One becomes inured to seeing news about the latest celebrity couple.Women's magazines gush over the romance, ooh and ahh over how beautiful, how much in love, how perfect they are.
Then they're divorced within five years.
Oh, l'amour, l'amour! toujour l'amour
Described as 'the most popular couple the world has ever known', Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford were certainly Brangelina of their day but doing a whole lot more than looking pretty and collecting bairns in the same way other people collect souvenir spoons.
Fairbanks and Pickford were heavily involved behind the scenes of the fledgling film industry as actors and then later as direct/producers and founders of United Artists.
Although married to other people at the time the Pickfairs (okay, bit of a stretch but that is what they named their mansion) started a torrid five year affair and were wed a few scant days after Pickford's divorce to Owen Moore in March 1920.
From their they began a 16 year love affair with the movie going public as cinematic royalty but the seeds of the end were sown just nine years into the marriage. This from IMDB:
Douglas Fairbanks' and Mary Pickford's marriage had deteriorated so badly by the time they made this film that many onlookers said that Fairbanks exaggerated Petruchio's harsh treatment towards Katharina in order to take out his own frustrations on Pickford.Oh dear.
Hhmmmm, reminds me of another Shrew-playing couple... now, what were they called?
BurTaylor??
Elizaburton???
Never mind. Just watch Fairbanks buckle his swash in the 1922 version of Robin Hood:
1 comment:
But Mary Pickford then married Charles "Buddy" Rogers and stayed married for 42 years. While I was in college a friend got me a summer job at the Los Angeles Country Club where Mr. Rogers was a member. When he found out I was studying Roman History he always made a point to bring one of his Roman or Alexandrian coins from home to test my knowledge of the iconography. A gentleman and so-so golfer.
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