3. Mary Pickford
Peak Years: 1910-1928
Best Film: Daddy-Long-Legs (1919) The rare actress that also impacted the business of Hollywood, Mary Pickford was a trailblazer. Co-founding both United Artist (along with Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffiths) and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences showed that women could also play an important role at the studio level. Whereas Greta Garbo and Clara Bow played females in touch with their sexuality, Pickford pictures pictured her as a picture of virtuosity. Pickford became known for her political activism, selling war bonds during WW1, making speeches about the plight of the poor, and being a symbol for American values (even though she was Canadian). In her movies she played the girl next door type who appreciated the values of society yet had a strong spark and fiery temper. In Daddy-Long-Legs she plays an orphan that makes her way up in the world through her pluck and determination, proving that America can be the land of opportunity if you have a wealthy benefactor to pay for your way and you are as clever and pleasant as Mary Pickford. Her films are often laden with this sentimentality but it is a testament to her strength as an actress that you still root for her success. She is the perfect societal girl without any training, she acts the way she is supposed to because that is the way she is. Although she may not be as popular today, and many of her films are sloppy mush, she was the epitome of a "positive role model" female film star in the 1910s and 20s.