Nicknamed, “The Girl with the Curls”, silent actress
Mary Pickford had made her living through her spunky, confident persona and
iconic matching long, golden curls. By early 1928, Pickford’s life and career
was still at its peak. She was married to the equally legendary actor Douglas
Fairbanks, just completed what would be her last silent film ‘My Best Girl’
(released October 1927) and had co-founded the Academy of Motion Picture Arts
and Sciences – along with the Academy Awards – only a year before. However, a
few months later in March 1928, her life would take a dramatic twist with the
death of her greatest support and ally, her mother, Charlotte Pickford, from
breast cancer. Mrs Pickford had introduced her daughter to acting and had
advised her during most of her career.
A few months later and still intensely grieving her mother’s
loss, Mary Pickford made what would become a major and controversial decision,
to bob her famous curls. They had been her attraction since her early stage
years and a symbol of her youthful innocence. But Pickford, now aged 36, wanted
desperately to graduate from the child-like roles that had shaped the stardom
of her silent years and move on to the more adult and sophisticated parts that
were on offer as the talkies arrived. Instead of seclusion, Pickford invited a
journalist and had the event filmed and photographed.
Although, Pickford aimed
at receiving some publicity she could not predict what was to follow. On 22
June 1928, it had become front page news. Titles like, “Famous Golden Curls Go”
and “Mary Pickford Cuts Her Hair”, were plastered over the front pages of
almost every major newspaper in America. It had become a national scandal.
Pickford quickly issued interviews and statements
regarding the controversial haircut. “I’ve cut my hair,” she said,
printed in the New York Times 23 June 1928. She continued:
“Oh, I still have them.
They’re all wrapped up ready to be pinned on if I ever need them. They were
such a nuisance, you know, hanging down below my waist. So many women in New
York were wearing long hair, I can’t see why any woman would want it long. It
was a shock to Doug, of course; he almost wept when he saw it cut short. I had
to have it done because I’m not going to be a little girl any more. No slums or
curls in my next picture. I’ve always been a girls’ girl and now I’m going
after the boys.”
Her comments continued the publicity and interest in
her new ‘do’, also being featured on the cover of a 1928 edition of Photoplay
magazine.
But, the big question was yet to be answered. How
would this snip affect the career of an actress who seemed to be created by her
iconic curls? The result was initially mixed, her next film and the first with
Pickford featured, curl-less, in a more adult and sophisticated role was ‘Coquette’
(1929) where she played a flirtatious society girl. It was well received by
audiences and critics and won her an Academy Award for Best Actress. However, after
her initial talkie success, Pickford’s career faded as audiences failed to
respond to her in similar roles. She appeared in three more films before her retirement
from acting in 1933.
Although, Pickford’s career was not reliant on her
hair style and retirement could have been due to many other factors, such as,
her age, the introduction of sound and altering acting styles and the new
female ‘ideal’, it is interesting to note the impact of hair on an actor’s
career. This topic was featured in an
article in ‘Troy Sunday Budget’ published a few years before in 1925. (This was
taken a post on the wonderful Nitrateville website).
"The vogue of bobbed hair gave the employers of
movie stars many worries and in a number of cases caused them heavy financial
loss. Too late they discovered how much a few ill-considered snips of the
hairdresser's shears could impair the value of an actress. In drawing a
contract with a woman star nowadays the length of her hair and the manner of
dressing it are carefully considered.”
"Jobyna Ralston is a member of the Hollywood sisterhood of unshorn tresses. Harold Lloyd, whose leading lady she is, thinks Miss Ralston is of much greater worth to him in his pictures as the modest, demure little miss with long curls, than as the bob-haired flapper type. Consequently in a contract recently signed she agrees to shun the barber's shears.
"On the other hand, Betty Bronson had to agree to cut off the beautiful long hair of which she was so proud before she would be given a contract. Only a boyish bob would do for the role of Peter Pan for which she had been selected by Sir James Barrie."
"Jobyna Ralston is a member of the Hollywood sisterhood of unshorn tresses. Harold Lloyd, whose leading lady she is, thinks Miss Ralston is of much greater worth to him in his pictures as the modest, demure little miss with long curls, than as the bob-haired flapper type. Consequently in a contract recently signed she agrees to shun the barber's shears.
"On the other hand, Betty Bronson had to agree to cut off the beautiful long hair of which she was so proud before she would be given a contract. Only a boyish bob would do for the role of Peter Pan for which she had been selected by Sir James Barrie."
Also,
interestingly, according to the Mary Pickford Foundation, Pickford later wrote
about her decision to cut her famous tresses, “Were the choice
given to me again, I am positive I would not do it.”