Queen of Hollywood.

I’m a big fan of architecture - but I have to say, that house is meh. Not like a Gamble House - or some of LA’s mid century stunners. It seems to be a mish-mash of styles with no standout features. I’m all for preserving - but it’s not like this was Penn Station or anything of great merit as far as I can tell.

R95 It should have been saved, not because it is the greatest architecture but because of the history it witnessed and represented.

Delight and caftans

If we preserve things because of the history they witnessed, we end up with crap like the cheap ass apartment building where James Baldwin lived that just got landmarked in NYC

Thread on Mary's tragic brother Jack, who died at 36 of alcoholism, basically.

[quote] Her 3rd Charles "Buddy" Rogers didn't look very heterosexual.

It's because he wasn't, R7. He had a longstanding affair with Jeanette MacDonald's husband.

That clip from the Oscars in 1976 is sad. She was 84, and it's clear that she had had a stroke. I wonder if "Pickfair" inspired the set designers of the Netflix series "Hollywood." The dining room looks similar to the one in Patti LuPone's character's house.

She deserves to be a feminist icon. Smart as a whip businesswoman who was one of the co-founders of United Artists. Where's the statue to HER?

BTW, I once saw some interior pics of Pickfair. It had a bar that was designed to look like an Old West saloon, with wagon wheel decorations and so forth. Pia probably did everyone a favor by tearing the old dump down.

[quote] And imagine this: she was once Joan Crawford's Mother-in-Law!

No, she was only Joan Crawford's stepmother-in-law.

Mother - with her dirt!

Mary & her last husband were reportedly very indifferent parents, the children were not abused or neglected, Mary & Buddy just weren't cut out to be parents. The children would hauled out for interviews, publicity photos, etc, then set aside, likes dolls on a shelf.

There's something truly appalling about a person adopting children, then, ignoring them.

She looks like a stroked out mess, with the whole bug-eyed silent screen style of self-presentation. Very sad.

I read that she started so young and worked so hard that she never really developed any outside intellectual interests. When her career ended she was left with a lot of money and a lot of time on her hands.

Love this photo of Pia in front of the old Pickfair. I wonder which one of those two kids is the one she attacked a few years ago and got arrested because of it.

Oh wow I started this thread in 2017. I thought it looked familiar.

R107, it was the son (the smaller one). She also has a special needs son, but he is not the one pictured there. I follow Pia on IG and she has been super quiet during the whole quarantine...I think she thrives on performing her little show here at Piero's in Vegas, and has been lost without the routine. But that's a lot of showbiz people who miss the spotlight. I'd never seen that pic, so thanks!

R109 Then it must have been the special needs son she attacked. I googled the incident: it happened in 2013 and the article says the son was 16 at the time. Pickfair was demolished sometime in the late 1980s so he was born years after that pic above was taken.

luv her wig!

I went to Pickfair when Jerry Buss owned it. Very unimpressive. Smelled like my grand ma's. I think her husband was living above the garage.

R52. I don't think that's fuck you indifference as much as post-stroke struggle to speak. A friend of mine's family was friends with Loy--apparently a lovely person who preferred the "company" of other women in later years.

She lived a long time.

What a dump!

R105 That clip wasn't sad unless you consider the elderly sad in general. She was doing reasonably well for an old person. We all get old. No one stays young and beautiful forever. It's just the cycle of life. She was a legend and a very strong and smart business woman for her time period, becoming a wealthy producer when most actresses were largely exploited for their work.

When drunk girl becomes geriatric...

It’s a shame Debbie Reynolds or some film fan didn’t get their hands on pickfair and turn it into a history of Hollywood museum. That would have been quite a fitting use of it and I’m sure it would have attracted the crowds.

Pickfair was originally a hunting lodge in wilds of Beverly Hills. Mary was actually the first to ruin it when she did a bad reno on it and turned it into some faux Hollywood regency hack job. I remember reading that all the Hollywood stars had these estates and would actually ride horses to visit each other. There's a story that Fairbanks Sr. ran Valentino off the Pickfair estate when he dropped by unannounced by horseback. Fairbanks Sr. thought Valentino was sniffing around looking for Mary and wasn't happy

This is what Pickfair originally looked like with it's first ever LA private inground lagoon style pool

... And this is Mary's Hollywood regency reno

Mary Pickford's life pretty much feel apart all at once. She lost her mother, brother, and sister in a short span of time in the late '20s, which was also when sound killed the talkies which also killed her career (coupled with her advancing age; America's Sweetheart turned 40 in 1932). At about the same time, her husband started running around on her and the marriage disintegrated. Just one catastrophe after another!

Frankly, I'm amazed she only became an alcoholic who lived to 84. Must have been quite the tough old bird. Lesser mortals would have eaten a gun.

I watched this when it was on tv and felt so uncomfortable for her.