Mary Pickford in
Through the Back Door

H.C. Miner Litho. Co., New York
Mary Pickford in Through the Back Door
Color lithograph, 1921
Prints & Photographs Division (130.3)

Mary Pickford (1892-1979), born Gladys Marie Smith, was queen of the American screen from 1909 to 1933. Together with D.W. Griffith, Douglas Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin, she established United Artists in 1919, and later, became one of the thirty-six founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her career encompassed approximately 236 films, including Through the Back Door (1921), which was co-directed by her brother, Jack Pickford. Mary Pickford wrote the script for the film, which is remembered for one of the best comic sequences of her career -- a scene in which she plays a Belgian refugee maid who decides to scrub the floor by attaching brushes to her feet.