Timothy Reinhardt's Reviews > Pickford: The Woman Who Made Hollywood

Mary Pickford is a fascinating person. From poverty she rose to be the first movie star and went onto found United Artist with Chaplin and Fairbanks. Unlike other movie figures, she kept her wealth. So I had a keen interest to read about this key individual in early films. Whitfield collects a large quantity of stories about the historical figure. Unfortunately, the book relies on interviews, done long after events, which was distracting for me. An example, "He (Pickford's son Ronnie) was probably only eighteen when he stood at the altar." Probably? Was there a search for a marriage license? It may seem like a small point, but this happened many times throughout the book. I kept feeling that each time the author started to shed light on the mysterious parts of Pickford, I questioned whether the information provided had been carefully vetted. Whitfield also tends to throw in hyperbole, once when describing Griffith's later screenplays as dreadful. After such a statement I would have liked an example of how "dreadful" his writing was. Finally, Whitfield breezed over topics such as Pickford's admiration for figures like Mussolini without much analysis.