Jack Pickford

Acting

Jack Pickford

Born — Died

1896-08-17 — 1933-01-03

Place of birth

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Known for

Acting

Credits

64 titles

Jack Pickford (born John Charles Smith) was an actor of some popularity in American Silent films. He was Silent screen star Mary Pickford's younger brother.

Known for

American Experience poster
6.5

TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.

American Experience

1988

Hollywood poster
8.4

A 1980 documentary series exploring the establishment and development of the Hollywood studios and its impact on 1920s culture.

Hollywood

1980

Hollywood poster
9.0

Angela comes to Hollywood with only two things: Her dream to become a movie star, and Grandpa. She leaves an Aunt, a brother, Grandma, and her longtime boyfriend back in Centerville. Despite seeing major movie stars around every corner, and knocking on every casting office door in town, at the end of her first day she is still unemployed. To her horror, when she arrives back at their hotel, she finds that Grandpa has been cast in a movie by William DeMille and quickly becomes a star during the ensuing weeks. Her family, worried that Angela and Grandpa are getting into trouble, come to Hollywood to drag them back home. In short order Aunt, Grandma, brother, boyfriend and even the parrot become superstars, but Angela is still unemployed...

Hollywood

1923

The School Teacher and the Waif poster
4.8

Nora, the waif, is forced to attend school. She warms to her teacher for the way that he defends her against the taunts of some of the students, but when she's made to wear a dunce cap, she flees the schoolhouse in shame. Unsupervised by her alcoholic father, Nora becomes a determined truant, wandering the town during school hours. There she catches the attention of a huckster, who convinces her that they will run away and be married. The schoolmaster, meanwhile, preoccupied by Nora's absence, leaves his other students to go find her. He encounters her at a crossroads, being spirited away by the huckster, and calls the man's bluff by saying that he'll find them a minister.

The School Teacher and the Waif

1912

The Informer poster
NR

The young lover leaving home at the opening of the war to join the Confederate Army, tells his brother to take care of his fatherless sweetheart during the perilous times which are to follow. But the brother weakens and fails to be true to his trust. He permits her to believe that her lover is dead. Caught in the neighborhood, however, between the lines of the enemy, the brother appears before them at the crucial moment. In retaliation the false brother turns informer. Both forces are aroused to arms and during the attack upon the girl defending her wounded lover and family alone in the negro's cabin retribution comes in the form of a stray bullet.

The Informer

1912

Sandy poster
NR

A Scots-Irish lad comes to America hoping to find his fortune. On the sea voyage he meets and falls for a lovely young girl, but they are parted on arrival. Years later, in the Kentucky town where he has settled and prospered, he meets the girl again, and both sparks and complications arise.

Sandy

1918

Film credits

1920s · 12 titles

Hollywood poster
9.0

Angela comes to Hollywood with only two things: Her dream to become a movie star, and Grandpa. She leaves an Aunt, a brother, Grandma, and her longtime boyfriend back in Centerville. Despite seeing major movie stars around every corner, and knocking on every casting office door in town, at the end of her first day she is still unemployed. To her horror, when she arrives back at their hotel, she finds that Grandpa has been cast in a movie by William DeMille and quickly becomes a star during the ensuing weeks. Her family, worried that Angela and Grandpa are getting into trouble, come to Hollywood to drag them back home. In short order Aunt, Grandma, brother, boyfriend and even the parrot become superstars, but Angela is still unemployed...

Hollywood

1923

The Bat poster
6.5

A masked criminal who dresses like a giant bat terrorizes the guests at an old house rented by a mystery writer.

The Bat

1926

Exit Smiling poster
7.9

The travails of a third-rate traveling theatre company and its wardrobe lady / maid who dreams of stepping in as their melodramatic production's (Flaming Women) female lead.

Exit Smiling

1926

My Son poster
7.0

A mother and her son's lives are upended by the arrival of a wealthy flapper to their small New England fishing village.

My Son

1925

The Goose Woman poster
6.0

A famous opera singer lost her voice when her son was born, and has drowned her sorrows in drink. When a murder is committed near her house, she invents a story in order to get herself back in front of the public again. However, the story she comes up with results in her son being arrested for the murder.

The Goose Woman

1925

A Double-Dyed Deceiver poster
9.0

Most of the scenes are laid in a parrot-and-monkey country in South America, a land where "it is always after dinner." The Llano Kid, a Texas bad man, flees there from justice. The consul persuades him to play the long-lost son of a Castilian family, and tattoos a coat of arms on the back of the Kid's hand to make the deception complete. The Kid is taken into the household, trusted and loved by the gladdened mother. For the first time he has a home. The romance develops. And when the time comes to rob and flee he has too much manhood to break the loving mother's heart. The surprise comes when it is revealed that the man the Kid killed in Texas was the real son.

A Double-Dyed Deceiver

1920

Just Out of College poster
10.0

In order to win the hand of the girl he loves, Ed Swinger creates a phony business to fool her father.

Just Out of College

1920

Brown of Harvard poster
5.5

Tom Brown shows up at Harvard, confident and a bit arrogant. He becomes a rival of Bob McAndrew, not only in football and rowing crew, but also for the affections of Mary Abbott, a professor's daughter.

Brown of Harvard

1926

Waking Up the Town poster
8.0

Jim Joyce runs a garage with old Abner Hope. When Hope's granddaughter, Mary Ellen, comes to visit, Joyce falls in love with her. Joyce has a number of bizarre inventions and he dreams of harnessing the nearby falls for power, but he can't get any financing from the town banker.

Waking Up the Town

1925

The End of the World poster
8.0

Jack Joyce, who worked in old Abner Hope's garage, was always dreaming of big schemes, but had no capital with which to realize them. Abner Hope, who is regarded as a "queer one," tell Jack that the world will end on September 1st, and gives him his savings to spend during the few remaining weeks. As a result, Jack becomes a king of power, and becomes engaged to Curt Horndyke's daughter, although he loves Mary Ellen, Abner's granddaughter. Then comes the climax - the end of the world - which, with its dénouement, makes one of the most fascinating endings ever screened.

The End of the World

1925

The Man Who Had Everything poster
6.4

Harry Bullway is a careless young man, always after a good time. He nearly runs over a blind beggar with his car, but he shows no remorse. In response to his heartlessness, the beggar curses him, saying, "May you always have everything that you want."

The Man Who Had Everything

1920

No artwork available
NR

Jack Joyce, who worked in old Abner Hope's garage, was always dreaming of big schemes, but had no capital with which to realize them. Abner Hope, who is regarded as a "queer one," tell Jack that the world will end on September 1st, and gives him his savings to spend during the few remaining weeks. As a result Jack becomes a king of power, and becomes engaged to Curt Horndyke's daughter, although he loves Mary Ellen, Abner's granddaughter. Then comes the climax - the end of the world - which, with its dénouement, makes one of the most fascinating endings ever screened.

The End of the World

1925

1910s · 46 titles

The School Teacher and the Waif poster
4.8

Nora, the waif, is forced to attend school. She warms to her teacher for the way that he defends her against the taunts of some of the students, but when she's made to wear a dunce cap, she flees the schoolhouse in shame. Unsupervised by her alcoholic father, Nora becomes a determined truant, wandering the town during school hours. There she catches the attention of a huckster, who convinces her that they will run away and be married. The schoolmaster, meanwhile, preoccupied by Nora's absence, leaves his other students to go find her. He encounters her at a crossroads, being spirited away by the huckster, and calls the man's bluff by saying that he'll find them a minister.

The School Teacher and the Waif

1912

The Informer poster
NR

The young lover leaving home at the opening of the war to join the Confederate Army, tells his brother to take care of his fatherless sweetheart during the perilous times which are to follow. But the brother weakens and fails to be true to his trust. He permits her to believe that her lover is dead. Caught in the neighborhood, however, between the lines of the enemy, the brother appears before them at the crucial moment. In retaliation the false brother turns informer. Both forces are aroused to arms and during the attack upon the girl defending her wounded lover and family alone in the negro's cabin retribution comes in the form of a stray bullet.

The Informer

1912

Sandy poster
NR

A Scots-Irish lad comes to America hoping to find his fortune. On the sea voyage he meets and falls for a lovely young girl, but they are parted on arrival. Years later, in the Kentucky town where he has settled and prospered, he meets the girl again, and both sparks and complications arise.

Sandy

1918

Great Expectations poster
NR

Orphan Pip discovers through lawyer Mr. Jaggers that a mysterious benefactor wishes to ensure that he becomes a gentleman. Reunited with his childhood patron, Miss Havisham, and his first love, the beautiful but emotionally cold Estella, he discovers that the elderly spinster has gone mad from having been left at the altar as a young woman, and has made her charge into a warped, unfeeling heartbreaker.

Great Expectations

1917

The Musketeers of Pig Alley poster
6.1

A man recognizes the thief who had previously robbed him as one of the men involved in an unrelated mob shootout.

The Musketeers of Pig Alley

1912

A Girl of Yesterday poster
NR

A lost film. A girl with old-fashioned values becomes a modern sophisticate.

A Girl of Yesterday

1915

No artwork available
NR

Biff Dugan, the eldest son of a poor family living in a tenement on the squalid East Side of New York, leads a gang of hoodlums, among whose members is his brother Porky. Their sister Jess is a consumptive whose health was ruined in a sweatshop. During a melee in a mission run by reformer Henry Davis, the Dugan gang encounters Billy Drew and his sister Cora, newcomers to the city. Porky saves Cora from the unwelcome attentions of Biff's rival, Spike Golden, and the two fall in love. Later, when Spike is killed in a gang war, Biff is wrongfully convicted of the murder and executed in the electric chair. Porky, who served a short term in prison for his part in the crime, comes back to the city to find that Jess has died and Cora has returned to the country.

The Gangsters of New York

1914

The Girl at Home poster
NR

Jimmie Dexter is on his way to college when his mother discovers that her stocks have stopped paying dividends. Jean Hilton, who has always loved Jimmie, offers to secretly stake him using her own inheritance. So Jimmie goes off to college, none the wiser, and gets tangled up with vampy cabaret singer Diana Parish.

The Girl at Home

1917

Ramona poster
4.9

Ramona, residing on her wealthy Spanish adoptive mother's rancho in California, falls in love with the Indian Alessandro. When Ramona is denied permission to marry Alessandro, the lovers elope, only to find a life of great hardship and unhappiness amidst the greed and injustice of the white landowners.

Ramona

1910

A Feud in the Kentucky Hills poster
4.5

The two brothers and their adopted daughter of the household grew up from childhood together. The girl and the younger brother were childhood sweethearts. His elder brother was considered the bad man and dead shot of the hills. The younger brother has been living in the valley for a long time and returns home to his family. He is now refined, educated, and, of course, a revelation to the little girl, who, though betrothed to the elder brother, is strongly attracted by him. Hence there is a renewal of childhood affection which the elder brother does not take kindly to.

A Feud in the Kentucky Hills

1912

No artwork available
5.0

Liberty Belles, silent comedy film from 1914 starring Dorothy Gish, Jack Pickford, and Gertrude Bambrick.

Liberty Belles

1914

In Wrong poster
6.5

Johnny Spivins adores Milly Fields, but since he's only an errand boy at the local grocery, he can't get her to look his way. Things get even worse when a city boy comes to town and boards at the Fields' home.

In Wrong

1919

What Money Can't Buy poster
10.0

Madison Hale, a wealthy American financier, is bidding against Govrian Texler, the financial advisor to the King Stephen III of Maritizia, for the concession to run a transcontinental railway through the country. After Madison's son, Dick, completes his college education, he decides to visit Maritizia, the birthplace of his great-grandfather. There he meets Princess Irenia and they fall in love, arousing the jealousy of Ferdinand Vaslof, Govrian's nephew, who is also in love with the princess.

What Money Can't Buy

1917

No artwork available
NR

Walton the pharmacist, convicted of selling drugged candy to children, is released from prison through the intercession of political “boss” Lee O'Neil. Unfettered by conscience, Walton opens a disreputable pool hall and hires Tony, an Italian ex-convict, as a pool hustler. The pool hall becomes a meeting place for criminals and naïve young men, including Elmer, a bank messenger, and Bingham, the neglected son of wealthy parents. One night at a cabaret, Bingham and Tony meet O'Neil’s daughter, Hazel. Tony borrows Bingham’s car without permission and takes Hazel for a late-night drive. After Bingham reports the theft to police, a chase ensues, and Hazel is killed when the car is struck by a locomotive. While detectives wait for Tony at the pool room, they thwart a pair of thugs who attempt to rob Elmer. The bank messenger confesses that he learned to gamble at the pool room, prompting the authorities to force Walton out of business. Tony survives the wreck and is taken into custody.

The Making of Crooks

1915

Fanchon, the Cricket poster
7.0

A young wild girl, Fanchon, lives in a forest with her eccentric grandmother who is suspected by the villagers of being a witch. The unkempt Fanchon suffers from her grandmother's sorceress reputation. One day the girl rescues a boy from drowning and they fall in love, but Fanchon won't agree to marry him unless his father asks her. A year later the boy has fallen very ill and it is only the presence of the enchanting Fanchon that helps to restore his health.

Fanchon, the Cricket

1915

David Harum poster
5.6

The story of David Harum, a small-town banker, and how what he does and who he is affects the lives of everyone in his town, whether they--or he--realize it.

David Harum

1915

Wildflower poster
NR

Known as "Wildflower," Letty Roberts meets Arnold Boyd, a wealthy man who is weary of life in the city.

Wildflower

1914

The Chief's Blanket poster
NR

When the Great Chief's body is placed before the funeral pile by his mourning braves, his sacred blanket is covered over it and a sentinel left to watch that this, his last resting place, is not desecrated. The tribe has just departed for their village when a mountain outlaw appears and succeeds in stealing the blanket, having given the sentinel doctored whiskey. When the Indians discover this they exile the unfaithful sentinel until he can recover the blanket.

The Chief's Blanket

1912

His Majesty, Bunker Bean poster
NR

Bashful stenographer Bunker Bean, works for wealthy businessman Jim Breede by day and by night theosophist Prof. Balthasar, who convinces Bean that he is the reincarnation of Napoleon and, more remotely, of the great Egyptian king Ramses. His courage much bolstered by this revelation, Bean begins to deport himself with unaccustomed dignity and becomes a regular visitor to old Breede's estate, where he successfully courts the boss's daughter, "The Flapper."

His Majesty, Bunker Bean

1918

The Oath and the Man poster
4.5

A rich nobleman steals a perfume merchant's wife just prior to the French Revolution, in which the perfumer is a leader of the peasants. His priest made him swear an oath to leave vengeance to God, however.

The Oath and the Man

1910

The Pretty Sister of Jose poster
NR

Pepita, a radiant and merry Spanish beauty, and her playful brother Jose, witness their mother, whose faded beauty led her husband to abandon her for another, plunge a dagger into her breast.

The Pretty Sister of Jose

1915

The Massacre poster
5.9

The story of the massacre of an Indian village, and the ensuing retaliation.

The Massacre

1912

A Dash Through the Clouds poster
4.3

Aviation enthusiast Josephine rescues her suitor, Chubby, from an angry mob with the help of Slim and his airplane.

A Dash Through the Clouds

1912

No artwork available
8.0

In the home of ease and refinement a new life opens to the girl. She no longer is obliged to resist the sordid way of poverty and sin. The woman's indulged son, overcome by his weakness and debt, robs his mother. It is then the girl saves the home from disgrace.

For the Son of the House

1913

Bill Apperson's Boy poster
NR

Jack Pickford got his own production company when his sister Mary signed a huge contract with First National, and this was its first product. the story takes place in the Blue Ridge mountains, where the Appersons and the Yartons have an ongoing feud.

Bill Apperson's Boy

1919

The Spirit of '17 poster
NR

Davy Glidden is the son of the adjutant general in charge of an old soldier's home in a small town near the Top Copper mine. Davy idolizes Capt. Jerico Norton, an aged veteran of the home who entertains the boy with stories of his exploits in the Civil War. When Mrs. Edward and her daughter Flora come to visit Mrs. Glidden, Davy is smitten by Flora but she ignores him. Davy is bursting with patriotism by the stories told to him by the captain and is eager of doing something noble to attract Flora's attention. He finds the opportunity to accomplish both goals when he overhears two German spies, Carl Bender and Frank Schmale, plotting to create havoc in the mine by calling a strike and then dynamiting the mine. Enlisting the aid of his friend Capt. Norton, Davy provides the means for the old soldiers to serve their country once again.

The Spirit of '17

1918

The New York Hat poster
5.6

To fulfill a dying mother's bequest for her daughter, the town pastor purchases the daughter a stylish hat, and gossip spreads through the town.

The New York Hat

1912

Tom Sawyer poster
5.0

Silent version of the Twain tale, filmed in Pleasanton, California. A Missouri boy (Jack Pickford) encounters his first love (Clara Horton) and bucks responsibilities to find adventure with his friend, Huck Finn (Robert Gordon).

Tom Sawyer

1917

The Dummy poster
10.0

The Merediths, in reality much in love, have quarreled and agreed to separate but cannot agree as to the disposition of their little daughter Beryl. All this is opportune for the plans of Spider, a notorious kidnapper and his gang, who plot to steal Beryl while her nurse flirts in the park with one of their pals.

The Dummy

1917

All on Account of the Milk poster
5.3

The hero, a young contractor, is mistaken by the heroine for a laborer, while he thinks she is the maid although she is the daughter of the manor. The hero continues to represent himself as a laborer in order to see the maid. The daughter, in order to continue her impersonation, borrows the maid's clothes. At the end the two main characters are brought together in their true light with the blessing of their respective mothers.

All on Account of the Milk

1910

The Narrow Road poster
4.5

Two men are released from prison after having served their sentences. One is determined to go straight and stay out of trouble, but his fellow ex-con has other ideas, and his plans wind up spelling trouble for both of them.

The Narrow Road

1912

The Varmint poster
NR

John Humperdink Stover, otherwise known as "The Varmint" for his pestiferousness or as "Dink" when in special favor, was expelled from a boarding school and sent to Lawrenceville Academy. On the stage on the way to the school he meets a silent man whom Dink sizes up for a salesman and he proceeds to wax eloquent on the subject of his past career and the reason he was expelled from his previous school.

The Varmint

1917

The Eagle's Mate poster
5.0

A young girl, Anemone, who lives with her Aunt is abducted by a crude family of Virginia mountain moonshiners. A fight between two of the young male relatives decides who will marry the girl. Lancer is the winner and marries Anemone against her will. She is reunited some time later with her Aunt, but when she learns Lancer is in dire trouble she returns and stays by his side, realizing she had always been in love with him.

The Eagle's Mate

1914

Brutality poster
NR

An abusive father and husband attends a play one night and sees that the "villain" in the piece does to his family exactly what he is doing to his own family.

Brutality

1912

No artwork available
2.5

Two eccentric Frenchmen argue for the hand of an eligible American girl, who finally discouraged both of them by introducing her betrothed.

An Affair of Hearts

1910

No artwork available
NR

This ill-tempered gentleman accompanies his wife to the seashore, but being so insanely jealous of her makes the stay there rather unpleasant. First of all, he refuses to go bathing in the surf with her, and she, despite his command not to, goes in alone. Towering with rage at his wile's defiance, he gets himself into several embarrassing positions. In fact he makes a fool of himself generally.

Mr. Grouch at the Seashore

1912

Katchem Kate poster
4.4

Mabel seems to be working ironing dresses in a dress shop when something catches her attention in a newspaper. Apparently, it is an ad on becoming a detective. Mabel goes rushing off to a Detective school run by Fred Ward.

Katchem Kate

1912

Seventeen poster
NR

Seventeen year old William Sylvanus Baxter has fallen madly in love with young coquette, Lola Pratt. After spending all of his money on the fickle girl, she runs off with an older man. William now heartbroken, contemplates suicide, until a friend from childhood, May Parcher, pays a visit and William decides to fall in love with her.

Seventeen

1916

No artwork available
NR

A lost film. Hiram Flint, a young gambler and horseman, loves Madge, the daughter of James Spotwood but she repulses him. He buys a mortgage on the farm of Spotwood. The interest on the mortgage is due to be paid but Owen, Spotwood's son gambles and loses the money at roulette. James Spotwood has given to Owen a thoroughbred and they enter it in a race at the county fair in an effort to get back the money lost. Flint also has a horse entered and drugs the Spotwood rider on the eve of the race.

For Her Brother's Sake

1911

Home, Sweet Home poster
5.0

John Howard Payne leaves home and begins a career in the theater. Despite encouragement from his mother and his sweetheart, Payne begins leading a life of dissolute habits, which soon leads to ruin and misery. In deep despair, he recalls better days, and writes a song that later provides inspiration to several others in their own times of need.

Home, Sweet Home

1914

Home, Sweet Home poster
5.0

John Howard Payne leaves home and begins a career in the theater. Despite encouragement from his mother and his sweetheart, Payne begins leading a life of dissolute habits, which soon leads to ruin and misery. In deep despair, he recalls better days, and writes a song that later provides inspiration to several others in their own times of need.

Home, Sweet Home

1914

No artwork available
NR

In the apartment hotel lived the aspiring maid, whose solicitude maintained order in the bachelor's apartment. He was her ideal, and the all-adoring bell-boy was firmly but gently given to understand that maids who read "Heliotrope Glendening's Advice to Young Ladies" look higher than ice-water toters. A compromising complication, however, with an unexpected visit from a beautiful lady, quite convinces the aspiring one that wealthy young bachelors may be the grandest men ever, but their aspirations, when it comes to the crucial test, are not for chambermaids. Science influences his actions so much that he gets into trouble with the police.

Love in an Apartment Hotel

1913

Jack and Jill poster
NR

Young boxer Jack Ranney agrees to challenge 'Young Kilroy' and knocks him out with his first punch. When he is told that Kilroy is dead, Jack hurriedly heads West and finds a job on a ranch, boasting to all the fellows that he is a killer; unimpressed, they call him a greenhorn. Meanwhile, Jack's sweetheart Mary learns that Kilroy is alive, and she heads West to tell Jack the news, arriving just in time to see him single-handedly save the ranch from a raid by the notorious Lopez Cabrillo and his entire gang.

Jack and Jill

1917

The Ghost House poster
NR

The old Atwell home is said to be haunted, and Jeremy Foster, the gardener--who is actually the head of a band of thieves that use the house for a hideout--does his best to keep the superstition alive. Despite the rumors, impoverished sisters Lois and Alice Atwell decide to move into the empty family home. They take possession the same night that Ted Rawson is ordered to explore the place as an initiation rite by his fraternity.

The Ghost House

1917

Poor Little Peppina poster
5.2

Holding a grudge against Robert Torrens and his wife, who live in Italy, a member of the Mafia kidnaps their infant daughter Lois. Fifteen years later, after having been raised by Italian peasants, Lois, now called Peppina, dresses as a boy and stows away on a ship to America in order to avoid a marriage to a particularly loathsome count. While aboard ship she befriends Hugh Carroll, an assistant district attorney, who arranges first-class transportation for the "boy." In New York, she once again meets her kidnapper, who fled to America after the crime. He forces Peppina to maintain the masculine disguise and to pass counterfeit bills for him, for which she is arrested. Peppina gladly exposes the kidnapper's operation to the authorities, one of whom, Hugh, recognizes her as the "boy" he met on the ship. Then, once the kidnapper has been apprehended, Peppina is reunited with her parents, after which she and Hugh, who has finally discovered that she is female, get married.

Poor Little Peppina

1916

A Pueblo Legend poster
NR

A love story set among Native Americans.

A Pueblo Legend

1912

Series credits

Behind the camera