Mary Pickford

Mary Pickford began in Biograph one-reelers in 1909 and by the mid-1910s was one of the most popular and best-paid film stars in the world, known as 'America's Sweetheart'. Film historians describe her as a pioneer of a more naturalistic style of screen acting suited to the close-up camera. Tess of the Storm Country (1914) played on four continents, and by 1917 her films were drawing audiences from California to England and Japan.

In 1919 Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith founded United Artists, a distribution company through which performers and filmmakers could control and share in the profits of their own films. Pickford had already won her own production unit in 1916, which film scholar Gaylyn Studlar describes as a first for a Hollywood star. She remained a United Artists owner, serving as an executive from 1935, until she sold her stock in 1956.

In 1927 Pickford was one of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and at the second awards, held in 1930, she won Best Actress for her first sound film, Coquette (1929). In 1921 she had helped found the Motion Picture Relief Fund, now the Motion Picture & Television Fund, and in 1932 she spearheaded its Payroll Pledge Program.

In the summer of 1907, fifteen-year-old Gladys Smith, a touring actress, went to the office of Broadway producer David Belasco again and again and was told to come back tomorrow. Accounts differ on the details: a 2005 PBS documentary has her finally storming in and shouting that her life depended on seeing him, while Terry Ramsaye's 1926 history has her bursting onto his stage during a rehearsal. In both versions she joined his company, and Belasco gave her the stage name Mary Pickford.

This episode is consistent with the profile's high proactive agency: she acted to force an opening rather than waiting to be called. Proactive Agency

In 1918, while Adolph Zukor was out of town, Pickford put Stella Maris into production, playing both a wealthy invalid and Unity Blake, an abused orphan servant who walks with a limp, a part Zukor would not have approved. When he returned and found her on set in costume he was dismayed, and she reassured him that her character died before the end. The film was widely praised, and the PBS documentary says Zukor conceded that the performance was 'the most remarkable' of her career.

This is consistent with the profile's risk tolerance: she committed to an unconventional role her producer was likely to oppose, although later experiments such as Rosita (1922) were less well received by her fans. Risk Tolerance

By 1915 Pickford and her mother had concluded that her films were helping Paramount sell its other releases. After negotiations in 1916 that made national news, her contract with Zukor gave her a share of the profits through a production company in her name and a larger say over her films, and she began choosing material such as Poor Little Rich Girl (1917). From a salaried star she had become a producer, a position she carried first to First National in 1918 and then into United Artists in 1919.

This is consistent with the profile's strong autonomy need: she pressed for ownership and control of her work, not only a higher salary. Need for Autonomy