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A LETTER FROM JACK PICKFORD ABOUT HIMSELF
Hollywood, Cal,
Dear Friend:
We've just got back from Hannibal, Missouri, where we filmed scenes for my forthcoming Paramount picture, "Tom Sawyer," Hannibal, you know, is the town where Mark Twain, who wrote "Tom Sawyer," lived, and where the characters of the story were real characters. It was there that we took the river scenes where Tom and Huck took up the life of pirates, returning only in time to help celebrate their own funeral services,
I've always been fond of Mark Twain's writings and Tom has long been a favorite of mine— somehow we seemed to have a great deal in common, He performed so many of the very stunts that I remember in my own boyhood. As for "Cousin Mary" in the story, well, she reminds me vividly of my sister Mary— always scrubbing a fellow's ears or tying his tie over,— I guess they're all alike-big sisters or big cousins,
Mary and I were both born in Toronto, Canada, where also we both appeared in the Toronto stock company before we were ten years old. From then on, both of us have worked our way, step by step, through small parts on the stage to larger ones, and from tiny parts in motion pictures to star positions.
We have both played juvenile parts mostly and I especially have almost without exception appeared in the role of a very young boy, I think it is not only because I look rather young, but because I have not forgotten how it felt to be a boy. As the hero of "Seventeen," Booth Tarkington's famous story, no credit is due me for the success of the production, because I was simply living over adventures that I had gone through not many years before. As "The Dummy" I was a raassenger boy admirer of Nick Carter and other great detectives, and I must confess that that role was not difficult for me, either, for to this day I devour detective stories by the volume. "Freckles" is an old favorite of me, and his adventures with "The Angel" and "The Bird Woman" in the Limberlost became mere play. I may mention here that the scenes far "Freckles," which will be remembered as one of Gene Stratton Porter's famous novels, were actually filmed in the famous Limberlost swamp.
In nearly every case we film the story on the location described by the original author and this adds greatly to the joy of the work.
I sincerely hope this letter will answer some of your questions and that some day we may meet each other.
Very cordially yours,
(Signed) JACK PICKFORD.
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