JACK PICKFORD DEAD

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18874, 18 February 1933, Page 12 (Supplement)

JACK PICKFORD DEAD

In a hospital bed in Paris was enacted the pathetic last phase of a tragedy that closed the oareer of a man whose fame a few years ago was familiar to all film lovers. There, disillusioned and brokenhearted, at the age of 86, died Jack Plckford, brother of the famous film star, Mary Plckford, otherwise Mrs Douglas (Fairbanks. The ollmax to a nervous breakdown was officially declared to be the cause of his death. The tragedy, however, has been attributed to disappointed affection, ending in a vain effort to drown sorrow in dissipation. Jack Plckford, whose real name, like that of his famous sister, is Smith, 'was a native of Toronto, Canada, and began his film career at the age of 12. One day Chauncey Olcott, the Irish ballad singer, who died last year on the 'Riviera .advertised for children to appear in moving pictures, whloh were then in their infancy. A woman presented herself with two children. “That’s no use; I want three children," Olcott told her. “Well, that’s just too bad," remarked the woman, but I have another one at home." She went straight back, and brought her third child. The three children were Jack, Mary, and Lotty Plckford. Jack Plckford’s best-known pictures on the screen include “The Bat," “Brown of Harvard," “Exit Smiling, “All Square," and “Gang War." He had been married three times, and from the shook of the death of his first wife, Olive Thomas, a film

Pathetic Tragedy of Once-famous Film Star.

aotress, at the age of 20, he never recovered. The young couple were on their first visit to Paris, and had just returned to their hotel. It was said that they had a tiff. Shortly afterwards the young aotress rushed out of her room crying that she had taken a disinfectant by mistake. She died in hospital about Following that blow Jaok Plckford plunged into a round of dissipation, with the object apparently of trying to forget. A pleasant-featured young man of the type attractive to women, he could not long resist the opposite sex. After his return to America and to screen work he married,Miss Marilyn Miller, the former film star, now a musical comedy actress. This marriage was dissolved after many disagreements between two people who were temperamentally unsuited. In August, 1930, he. married Miss Mary Mulhorn, formerly of the Ziegfeld Follies. In February of last year she was reported to have filed a suit for divorce in Los Angeles. Gradually Jack Plckford’s hold upon film fame began to wane, until with the coming of the talkies he was little more than a scarcely remembered name. He entered the American Hospital in the middle of October suffering from a nervous breakdown, and for the last three days had been semiconscious. During his Illness he frequently repeated: "I don’t want to live. I have had more out of life than most men