Mary Pickford & Douglas Fairbanks: The First Hollywood Power Couple's Split

What Happened

Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks were the original Hollywood royalty. She was 'America's Sweetheart,' the most powerful woman in early cinema. He was the swashbuckling action star of the silent era. Together they co-founded United Artists studio with Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith in 1919, and their Beverly Hills mansion 'Pickfair' was considered the social center of Hollywood — hosting everyone from Albert Einstein to the King of Siam.

Their marriage in 1920 was itself scandalous: both divorced their previous spouses to be together, and Pickford's Nevada quickie divorce was nearly invalidated by her first husband. For over a decade they were the golden couple, but by the early 1930s, the marriage had deteriorated. Fairbanks was increasingly absent, traveling the world, and was rumored to be having an affair with Lady Sylvia Ashley, a British socialite.

Pickford filed for divorce in 1935, and it was finalized in January 1936. The proceedings were surprisingly civil by later Hollywood standards. Pickford retained Pickfair — the estate that had defined their marriage — while Fairbanks kept his extensive international properties. The division of their United Artists shares was handled through business negotiations rather than in family court.

The Pickford-Fairbanks divorce is historically significant because it established the template for how Hollywood divorces would be covered by the media for the next century. Newspapers ran daily updates, fans took sides, and the studio system scrambled to manage the publicity fallout. Fairbanks died just three years later in 1939, and Pickford never fully recovered from the split, becoming increasingly reclusive at Pickfair until her death in 1979.

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