Mary Pickfords ambition, passion, innate talent, and savvy business acumen sent her career into the stratosphere and set the blueprint for the modern movie star. Born Gladys Louise Smith in 1892, Pickford was raised in a house on University Avenue in Toronto and began her acting career on the stage. However, her determination led her to the new world of motion pictures, where she not only revolutionized acting method but negotiated her own terms for the highest salary for any actress and complete creative control over her films unheard of behaviour for a woman of that period.

Pickford co-founded United Artists in 1919 with Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin, which turned the existing studio system on its head. The actresss subsequent marriage to Fairbanks incited a fan frenzy comparable to todays obsession with couples like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Although Pickfords star faded with the advent of talking pictures, she was the catalyst for the culture of Hollywood celebrity that enthralls us today.

Peggy Dymond Leavey's ten previous books includeSky Lake Summer,The Deep End Gang, andThe Path Through the Trees, all of which have been nominated for the Silver Birch Award. She has also been shortlisted for the Manitoba Young Readers' Choice award, the Arthur Ellis Award, and the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award. Her most recent book,Growing Up Ivy, was published by Dundurn in 2010.

A retired librarian, Peggy has published stories and articles in newspapers and magazines and was contributing editor on three books of local history. Her interest in the pioneers of early motion pictures began with her research into the movie industry of her hometown, Trenton, Ontario -- Canada's filmmaking capital from 1917-1934. Writing the life of Mary Pickford was a natural progression.

Visit Peggy atwww.peggydymondleavey.com