Now that I've signed the contract with the publisher for my next book, I can share the news. I am writing another biography in Dundurn Press's Quest Biography series. This one, to be released in June 2012, will be about Laura Secord, the only female heroine ever mentioned in the narratives of the War of 1812.

And no, she didn't start the candy company that goes by her name.

Stay tuned!

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For the first time in months I missed posting to this blog last week. Even through the long days of writing Mary Pickford's story, I posted a weekly entry.

But now that summer is here with a vengeance, with extraordinary heat, my energy has disappeared.



We've packed up and moved to the cottage for a few days. It's not a lot cooler out here, but there is usually a breeze to be found on one side of the cottage or the other. And when the temperature becomes unbearable we can refresh ourselves with a dip in the always-refreshing water of Lake Ontario.

There is no Internet access out here and I miss that. But that's no excuse not to work on my research notes or compose a few new blog posts.

Write on! And happy vacationing!

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I have just finished my review of the first copy edit of Mary Pickford, Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart. Because I'm used to writing fiction, I was surprised by how thorough the editing was and how long it took to go over every point the editor made. It was not just a case of reading and accepting his better choice of phrase; there were numerous queries to reply to, points that needed to be clarified. By the time I sent it back, my notes filled seven pages.

Every manuscript can benefit from a professional editing, but in the case of non-fiction it's crucial. There were several spots where what I'd said was unclear. That comes from being so close to the project that you lose your objectivity. I was grateful for the opportunity to make the story a better one.

This was my last chance for any re-writing. The pages go to the design department next. There will be one last chance to review the final copy edit, to make sure we didn't miss any typos, but it will be too late to do any rewriting at that stage. Then it's off to the printer.  

Look for the book in September!

(The photo above is of my lilies last year, minus the red beetles that polished them off this summer!)

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Who was she?

She started life as Gladys Louise Smith. Born to poverty in Victorian Toronto, she made her stage debut in 1900 at the age of eight, determined to provide for her fatherless family.

After years of demoralizing road tours and out of economic necessity, she went to work in the fledgling motion picture business.

In 1920 she married actor Douglas Fairbanks, pictured here with her on their honeymoon voyage. Who was she?

She was Mary Pickford, actor, director, producer, and film executive, one of the founders of United Artists and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the most important woman in the history of motion pictures.

For the full story, look for my upcoming title,  Mary Pickford, Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart, available in bookstores in September or for preordering now by clicking on the link, or by contacting the publisher at www.dundurn.com

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Allan Dwan, born in Toronto, Canada, April 3, 1885 was another contempory of Mary Pickford. "Joseph Aloysious" Dwan moved with his family to the US when he was eleven. He attended the University of Notre Dame, studying engineering. He went to work for a lighting company in Chicago, and it was there that he developed an interest in the brand new motion picture business.

When Essanay Studio (Spoor and Anderson) offered Dwan a chance to come on board as a scriptwriter, he jumped at it. In 1911, he began working in Hollywood. A number of movie companies had relocated to the west coast in order to take advantage of a 360 days of sunshine per year.

Allan Dwan directed both Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in a number of their early pictures. He directed Pickford in A Girl of Yesterday in 1915, the film that made Mary the first actress ever to fly in a plane in a movie.

In 1922, Dwan directed Robin Hood, starring Douglas Fairbanks. In an interview the year before Allan Dwan died, he said of Fairbanks that the actor was athletic, "but not always smart." Once while Dwan was directing, Fairbanks insisted on leaping off a balcony onto a horse. Dwan told him that the idea was insanity. But Fairbanks did the leap -- and ended up in the hospital.

 Dwan admired Douglas Fairbanks Sr. According to the famed director, unlike Faribanks's son Doug Jr., who had a reputation as a ladies' man, Doug Sr. was "devoted to Mary." Well, for a few years anyway.

Allan Dwan died in Los Angeles in 1981, at the age of 96.

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It was Mary's mother, Charlotte, who broached the subject of her eldest daughter applying for work at Biograph, the leading film company in New York in 1909. The Biograph studio was sending two reels of film every day to the exhibitors, and word had it that the company was paying five dollars a day for actors in their movies.

"Would you be very much against applying for work at the Biograph studio, Mary?"

Go into the movies? Mary was incredulous. How demeaning! She was a Belasco actress; the flickers were beneath her dignity.

But a job in moving pictures would mean the four members of the Pickford family could stay together in New York for the summer, and Charlotte wasn't long in pointing that out.

 Charlotte wasn't above a little bribery either. If Mary would agree to try her luck at Biograph, her mother would allow her to wear a pair of silk stockings for the first time. And a pair of high-heeled shoes.

Because she always did as Charlotte told her, Mary swallowed her pride. She dressed in her navy blue serge suit, striped shirtwaist, and a new, rolled brim straw hat, and boarded the streetcar to West 14th Street.

Mary had planned her route to the Biograph studio very carefully, in order to spend only one nickel on the cross-town trolley. Why waste precious money on such a pointless trip, anyway? She would step inside the hated studio, pay the call she'd promised her mother she would, and get out of there as quickly as she could.

The above is an excerpt from my upcoming book, Mary Pickford, Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart.
Look for it in bookstores in September, or preorder now, online.

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Seventeen-year old Mary Pickford believed that nice people didn't go to nickelodeons. In 1909 there were thousands of these makeshift theatres in America, showing the latest rage -- motion pictures -- and they were often housed in converted storefronts, the plate glass windows covered over. Most stage actors like Mary, considered moving pictures, or "the flickers" as they were often called, beneath them.

 Nickelodeons were so called because the price of admission was usually a nickel. For that price, one might see three reels of motion picture film and an illustrated song. Tickets for a Broadway show or vaudeville were expensive, out of reach of most of the working poor. But nickelodeons were affordable.

Often located in downtown neighbourhoods, nickelodeons were potential fire traps, cramped and fetid, the seating a collection of rickety old chairs. A piano player or violinist would be seated at the front next to the screen (usually a white sheet hung up) to provide musical accompaniment to match the action in the silent film.

The stock stage companies of which Mary had been a part and which had provided her and her family with a living, shut down for the summer months because the theatres got too hot. But the voracious appetite for motion pictures created by the nickelodeons meant the film studios were busy year round.

And Mary Pickford was looking for work.

TO BE CONTINUED

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Mack Sennett, founder of Hollywood's Keystone Studio and hailed as the "King of Comedy," was another of Mary Pickford's contemporaries. Like Mary, Sennett was a Canadian. He was born January 17, 1880 in Danville, Quebec, the son of a blacksmith. The family moved to Connecticut when Mack was 17.

Although he originally hoped to become an opera singer, the story goes that it was meeting Marie Dressler, the Canadian-born star of vaudeville, that led him to New York in search of work on the stage. Dressler was appearing in The Lady Slavey in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1898 when Sennett told her he wanted to break into show biz. Marie Dressler wrote a note to David Belasco, famed Broadway producer, on Sennett's behalf.

After appearing in burlesque and vaudeville shows, Mack Sennett apprenticed at the Biograph studio in New York from 1908-1912. This was where he first met Mary Pickford. They were both appearing in the early silent movies directed by D. W. Griffith. Both Sennett and Mary were also writing screen stories and having friendly competitions with each other to sell their work to Griffith.

There's an amusing story in my soon-to-be-released book, Mary Pickford, Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart, about how Mack wanted to put Mary's name on one of his scenarios because he thought Mary's writing was being accepted only on account of her long, blonde hair.


 Mack Sennett became a producer and director himself, founding the Keystone Studio where he became famous for his slapstick comedies, including the zany Keystone Cop series. During his career, Sennett directed most of the well-known comedians of the silent film era. He has to his credit more than 1000 silent movies as well as a number of talkies.  Sennett died in 1960, just before his eightieth birthday.

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I recently came across a Facebook page devoted to the work of Melbourne Spurr, another of Mary Pickford's many photographers. Spurr arrived in Hollywood around 1917 and went to work for noted photographer Fred Hartsook (see my previous blog post). Spurr, who happened to be deaf, took many exquisite portraits of Mary, and his work so impressed her that she helped launch his career. By the 1920s, he had become one of the top celebrity photographers in Hollywood.

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During the course of researching and writing Mary Pickford, Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart, I often came across portraits of Mary that had been taken by Hartsook Studios. I was interested in knowing more about this chain of portrait studios which, in 1921, was the largest photographic business in the world.

Fred Hartsook was born in Indiana in 1876, into a family of photographers and studio owners. Although trained as a civil engineer, Fred became a wandering photographer after he and his wife, also a photographer, arrived in California, about 1906. They travelled the state taking pictures and using a team of oxen to pull Fred's homemade darkroom.

Eventually, Fred opened a photographic studio in Los Angeles and did so well that he was able to expand into other cities along the west coast of the U.S. He became famous for his portraits of celebrities, including many of Hollywood's stars of  the silent films such as Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. 

Hartsook was also able to take up life as a rancher, and he and his wife became resort owners, developing Hartsook Inn on 37 acres of California redwood forest. The inn became a favourite of many Hollywood celebrities, including Bing Crosby and Mary Pickford. Fred died of a heart attack at the age of 54. His widow continued to operate the inn until 1938.

The photograph above is my favourite Hartsook photo of Mary. Let me know if you have favourites of your own.

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I suspect, like any writer, I'd be lost away from home without some writing supplies. I'm never without the pocket-size notebook anyway, the one that comes in handy in my day-to-day routine, to pass the time during long waits or to jot down sudden insights. This is where I record the current trip, hour by hour: the miles we cover, at what time we set out each morning, the stops we make along the way, the weather, the scenery, even the traffic flow. All this is useful for future reference, providing us with the most reliable way of knowing exactly how long it takes us to get to Myrtle Beach, or elsewhere. And it's entertaining to look back at these notes during cold Canadian Marches, if only to remind us of where we were a year ago.

One of my lined yellow scratch pads comes along on the journey too. In fact I used it when drafting this post to my blog. I also pack my regular daily journal into my bag. This is where I'll record any particularly remarkable days we spend, a place or an event that deserves preserving in the best way I know how.

And because I'm usually in the process of writing or editing something, this time the Mary Pickford biography, I take my notes for that along. I also made sure I had the manuscript on a flash drive, in case I heard from my editor.

Because I never want to be caught without some paper and a pen, I make sure my writing supplies go into the suitcase along with the bathing suits and walking shoes.

Happy trails!

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Ever since I began work on my book, Mary Pickford: Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart (Quest Biography), my cousin, who collects vintage postcards, has been on the look out for cards featuring portraits of Mary. The other day I was delighted to receive in the mail a package of several postcards from my cousin.

I never paid much attention to postcards before this, except to enjoy those sent by friends and family visiting far away places, or those I purchased myself to augment my own vacation pictures. But collecting postcards -- buying, selling and trading them -- is right up there with collecting stamps and coins as a popular hobby . I decided I should learn a little more about this fascinating pastime.

The collection and study of  postcards is called deltiology. When the first postcards to use real photos appeared around 1900, many featured portraits of entertainers or family members. For a while, in the "undivided back" era (December 24, 1901 to March 1, 1907), anyone sending a message on the card had to write over the picture on the front. The back was reserved for the address and postage. After March 1, 1907, postcards came with a divided back, allowing space for the message.  That fact could help to narrow down the year a particular postcard was printed.
 
Mary Pickford was just one of a number of early film stars to be pictured on vintage postcards. And now I'm going to pay a little more attention to the postcards I come across.

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Just when I was wondering how much longer this cold, wet spring can last, and if there will ever be any good news, along comes a glowing review of my latest novel, Growing Up Ivy
 Four stars out of four; highly recommended! To read it, click on the following link:


 http://www.umanitoba.ca/outreach/cm/vol17/no32/growingupivy.html

One always hopes someone out there will take the time to submit a review of the book. After all, the publicity department sent out all those lovely, advanced reading copies.

The only thing worse than a bad review, they tell me, is no review at all. That would lead one to think his book fell into the proverbial black hole. Did no one read it??

But a good review in a well-respected journal does wonders for the writer's morale. And it was just what I needed during this less-than-springtime season.

Write on!

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It was interesting to discover, while researching the life and times of Mary Pickford for my upcoming book, several other Canadians who were working in the silent picture industry at about the same time.

One who preceded Mary as "The Biograph Girl" was Hamilton-born Florence Lawrence. Born Florence Annie Bridgwood on June 2, 1886, she was billed for her earliest theatre performances as "Baby Flo, the Child Wonder Whistler."

Six years older than Mary, Florence was already a member of the permanent company at the Biograph studio in New York when seventeen-year-old Mary Pickford arrived, looking for work in the "flickers."

Unfortunately, Florence Lawrence's story has a tragic ending. She was seriously burned in a staged fire that got out of control at another studio in 1915, and as a result, she was in shock for months. Although Florence had already made hundreds of movies, she never fully recovered from the trauma and was never able to regain her previous stature as a star. She took her own life by ingesting ant paste just after Christmas, 1938. 

Look for mention of Florence Lawrence in Mary Pickford: Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart, available in September, 2011.

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As I often do when I am between writing projects, I've been going back through my writing file and re-reading some of my early, unpublished pieces. I'm looking for ideas that might be worth salvaging, but what I'm really finding is one of the reasons why these stories didn't work.

In some cases, they weren't stories at all, but rather little slices of life. In real life, we may accept our fate and do our best to carry on. That's life perhaps, but it's not the stuff of novels. I realize now that there wasn't enough happening in the stories to keep my (the writer's) interest, let alone the reader's. That's probably the reason they were left unfinished.  I made the mistake of letting things happen in the story by way of coincidence or lucky accident.

There wasn't enough tension in these stories either, because I didn't give my character a big enough problem to solve. He needs to have a enough of a stake in the problem that he'll be moved to take action.

So now, it's back to square one. At least I'll have lots to keep me busy till we start the copy edit on Mary Pickford.

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I recently acquired some books that had belonged to a dear writer friend of mine. Among them was The Writer's Chapbook, A Compendium of Fact, Opinion, Wit and Advice from the 20th Century's Preeminent Writers. 

It's the kind of book one picks up from time to time, and reads little tidbits from. Here, from the book, is a rejection letter unlike any one I've ever received. Maybe it's just as well!

"We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish any work of lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret . . ."

It is a rejection from a Chinese economics journal.

Write on!

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I'm in the home stretch now, reading the manuscript from the computer screen, chapter by chapter, aloud, so that I can "hear the story." Above all, I want to make my version of Mary Pickford's biography more than a collection of facts.

As I read, I search out typos, move paragraphs to improve the flow, and delete unnecessary words. You know the gremlins -- adverbs and cliches.

The books bibliography is finish, the illustrations chosen, the index entries ready, but I've been having trouble getting the chronology into two columns. The dates for "Mary and Her Times" have to align with the dates of events in "Canada and the World," including the world of film-making.

I was fortunate on the weekend when I asked for suggestions from my writers' group that one of them, Helen, not only emailed me a table I can use, but also provided me with instructions for how to add to it.

Before this, I was entering information into both columns, only to have it move to the next page and into the wrong column. I was getting nowhere, and the deadline for submitting everything to the publisher was closing in.

That's the thing about writers' groups. Someone is sure to be able to help you out, but better yet, will be willing to share her knowledge. No one is holding his trade secrets close to his chest.

Write on!

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I'd love to be able to call up my friend, Mary, and have her answer some of my lingering questions. Or better yet, drop in on her one afternoon and chat for a while.
After all the reading I've done about her, there are still a number of things I'd like to know -- little details that I've never seen in my research.
If only I weren't thirty-two years too late. It's like the regret we feel after a parent is gone, and we think of all the things we never talked about.

For one thing, how did a little girl, who spent her first eight years living in the Victorian slums in downtown Toronto, learn to horseback ride? When did that happen? And where?

We know she rode horses in her films. But before that, she had spent her childhood riding the rails, barnstorming across the States, appearing in plays in every little town that had a theatre. So, who taught her? When did she find the time to learn?

In her autobiography Mary mentions that she loved to read. As she thought about retiring from show business, spending more time with Buddy, her third husband, pictured with her here, she looked forward to relaxing at home and reading. What, I wonder, did she like to read?

Although she'd had no more than a few months' formal education, and her mother taught the three children while they were doing road tours, Mary always insisted that she'd learned to read from watching the billboards from the windows of the train.

I'm afraid that one question would just lead to another,  if ever I'd had the opportunity to talk to this fascinating woman.

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What a pleasant surprise! The other day I got an email from an old friend at one of the libraries in Prince Edward County where I used to work, congratulating me. Why, I wondered?

Apparently, my upcoming book is listed in the spring 2011 catalogue of books the Library Services Centre is calling Solid Sellers. Not just listed inside, but pictured on the front cover for everyone to see. Needless to say, that "made my day!" I'm hoping that solid seller moniker is prophetic.

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Anyone researching and writing the life of Mary Pickford, as I am, can't help but be struck by the number of FIRSTS she accomplished:

She is called the first star of American cinema,
the First Lady of the movies.
She was the first actress to make $1 million and
the first actor to have her name on a theatre marquee.
Mary was the first female movie star to fly in a plane in a movie,
the first female star to head her own independent movie company, and the first actor to achieve international fame and recognition among millions in the world.
She was truly the world's first Super Star.

So much about Mary's film career is mentioned in SUPERLATIVES:
She was the highest paid woman in the world in her time, making more money than the US president.

 She was the most powerful woman in the history of motion pictures,
the biggest box-office draw in the world, and the most famous woman in the world in her time.

She was the most popular and financially successful woman in screen history.

I hope you'll enjoy meeting her in Mary Pickford: Canada's Silent Siren, America's Sweetheart.

Watch for it in September!

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I keep a little, hardbound book where I save bits of poetry and prose that speak to me. Because today is Valentine's Day, I'd like to share this poem that I clipped some years ago. Unfortunately, I no longer have the author's name to pass on with it. It's not my work, but I'll call it Love Poem

Whiskers in the sink?
Why complain? It would be silly.
They belong to my guy.
Soggy towels on the floor?
I pick them up and say nothing.
Socks and shorts that didn't quite make the hamper?
I quietly put them where they belong.
Crumbs in the bed? Hey, where's my pillow?
Newspapers strewn all over the place
As he sits and watches hockey and baseball on TV.
But what do I care?
I am not alone --
That messy guy belongs to me.
He bought our house.
He loves our kids.
He zips me up and pats my behind.
He keeps me warm and smiles a lot.
He's faithful,
And he loves me.

To My Own, Special, Smiley-Eyed Guy.

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This is the last picture Mary Pickford made with director D.W. Griffith at the Biograph Company in 1912. She was 20 years old. A silent movie, I think it's a clear illustration of Mary's remarkable ability to express emotion without using exaggerated gestures. Her career was just beginning.
Enjoy!

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"I pleased my own generation. That's all that matters." (Mary Pickford.)

I've come to the end of Mary's story. This is proving to be the hardest part of the book for me to write. Mary Pickford's last years were not happy. When the age of silent films ended, and she had trouble adjusting to talkies, she tried to re-invent herself. She did some writing, turning out a couple of books, she spent some time doing radio broadcasts, and she worked tirelessly fundraising for her many charities.

But she was grieving the loss of her youth, and with it her adoring audiences. Her fans weren't interested in seeing "Little Mary" play more mature roles. She tried, but after two unsuccessful pictures, she bowed out.
 
From the first time she'd felt the love of the audience, as a tiny child on the stage at the Princess Theatre in Toronto, she knew it was something she needed. But the public wanted her to keep playing young girls, and that became impossible as the actress grew older.

If she had conquered talkies, and then been allowed to grow old in front of the camera, as her friends Lillian and Dorothy Gish had, things might have been different.

Instead, Mary retreated inside her beloved Pickfair where, starting to show signs of heart disease, she eventually she took to her bed. Her leg muscles atrophied to a point where she could no longer walk. She became a recluse, seeing only a handful of friends and family. And then there was the tragedy of her alcoholism, the old Pickford/Smith family curse.

How to write this part without excusing her excesses. A biographer must tell the truth. Mary was grieving the loss of her youth, her beauty, and the love of her life. Her husband Douglas Fairbanks Sr. had left her for a younger woman. One of her friends described the fifty-year-old Mary as extremely handsome. What woman, whose youthful beauty had been called "dazzling," would later want to be referred to as handsome?

I can't sugar-coat the truth. This is the way Mary's life ended. I am required to tell it as it was. But now I can go forward to record her legacy, all that Mary Pickford meant to the world of motion pictures, and of her philanthropic work, and I can end on a triumphant note.

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