Mary Pickford: Hollywood’s Sweetheart and Her Love for Trees
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
April 8, 1892
Dearest reader,
On this day, we celebrate the birth of Mary Pickford, born Gladys Marie Smith, beloved as America's sweetheart and a shining star of early Hollywood.
But beyond the silver screen, Mary bore a deep love for trees and gardens, a passion captured in images of her and her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, planting a Japanese cedar at their famed Pickfair estate—a moment forever celebrated with the hashtag #ArborDay.
It was Mary who planted the very first Japanese cedar in the Forest of Fame at the California Botanic Garden, rooting her legacy in both culture and nature.
Intriguingly, folklore and even a charming song by Katie Melua tell us that Mary used to eat flowers—roses, in particular—believing they would enhance her beauty. The lyrics muse:
Mary Pickford
Used to eat roses
Thinking they'd make her beautiful,
And they did—one supposes.
Indeed, Mary confessed in her autobiography, Sunshine and Shadow, that as a young girl in Toronto, she would buy a single rose and eat the petals, believing that the flower’s beauty, fragrance, and color would somehow infuse her own being.
What a whimsical and touching gesture, blending innocence with hope!
Mary’s connection to gardens extended to her film work as well.
The 1915 movie Madame Butterfly, in which she starred, was filmed in the enchanting Japanese garden of the Bernardsville, New Jersey, estate called Yademos. This three-and-a-half-acre garden—complete with a lake, tea house, and arched bridge—was a serene backdrop, just nine years old at the time but already imbued with timeless beauty. Yademos is "Someday" spelled backward.
Dear reader, as you stroll through gardens or gaze upon blooming rose petals, consider Mary Pickford's tender rituals.
What secret hopes and dreams might be carried upon the soft color and fragrance of a single flower?
Might we all find a bit of beauty, magic, and healing, petal by petal?
