The Top Pick of Them All

Although I cancelled my many-decades subscription to the Los Angeles Times after one too-many unacceptable abuses by its current owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, I'm still on their mailing list.  And today, I received the following email that told an absolutely fascinating story.  (I've left in the hyperlinks for those who might still have a subscription.)  It read -- 

"Mostly forgotten today, Mary Pickford was once the world’s most famous actress, and perhaps its most famous woman. But by the time The Los Angeles Times sent a plucky young intern to ring the doorbell at Pickford’s Beverly Hills home in 1974, the silent movie star and co-founder of United Artists was 80 years old and had been living in a self-imposed seclusion for more than a decade. 

"The resulting encounter — recounted with poise and humor by the intern, Joan Zyda, who was just 21 at the time — is a ghostly, charming classic. The setting is the Xanadu-like mansion, Pickfair, where Pickford and her first husband, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., reigned over lavish dinner parties with celebrities of the day, including U.S. presidents, Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Amelia Earhart. 

"On that day in 1974, however, Pickford could not be coaxed downstairs from her bedroom to meet with Zyda, forcing her doting, gracious third husband Buddy Rogers to instead give the reporter an old-fashioned rotary dial phone on which she could interview Pickford from a downstairs sitting room. 

"Pickford — unseen by Zyda throughout the entire meeting — nonetheless proves a surprisingly sparkling, if enigmatic, interviewee, offering her views on cinema; her pioneering career as a Hollywood businesswoman who retained an unusual degree of control over her career; of the current crop of male stars (“none since Gable” impressed her, she said); and even of Watergate. 

"Two years after the piece was published, Pickford did appear again in public, when she consented to be filmed at her home for a pre-recorded acceptance of an honorary Oscar, a bookend to go with her first Oscar, awarded in 1929. She died in 1979. 

"This classic story is being republished as part of 'L.A. Timeless,' a selection of great reads from the Los Angeles Times’ 143-year archive."

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In hopes that perhaps some articles they send emails about would be available to the non-subscribing public, I checked out the link.  But unfortunately, no, it was blocked and for subscribers only.  I was able, however, to get the very opening -- which, brief though it was, was movingly touching on its own.

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                                                 By JOAN ZYDA
                                               Times Staff Writer 
                                                 March 3, 1974

​“Just let me go tell her you’re here.”

Former Matinee idol Buddy Rogers bounded by the winding staircase to the third floor of his Beverly Hills mansion and called to his wife of 37 years: “Mary, darling. You have a visitor, pet.”

There were murmurs upstairs. Then Rogers walked slowly down the white steps to his visitor beneath the portrait of Mary Pickford in the spacious living room.

He shrugged and shook his head. “Mrs. Rogers would like to see you, darling, but she’s in the shower, dear.”

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The good news is that the video referenced in the email -- of when the Motion Picture Academy presented Mary Pickford with an honorary Oscar in 1976, for which she agreed to appear in public in a pre-recorded film for that year's Oscar ceremony -- is available online.  And what a lovely, moving tribute it is.  Lovingly done and presented for the broadcast -- down to the last moment of the clip, cutting back to the audience.  Honoring not just a Hollywood legend of massive work onscreen, but also a businesswoman who helped change the movie industry as a partner in the creation of United Artists studio.  And as the camera winds its way through her renowned estate of Pickfair, it honors, as well, a bygone era of Hollywood. 

In some ways, as the video progresses, it's hard not to think of Billy Wilder's classic movie, Sunset Boulevard.  But not for its dark cynicism, rather for the sweetness that age of movies brought to the country and world.  Though clearly frail, her words and appearance give grace to it all.