San Antonio Sunday Light (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 46, No. 69, Ed. 1 Sunday, March 28, 1926 Page: 67 of 92
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WoMitLetMaryPiM^ th B ■ ‘
—I - ‘
Like a Fairy Godmother the Great Movie Star Offered
Wealth and a Home Like a Royal Palace—
Photograph of Mary Pickford
Holding Baby Mary in Her Arms
in a Situation in Her Movie Play.
•
I wnnfkc arm T nuL.^
SIX months ago Mary Louise Miller
was just a poor little year-and-a-half-
old daughter of a tailor creeping
around the cold concrete floor of his
humble shop in Hollywood.
To-day Mary Pickford waits with open
arms to adopt the little tot as her very
own daughter lift her out of poverty for-
ever to the delightful mansion of Pick-
fair and give her the education and
clothes and thrills and everything that
millions and fame can give.
This is at least as extraordinary a piece
of luck as Cinderella’s fairy godmother
and sounds too good to be true. It is too
good to be true. Her father the tailor
astonished everyone by saying no and go-
ing on with his trouser-pressing and con-
demning his daughter to remain a poor
little poor girl.
Mary Louise is perfectly happy. She
hasn’t the least idea what it meant when
papa told the good fairy to go away. Any-
thing daddy does is all right now but
when she grows old enough to understand
and want all the nice expensive things
she might have had what is she going to
say?
This fairy story which Edward Miller
Hollywood tailor won’t allow to come
true started as a plain business proposi-
tion. Mary Pickford was ready to start
making her new picture which is the
story of one of those baby farms where
mothers who don’t want to be bothered
leave their children. This called for quite
a number of youngsters of various ages
and Miss Pickford examined more than
200 of the best kid actors on the coast
but none quite suited her for the principal
baby role. The casting director became
desperate and started a house to house
hunt through the streets of Hollywood.
It was then that a tired looking man
darkened the door of Miller’s tailor shop
and looked eagerly at the tot crawling
around on the dusty floor while her father
played steam-roller to Hollywood trousers.
The Miller residence was and still is a
30-foot room divided by a flimsy fibre
board partition with the shop in front
and the only home Mary Louise has ever
known in the back. The stranger said
that he was Miss' Pickford’s casting direc-
tor and that they were having an awful
time finding just the right kid for her new
But the Poor Hollywood Tailor
and His Wife Shook
Their Heads a
Family Group of Mother and Father and
Mary Louise Miller Around Papa Miller’s
Pressing Machine in His Hollywood
Tailor Shop.
picture. There would be $lOO a week
in it if this baby would do.
As this was equal to the gross profit of
400 pairs of pressed and sponged pants
Mr. and Mrs. and Baby Miller put on
their best clothes hung up the usual
“Back in Five Minutes’’ sign and were
driven out to the great estate of Pickfair
in the studio automobile. Mary Pickford
decided very quickly that Mary Miller
was what she wanted and a contract was
signed with the parents. This did not
necessarily mean much because you never
can tell; a child may be as reasonable as
the average grown actor or it may be
worse than a prima donna or trained
animal.
There were other babies in that picture
all rented like this one from their par-
ents just as an aeroplane or a tame mon-
key would be. To Miss Pickford and her
directors these were just a set of difficult
little actors to be made to do their w’ork
within a reasonable time. But the tailor’s
child was different. From the very be-
ginning she started to make love to the
star and every day did sorfiething to get
closer to the heart of the woman who has
everything else in the world but a baby
of her own. Mary Pickford was being
vamped and everyone could see it.
Mary Louise learned to call Miss Pick-
ford “Mui Moll” which was as close as
the baby tongue could get to “Mother
Moll” the name of the star’s character in
the picture. There were everlasting
troubles with the other kids—mumps
measles erysipelas adenoids whooping-
cough and cat-scratches. One child took
this occasion to shed most of her front
teeth and Hollywood dentists had to work
all night making false ones. These hasty
make-shifts kept coming out at critical
ntoments and caused “retakes.”
No such annoy-
ances came from
little Mary who
was the star of all
the babies. She
always did as she
was told and never
cried. Miss Pick-
ford says that she
and the baby once
fell into a puddle of muddy ice water and
that she felt like crying herself but was
ashamed because th^baby didn’t.
It is no wonder that as the end of the
work approached Miss Pickford began to
have a heartache at the prospect of not
seeing this dear little bit of affectionate
humanity every day and wondered what
to do about it. At this time everyone
thought they could feel the hand of Provi-
dence working a miracle for this baby.
One day the father came to call for his
child at the usual hour but he was white
and trembling from an automobile acci-
dent from which'he escaped almost mirac-
ulously. While he was telling Miss Pick-
ford how close to death he had been it
occurred to him to ask:
“If anything happened to me would you
kind of keep an eye on little Mary?”
Miss Pickford replied:
“If you had been killed I would have
adopted Mary’ Louise and given her every-
thing that a daughter of my own would
have gotten. Tn fact I would like to do it
anyway if you will let me.”
The father looked a little startled at
this offer and stammered that it was nice
to know that and he would talk it over
with the wife. The matter was still under
discussion when the picture was done
and for some time afterward.
When the news spread around the
neighborhood that Mary Pickford was go-
ing to adopt the tailor’s child nobody
doubted for a moment that the parents
would agree. Girls old enough to under-
(C) IMI. by American Weekly Inc
View of the Hilltop
Home of Mary Pick-
ford and Douglas
Fairbanks Showing
the-Broad Verandas
and Lawn Which ■
Would Have Been the ’
Playground of the
Tailor’s Little
Child.
B
y — ******""''' ■ j
Little Mary Louise Miller Playing
in the Backyard Behind Her
Father’s Tailor Shop.
after all Mary’ Louise was not the only
pretty and affectionate baby in the world.
But when the final answer came the day
Miss Pickford was leaving for New York
recently it was no.
Little Mary was brought down to the
station and for the first time cried when
“Mu' Moll" left. It was not that she
realized that they were parting forever
but because she thought the big noisy
train was going to hurt her friend.
The Millers say that Miss Pickford
toward the end of the negotiations of-
fered them fabulous sums to part with
their baby but the actress denies that
any substantial amount was thought of.
The argument of the parents is this:
“We waited twelve years for this baby •
and we may’ never get another one. God
meant us to have her and keep her not
anyone else. Miss Pickford can give her
money education and lots of other things
that we can’t but those things are not
everything in the world. No amount of
money can take the place of a parent’s
love.
“Mary Louise can take care of herself
anyway. She earned a hundred dollars
a week but that picture will make her
famous and she can get double that—-
maybe more. Why some day she may be
a Mary Pickford herself.”
But the Millers’ friends and neighbors
do not all take that point of view. They
can see what a sacrifice it would be to
give up an only child but the loss would
e. Cre*t Britain RigbU Res-r.M.
r
Mary Pickford Feeding Little Mary Louise Miller Her Noonday Bottle
During the Resting Period at the Hollywood Studio.
stand came and
looked enviously
at the child of for-
tune. They dis-
cussed the big
rooms she would
live in and the
number of nurses
and servants who
would wait upon
her the wonderful
things she would
have to eat. and
best of all the
glorious clothes
she would wear
and the wonder-
ful young men
who would want to
marry her. Even
the boys were in-
terested in this
miracle and would
like to have taken
the place of Mary
Louise.
The Millers
were advised to
hurry up and say
yes before Miss
Pickford had time
to change her
mind. homnsA
be the parents’ not the child’s. As one
of them said: *
“If they think they are turning that
offer down for the baby’s good they arc
just kidding themselves that’s all. They’ll
come a time when they won’t be able to*
kid her and then they’ll all be sorry and
it will be too late.
“That youngster’ may be a future Mary
Pickford and so may that red-headed boy
of mine be a President of the U. S. A.
In fact his mother thinks so but I would
hate to bet on either kid. There is one
safe bet that she is going to want all those
things that Mary and Doug are just itch-
ing to give her and I’m glad it isn’t my
job to try and tell her why she is so much
better off without them.”
Edward Miller the father was a muscu-
lar and much-tattooed English sailor who
might have spent his life on British ships
if he hadn’t gone ashore at San Francisco
and fallen in love with a native daughter.
She was willing to put up with his Eng-
lish accent but she refused to marry a
sailor who would be away from home so
much. So Miller had to give up the “bally
ocean” and be a “blawsted tailor.”
Somebody told him that on account of
the great number of actors with large
wardrobes the > were more pants per
capita in Hollywood than in any other
place in the world. The Millers moved
there to press them. For twelve years
th couple wanted a baby and two years
ago Mary Louise arrived. The stork was
a long time getting there but he made up
for it by delivering a prize. There is no
dispute that the girl is not only pretty but
unusually obedient intelligent and sweet
tempered not the kind any parent would
enjoy giving up.
No word of criticism comes from the
good fairy herself. Miss Pickford says
that she not only did not try to buy the
little one but would never adopt any child
unless she were sure the parents wished it
ahd would never have heartaches about it
afterward.
Mary Pickford’s sensitiveness about
adopting a child comes from the fact
known to very few that she came within
an ace of being adopted herself. When
Mary was only six years old she lived in
Canada and wasn’t Mary Pickford but
just Gladys Smith. Her father dijd sud-
denly.
A widow without means Mary’s mother
did not think she would be able to give
her daughter a proper bringing up and
for a time was deeply worried. Their
doctor also a Smith was the most famous
baby doctor of Canada. He and Mary
had always had a great fondness for each
other and he solved the. mother’s problem
by offering to adopt the child. Mary’s
mother agreed and it only remained to see
if Mary liked it.
She remembers that scene to this day.
Mother and daughter went to the big
house and sat in the drawing room with
the sun shining through beautiful orange
curtains. Little Mary asked where the
doctor ate and was amazed when they
1 showed her another big handsome room
just for eating. In that room later she
enjoyed a delicious dinner of chicken ami
two kinds of ice cream. The kindly doctor
that she liked so well asked if she would
like to have a dog for her very own like
his dog. Mary thought this would be nice
but a pony might be even better. The
doctor said she could have that too. Lots
of other things were discussed all just as
delightful.
Then she was asked if she would like to
live with the doctor. She thought she
would love it with the ponies dogs ice
cream and all that. Then came Die first
shadow of thought that there might be a
a price to all this happiness and she asked:
“Will you have all these things too
Mother?”
“No; but I don’t want them.”
“Well you can have my things.”
“But dear I won’t be here.”
That settled it. Mary would not con-
sider adoption or anything else unless
Mother was to be there too. So Mary
was not adopted and lost a beautiful home
and went without many comforts and luxu-
ries but if she had had them perhaps she
would still be Gladys Smith or Mrs. Jones
instead of Mary Pickford. The difference
b< tween the two refusals is that in one
case it is the parents and in the other the
child itself who makes the decision.
Miss Pickford sympathizes with the par-
ents for holding onto thgir own. She says:
“It is welcome news in these days of
parental indifference to find some parents
that really care. If they care that much
they probably care enough to be real par-
ents to her. So I guess it is all right.
Mary Louise and I are going to see lots
more of each other when I get back.”
Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Fairbanks are
planning to build a new home and at one
time Mary must have thought she was
really going to get the youngster because
in the blue prints there is a huge nursery.
She may build it anyway because adop-
tion is a fixed idea with her and sooner or
later some little tot whose parents are
either gone or glad to help their child to
such good fortune will be found.
Strangely enough the result of not
being adopted will be that Mary’ Louis/s
parents will make every effort to keep her
in the moving picture life. She will con-
tinue as a child actress until hopelessly too
big and then will come the real test. If
she has the beauty and the talents she will
then really start in on the road to being
another Mary Pickford. Had she been
adopted she would probably have slipped
out of that life forever for Miss Pickford
had quite different plans forthat little one.
Like most successful persons she thinks
that there are easier ways to success than
the oath she climbed to the heights.
3
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San Antonio Sunday Light (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 46, No. 69, Ed. 1 Sunday, March 28, 1926, newspaper, March 28, 1926; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1631548/m1/67/: accessed June 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .