Gentlemen, Mary Pickford Doesn't Need Your Advice

In 1912, Mary Pickford, age 20, was working at Biograph Studios. D.W. Griffith was casting a short movie called The Sands of Dee.
Pickford wanted the lead and, since "abundant hair was a requisite," she thought she had a pretty good shot.

But, as she tells it in her 1955 autobiography Sunshine and Shadow, recently Griffith had also asked Pickford to wear…