In the film Stella Maris I played two young girls. I was the crippled rich girl Stella, who knew nothing of death, poverty, sickness, or war, nothing of man’s inhumanity to man; who lived in a tower overlooking the sea and whose only friends were the sea gulls. And Unity Blake, who knew all the black things that were kept from Stella, yet could still laugh. I figured that Unity Blake would probably have one shoulder dropped and one hip high from having carried younger children on the other hip in her formative years. That was the way I walked as Unity. […] As Unity, I also plastered my hair with Vaseline to take out the curls and make it look dark and scraggly in contrast to Stella’s curls. I can never forget the moment when Unity, in love with the same man as Stella, stares at herself forlornly in the mirror. […] Adolph Zukor, who was in Hollywood at the time, came in to see me one day when I was dressed as Unity. The look of dismay on the poor man’s face was something to see. I had to pacify him by assuring him that I died very early in the picture. «The sooner the better!» said Mr. Zukor.

Mary Pickford, Sunshine and Shadows, London/Melbourne/Toronto, William Heinemann, 1956