When the great moment to which she had so long and so eagerly looked forward finally did come, the scenario-writer of Mary Pickford’s own life displayed a dramatic deftness of touch.
One day Mr. Zukor asked Miss Pickford if she would go out to dinner with him that evening. She agreed, and he appointed the Hotel Breslin on Broadway for their meeting. When they sat down at their table it was still light. At last when dusk began to fall Mr. Zukor rose and went over to the window.
“Come over here,” he called to the girl. “I want you to see something.”
Wonderingly she followed him. She looked out at the street where the swift Winter darkness was dimming the familiar outlines, and then she looked back to his face.
“What is it?” said she. “I don’t see anything.”
“Wait,” he commanded.
As he spoke the lights of many windows began to brush like golden flakes against the blurred buildings. And then across the street at Proctor’s there suddenly leaped in letters of frosty fire these words:
MARY PICKFORD
in
“Hearts Adrift”
She had never suspected that she was to be starred in this play. And it is not surprising that at the revelation of her success she burst into tears such as have moved her audiences all over the world.
“Can it really, really be true?”—this might have been the subtitle of that big scene in the drama of Mary Pickford’s life.