The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1920-04-17
The Pickford Myth.
[Rutland Herald.l

Commenting on the hasty marriage of
Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks,
following shortly after divorce, leads
the Brattleboro Reformer to say that
inasmuch as the minister read passages
from the Epistle of Paul to the Ephe-
SLAMS he may have had reference to
some of the following extracts from
the fifth chapter, at the 18th verse
and onward:
See then that We walk circumspectlv,
not as fools, but as wise, redeeming
the time, because the days are evil
And be not drunk with wine, where
in is excess; but be filed with the
Spirit Submitting yourselves
90 to another in the fear of God. .
Husbands, love your wives, even as
Christ also loved the church, and gave
himself for it.
Nevertheless let every one of you in
particular so love his wife even as
himself; and the wife see that she rev.
erence her husband.
This is pretty good, old-fashioned
doctrine, although maybe far.fetched
from the Holy Writ to the lives of two
stars of the motion pictures. Yet it
pretty effectually points the passing of
the Pickford myth, natural and beau
tiful myth, by the way, which has been
made to pay millions of dollars in the
nekels and dimes of women and chill
drcn who have ''iust loved Mary Pick
ford
What they really loved, of course,
was the type of character which the
actress has been most successful in
portraying-Pol lyanna, Stella Maris,
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and the
ward of Daddy Longlegs." They in
nocently identified the actress with the
part and were distressed and disillu-
stoned when they read of her marital
infeicities, divorce and recent mar
riage. They did not fit the Pickford
myth.
IL is an old story of the stage-the
pretty myth of the pretty, innocent
child-part embodyng the real charac-
ter of the aetress-but it has been dis
proved just as often as the myth that
actresses who enact the parts of bad
women must have bad strain in theil
makeup.
What artists of all sorts claim i.
that they should be judged by Their
work, not by their personal deeds, bu
it is hard for ordinary people, hunger
ing for the romantic, the ideal and thu
idyllic, to realize that the stalwart
Greek godlike hero is capable of goin,
home and beating his wife and chill
dren, or that the stage vampire may b.
the devoted daughter, caring for al
aged mother or a crippled sister. We
so it is in stage life, often than other
wise.
Showmen claim that the brutalitie
and infidelities of picture hero, Ono
Fairbanks) sworn to in court, pract
cally ruined the drawing powers 0
that stars name, and that the Picl
ford Fairbanks affair will cost both c
them hundreds of thousands of dollar
That is, of course, irrational and j
logical. The work of any star usual
improves, if anything, after period
damaging publicity. In the ''pictul
game" the same dainty Pickford pc
sonality, delicate features, and chill,
like figure ability to simulate angel
loneliness and goodness remain. I'll
Pickford and Fairbanks pictures wi
be just as good a. ever, but, Accord,
TO showmen, the illusion, the myth, h;
been destroyed.
We doubt this little, but certain
the fact that the women and childrt
do in fact refuse to persist in broke
myth argues fairly well for the Who'll
some restraint Of public opinion.
is not that either of the stars nam,
or suggested is definitely known
have violated the standards of prva
life. 1t is simply that the illusion r
passed. The impressionable prblic !
fuses to think Of Pollyanna in a {
voree court.
The salvation of the business, ho'
ever, is the shortness of the pub
memory. In a little while we sh;
forget all about it; then. if the art
in the actor OF actress is genuine, t
merit of their work will be recogniz
and the dimes and nickels win iinl
into the box office as of yore, despi
the private and sentimental vagaries
misfortunes of the performers.
The first woman minister in Fnrla