“Mr. Griffith, I’m a Belasco actress and an artist. I must have ten,” said Mary. According to her account of this meeting, Griffith laughed and agreed.

What happened next was a whirlwind tutelage that quickly developed into a genuine, if often volatile, collaboration. Griffith worked quickly. A film shot in June was released in July, and before the year was out, forty-two films were released in which Mary had a role: more than one a week. Within months Mary had convinced Griffith to use her younger siblings as well. But it was Mary who got all the attention, all the raises, all the important roles, and none of the fame. Biograph actors were never identified by name. Director D.W. Griffith was the star.

In January, 1910 Griffith moved most of his troupe to California to avoid the New York winter. Mary went with them, playing everything from Gibson goddesses to Indian maidens. She also wrote a few scenarios, since Griffith occasionally purchased them for twenty-five dollars apiece.

Mary worked for Griffith for a year and a half. During this time she fell in love with Owen Moore, another Biograph actor. They were married, secretly, in January of 1911. Pickford was eighteen; Moore twenty-three. The secret was kept even from Mary’s mother, who was shocked and dismayed when she found out, months later.

After she had appeared in eighty Biograph shorts, Pickford left the company for Carl Laemmle’s IMP company. Laemmle had previously snatched another anonymous Biograph actress from Griffith, Florence Lawrence, and publicized her name to great effect. Now they offered the same inducement to Pickford: more money and name recognition. Creatively, however, the collaboration was an unhappy one. Thirty-four (now I suppose that should be “thirty-five”) films later, Pickford broke her contract. After an abortive attempt to make one-reelers with her husband as director at the Majestic Company, she ended up back on Griffith’s doorstep.

In rejoining Griffith, Pickford accepted the fact that talented collaborators and a happy work environment were more important than being on your own. Griffith, on the other hand, accepted the fact that Mary was no longer anonymous. The public now knew her name, and her films were very popular. The next year produced some of the greatest results of the Biograph days.

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