Touted as the first female movie mogul, "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford is best remembered for the sticky-sweet Pollyanna image she cultivated in her films of the 1910s and 1920s. The child-like innocence and eternal optimism of her star persona have become somewhat cliche, obscuring the fact that Pickford was one of the most popular international screen icons of her day. Biographer Scott Eyman contends that "she defined her era, roughly 1910-1925, as surely as Marilyn Monroe defined hers."

Born Gladys Smith in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1893, she grew into one of the most powerful figures of early Hollywood. This power was secured in 1919 when she formed the independent studio United Artists with Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith. Her stature was reinforced a year later when she entered into a highly celebrated marriage with Fairbanks. One of the most salient aspects of...