Councillor Norm Kelly for America's Sweeheart
Toronto City Councillor, Norm Kelly, is my new hero. He was a breath of fresh air when he took over as deputy mayor after the circus that was Rob Ford finally reached its peak last year, but now that he’s back in the councillor’s seat, and testing the waters of Twitter, I love him even more. His contribution to a social media in mourning a few weeks back, over a dead racoon on a city sidewalk, was fun, but he’s upped his game recently by entering into a war of words with Meek Mill, a Philadelphia rapper who’s been throwing some shade at Toronto homeboy, Drake. While a tweet like “You’re not welcome here” wouldn’t have been my choice to fill 142 characters, I’m impressed that this man has stood strong, as the fans of Meek and Drake pile on under the hashtag #Wedidntwannaknow, a clever dis on the track recently released by Meek, titled Wanna Know.
I’m not going to argue about who fought the better fight here. As far as I’m concerned, we’re all winners. Drake is still beloved by the people of Toronto. Meek Mill gets some free press (even though he was booed by his Toronto fans on July 28th after he showed up late for a gig). Norm Kelly is sifting through the thousands of retweets and finding comments like “I wish this was my dad”. And the city of Toronto gets a little bit of free street cred. What can be better than that?
I am elated that we have a city councillor that is willing to behave this way. Actually, I’m beyond elated. I’m completely beside myself. It’s about time we’re seeing something like this in Toronto. This is exactly how municipal politicians are supposed to behave. They walk the fine line between policy making stuffed shirts to city pride inducing goofballs – and Norm Kelly is a textbook case of how to do it well.
Mel Lastman came close, but he messed up a couple of times with off colour comments like his fear of ‘being boiled in a pot’ which he exclaimed when he was on his way to Africa to support the city’s bid for the 2008 Olympics. Rob Ford had the goofy part down pat, but nobody was laughing with him, and his foray into the underworld of drugs in our city, left many of us not laughing at all.
But this isn’t an article about Toronto politicians. This is about Mary Pickford.
And this is about how I wished we had someone like Norm Kelly back in the 1950s. And maybe the 1960s. And, aw shucks, even the 70s and 80s, to defend this woman, much like the way that he is defending Drake today.
So let’s start with the question that many who have made it this far into my rant may be asking. Who is Mary Pickford?
Well, for the folks who may not have heard that name, and I know there are many, she’s known today as that actress from the silent movie days. But hang on. Dig a little deeper and you’ll see that she was so much more. She is a woman who embodies the term ‘pioneer’ because she has under her belt, a plethora of impressive firsts. She paved the way for women. She paved the way for actors and film makers in general. She helped pave the way for the young and the elderly, and even the poor.
Mary Pickford started making movies in 1909, a time when people were still trying to figure out the medium. She made dozens and dozens of short films - one reelers, as they were called, back when silent movies played in dingy little rooms, with raucous audiences and cigar smoke. It wasn’t a respectable career path when she got into it, but suffice it to say, she changed all that.
The growth of the cinema took its first legitimate steps about 100 years ago when directors like D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille, found their vision, stepping up from the simple comedy and drama skits of the train robber tying the girl to the tracks, and presenting full blown, message-laden epics that lasted sometimes over three hours. Pickford was the favoured actress at the time, mainly because she could act. She had a natural style that played well to the camera. She didn’t don the theatrics that most of her contemporaries did. And while she garnered a reputation for being difficult, she knew what she was doing. Pickford was writing the rules for how to act on film.
Mary Pickford in The New York Hat (1912) with Lionel Barrymore and Lilian Gish.
While movie fans were growing in number, many were writing to the studios asking about that young girl with the curly hair. Photoplay magazine began publishing in 1912. It was sort of the Rolling Stone of the film world in its day. Mary was the first to grace the cover. When her film, Tess of the Storm Country was released in 1915, the marquee read, “Starring America’s Sweetheart”, the tagline that would follow her for life. Through all of this, Mary became the first movie actor to have an image.
During that time, she formed a bond with studio boss, Adolph Zukor. He was known for being a tyrant, and treated his stable of actors like cattle, but Mary would have none of it, going toe to toe with the shrewd businessman, and taking charge of every facet of her career. She commanded a respectable fee for her work, $10,000 per week, as well as profit sharing. She chose her scripts and even chose who she was going to work with. Mary became the first Hollywood diva. She also acquired the rights to her movies and dictated to the studios how and when they would be released. In effect, she became the first Hollywood mogul.
Her peers at the time were the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Lilian Gish and Douglas Fairbanks. She married the latter, and their affair became the stuff of tabloids. Actually, their affair became the stuff that created the tabloids as we know them to be today. Gossip columns were born and fueled by the first Hollywood power couple (think Brad and Angelina, only bigger) who entertained Hollywood elite, as well as royalty from around the world, at their mansion, appropriately titled, Pickfair.
In the 1920s, she was the only woman on the founding board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It was a group designed to keep unions at bay and preserve motion pictures, and all sorts of other stuff, but we know it more today as the collective that created the Oscars. She did this from the seat of of a film company that she co-helmed, United Artists – a turn which made Mary one of the first movie tycoons.
Pickford took her status even further, embarking upon philanthropic projects, such as raising money for the war effort in 1917. She was a key player in the formation of the Hollywood Home for Retired Actors, an organization that exists today, and which is fully funded by actor’s union dues. She extended her hand further, helping out charities that were close to her heart, funding and raising money for hospitals and orphanages across the United States.
Newsreel of Pickford with husband Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin, (1917) selling war bonds.
Pickford was also pretty good as spotting talent. An up and coming animator caught her eye and she took him under her wing. He was Walt Disney, and they collaborated on what would have been the first animated feature film, with Pickford starring alongside Walt’s newly created character, Mickey Mouse. Time and other opportunities got in the way for the two, and so the project never materialized, but the Disney brand was able to prosper as a result of that much needed boost.
As the first superstar to emerge in Hollywood, Pickford paved the path that just about everyone after her would be required to follow. She was the first to rise to fame. She was the first to find major fortune in acting and movies. She was the first to set trends in clothing and hair, and the first to market her look in the form of dolls, trinkets, and other assorted trash. She was the first to be mobbed by fans wherever she went in the world. She was the first have her personal life under a microscope. She was the first to use her fame to bring to light the causes that mattered to her, such as poverty and children. And she was the first to reach that pinnacle, the one that every star must cross as some point, where everything begins to fall away.
By 1929, Pickford had been making movies for over twenty years, and as she was nearing her 40th birthday, she was still playing the young girl with the curly locks. That’s what the fans always wanted to see. And that’s what she gave them. But when sound pictures came into vogue, Mary performed another first. She decided to revamp her image. She cut the hair, sporting a bob that was quite fashionable at the time, and introduced the world to a more sophisticated, grown up woman in three early talkies. The audience rejected her outright. One film of note, Coquette, won her the Oscar, but her founding membership status made it obvious, apparent, or at the very least presumed, that she had been favoured unfairly. Coquette was a clumsy stage piece, and the acting was terrible. So another first for Mary– an Oscar scandal.
Her marriage to Douglas Fairbanks fell apart during this time as well. Their divorce was a huge tabloid sensation. She made off with the house, while he made off with another woman. She married Buddy Rogers, her sometimes co-star, while Fairbanks drank himself into oblivion.
There is no denying that Pickford’s rap sheet is pretty impressive. Whatever you know and love about movies today – she got the ball rolling on it, and therefore it behooves each and every one of us to give this woman the proper respect that she deserves.
Oh, and there’s one other thing about Mary Pickford. She was born in Toronto.
Fast forward to today, and I invite you to take a walk past the Hospital for Sick Children along University Avenue, where you will find, tucked away in a quiet corner near to the street, an unassuming statue, a bust of a woman. On close inspection you will see that it’s Mary Pickford. There exists also a plaque that provides a high-level overview of her career. The location is significant because the house she grew up in was located in that area.
Pickford visits the site of the future Sick Children's Hospital and her former childhood home.
This is where my nose gets a little out of joint. For all that this woman did – a lousy plaque and a bust is all the recognition she gets from the city that raised her. Oh – and what makes this worse – the paltry little plaque didn’t come without first a battle that lasted for decades.
I’ve always been fascinated by Mary Pickford, and am quite proud of the fact that she’s from Toronto. My ancestors lived only a couple of blocks away. I often wonder if their paths ever crossed. Did my great-great grandmother ever buy any of the confections that the Pickford’s sold in the back of a little store on Queen Street? Did Mary ever pass by my great-great grandfather, who worked as a security guard at the Consumer’s Gas building just up the street from her? Maybe my family met her father, who was running the steamship that regularly crossed from Toronto to Lewiston, New York back then – and which was the scene of an accident that led to his death when Mary was a small child.
Pickford didn’t live in Toronto for long. By her 10th birthday, her mother, broke and almost destitute, packed her kids off to New York to try their hands at the big lights of Broadway, when it became apparent that Mary had talent and could woo Toronto audiences in some local theatre productions. It took a few years of struggling, but the gamble certainly paid off.
Mary’s connection to Toronto was never forgotten, at least not by the Toronto media, who often wrote about America’s sweetheart with the tagline, Toronto’s own. Mary was interviewed countless times over the remaining years of her life and at every opportunity she spoke well of her hometown. “I put Toronto around me like a beautiful mantle,” she stated during a 1963 visit. “I feel very safe here.”
The fans were also there for her. There were attempts made to honor her on University Avenue going back as far as the 1940s. A group of Torontonians petitioned for a statue, and a Federal government draftsman named Adelorde L. Trudelle led the charge in city council. His bid was lost in 1951 by a 5-2 vote and transcripts from the session highlight the disdain city councillors had for the idea. “Did Mary Pickford keep her Canadian citizenship?” asked Alderman MacMechan. Alderman Cowling quipped, “Personally I would prefer a statue of Hopalong Cassidy.” Alderman Phillips put it down to brass taxes, citing his nay vote for the fact that the city would ‘no doubt be saddled with maintenance costs.”
The Sick Children’s Hospital even shirked the idea, stating that instead of a marker, she should leave a sizeable donation to their cause.
After Pickford retired from acting in the 1930s, she remained active with her philanthropic duties. Toronto was the beneficiary of some of this love, including the Sick Children’s Hospital. When her childhood home was slated for demolition in the early 40s, she arranged to have it moved to East York, where the finished structure was raffled off to a lucky family in need. The proceeds went to the war effort. And that’s another first. The Hospital for Sick Children can suck it. Pickford was conducting lotteries long before even they were!
Her charities blossomed but over the years Pickford became victim to the pressures of aging, alcoholism and vanity. She became more and more reclusive, and felt that her films were being viewed as ridiculous and laughable by modern film goers. As the one who held the distribution rights, she locked them away for years, with the intention of having them destroyed upon her death. Lilian Gish, her long-time friend and fellow actor, talked her out of this hair-brained idea.
In the early 70s, Stratford, Ontario hosted a retrospective of Pickford’s films, and that brought renewed interest to the star, who by that time was too frail to leave the gates of her Pickfair mansion. This interest reignited the debate about having some sort of memorial to her on University Avenue. This time, the city council voted in favour of it, but there was some apprehension due to the fact that she was still living. (If it were up to me, I would have renamed the whole damn street Mary Pickford Way). And so the plaque was erected in 1973, and her husband, Buddy Rogers, attended in her absence, sending her love to all of her fans in Toronto.
Rogers also made a statement to the effect that the Sick Kids Hospital would be a major benefactor after her death, a story item that was picked up and chewed on by all the local papers. When she did pass away in 1979, there were some groans over the fact that there was nary a mention of it in her last will and testement. Then in 1983, after the Mary Pickford foundation forked over a hearty sum of money, a bust of the actress in her curly haired heyday was erected next to the plaque that sat in front of the hospital.
Pickford recieves the Honorary Oscar in 1976 in her Pickfair home.
I went through Genoa, Italy once, the birth place of Christopher Columbus. He did nothing for that city. He left for Spain, because Queen Isabella was the only person who would finance his wacky plan to travel to India – by going the wrong way. But Genoa goes all out to remind everyone that Columbus belongs to them with streets and statues and buildings named in his honor. I was at a beachside park in Hobart, Tasmania once. It’s named for their favoured son, Errol Flynn. How fitting that it’s a dog park as he made the moves on practically every starlet that passed his way – but he didn’t have much to do with Hobart after he made it big. I even found a garden area in Barbados named for Claudette Colbert – an actress who wasn’t born in that country, but rather retired to it. So I find it frustrating that the city of Toronto could be so remiss over the years as to not honor Mary Pickford the way she deserved to be. California has its fair share of memorial plaques and libraries in her honor, but a simple bust – that people had to fight for – over a period of decades – is unacceptable.
And so I bring it all back to the great Norm Kelly. I don’t ask that, nor expect that he do anything about Mary Pickford. It feels too late now. A star on the Canadian Walk of Fame is currently the only other maker that this city offers up to her. I guess we should be satisfied with that, and the fact that some of the film communities bring her up by way of retrospectives from time to time. (Bell Lightbox had a pretty good exhibit a couple of years back).
I reference Norm Kelly, in effect to say, keep up the good work! Drake is one of the most relevant artists in the world today. He’s a good mix of charming and cool, sort of an anti-Bieber (although Bieber technically isn’t from here anyway). Drake is proving himself to be mutli-dimensional. The boy can act – and he’s funny. (Check out his hosting duties on Saturday Night Live from a couple of years ago.) And most important – this is a man who doesn’t forget where he came from. Toronto features prominently in his music. Toronto is a backdrop to some of his biggest events. I’m not suggesting we erect a Drake statue at this time – but his career trajectory is such that it might be a fitting gesture one of these days. What I’m saying is that Norm Kelly was right to call out Meek Mill, this rapper who most of us have never heard of. Drake is one of our hometown boys who did – and continues to do – good. You mess with him. You mess with us.
I wish city politicians back in Mary Pickford’s day had a little of Norm Kelly’s wisdom. Sadly, we were represented by a bunch of old white men, who were content to live in a city nicknamed Hogtown, who couldn’t see how shining a spotlight on a faded movie star could have brought a little of that spotlight into the city. Adelorde L. Trudelle had that vision. Buddy Rogers wished that his wife’s hometown had that vision. On a visit to Stratford in 1971, he said that the one thing he didn’t like about Canada was that there wasn’t a plaque on the wall of the Sick Kids Hospital.
In preparing for this article I walked by the old statue and took a few pictures. People around who noticed must have thought it odd. I was the only one there. I walk by the memorial quite a bit. I never see anyone else stopping by to visit. Note that when I passed Edith Piaf’s grave in Paris – the line up to get your picture taken was enormous. Of course, the cemetery gave out maps so we all knew where to go. The TV Land statue of Mary Tyler Moore in Minneapolis gets its fair share of tourists. Let's not even talk about the tourist trap that is Graceland. But, alas, Mary Pickford is on her own, under the shadow of an overgrown tree, so that not even the sunlight can get to her, save for when a gust of wind blows the branches to the side. I waited several times for that to happen. I think she deserves to be captured in the right light.
If you’ve read this far, I would say thank you. And leave you with one last request. If you’re in Toronto – take a walk over to University and Elm St – and take your picture with the woman who defined Hollywood. She deserves our respect – even though some from her hometown didn’t always seem to agree.
References
Barnes, A. (1979, May 30). Her Heart Never Really Left Toronto. The Toronto Star, pp. C1.
Unknown. (1951, May 17). Sweetheart Scorned; Bar Pickford Statuette. The Globe & Mail , pp. 9.
Palmer, H. (1963, May 22). At 70, She's Still a Sweetheart. The Toronto Star , pp. 51.
