#pickfair

Mary Pickford ~born April 8, 1892 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada

🎞  Canadian American silent film actress and producer. A pioneer in the American film industry with a Hollywood career spanning five decades, Pickford was one of the most popular actresses of the silent film era.

Beginning her film career in 1909, Pickford became Hollywood's first millionaire by 1916, and, at the height of her career, had complete creative control of her films and was one of the most recognizable women in the world. Due to her popularity, unprecedented international fame, and success as an actress and businesswoman, she was known as the "Queen of the Movies". She was a significant figure in the development of film acting and is credited with having defined the ingénue type in cinema, a persona that also earned her the nickname "America's Sweetheart"

Pickfair was a sprawling estate in Beverly Hills, California purchased and further renovated in 1919 by silent film actress Mary Pickford and her husband Douglas Fairbanks, the "Queen and King of Hollywood." The 25-room mansion was named by combining parts of their last names ("Pick" + "fair").

Pickfair was considered one of the most celebrated private homes of America, and became a famous symbol of Hollywood glamour and excess in the 1920s/30s. It hosted iconic parties with famous guests like Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein, Amelia Earhart, Helen Keller, F. Scott Fitzgerald and presidents Coolidge and Roosevelt. Life magazine described it as “a gathering place only slightly less important than the White House… and much more fun.”

After divorcing Douglas Fairbanks in 1936, Mary Pickford married actor Charles "Buddy" Rogers and continued living in Pickfair until her death, in 1979. A new owner, actress Pia Zadora, eventually demolished the mansion in 1990, despite some outcry. Zadora later claimed the place was haunted: “You can deal with termites, and you can deal with plumbing issues, but you can’t deal with the supernatural.”

A new mansion stands on the site bearing no resemblance to the original Pickfair.