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EXCLUSIVE: Is a fight over the right to use the name and work and trademark of America’s Sweetheart heading to court? An announcement posted April 2nd by the 10-year-old Mary Pickford Institute of Film Education claims its yearly funding of $500,000 was “yanked by its long time 
supporter the Mary Pickford Foundation”. Now a petition protesting the move has made the matter very public. And both sides have lawyers in place: Terry Mazura of the Mazura Law Firm in Santa Ana representing the Foundation and Jennifer Hughes of Hughes Media Law in Beverly Hills representing the Institute. Established by the silent film star in 1958, the Foundation created the Institute as an independent non-profit in 2002. The Foundation says it put over $4.2 million into the Institute over the years. But the relationship ended on March 1st when their latest five-year contract expired. “There was nothing sudden about this. I’d been telling them since September 2011 we were going in a new direction,” Pickford Foundation chair Henry Stotsenberg tells Deadline. “I wish them well but they never became self-sufficient.”
Here’s the problem: the Foundation contends it owns the trademark to the late United Artists co-founder’s name and work. The Institute says it owns the domain name and the right to use the silent film star’s name, image and films in its youth filmmaking programs and fundraising. The domain name is registered to Timeline Films, whose offices are the same as the Institute’s.
Pickford Institute Director Andi Hicks tells Deadline that, on February 8th, a Foundation attorney offered them $150,000 to effectively terminate the relationship. In exchange “for paying off any outstanding obligations the Institute had”, Hicks says the Foundation wanted them to give up its Mary Pickford domain name and any use of the legend’s name and to reclaim some personal memorabilia that was donated over the years. Stotsenberg contends the offer was a “goodwill gesture” intended to ease the Institute’s debts and “to help them get started on their own. Then they hired a lawyer and demanded we give them even more than the half a million a year we had been giving them already.” Contact ceased in February.
Pickford died at age 87 in 1979 and was recently named 24th among the greatest female motion picture stars of all time by the American Film Institute. The co-founder of the film studio United Artists also was one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Deadline's Dominic Patten - tip him here.
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A local effort was made last week to save Mary Pickford’s original office at the old United Artists lot on Santa Monica. Hers was the first structure bulldozed. The UA lot was where Charlie Chaplin, Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks set up shop for those who really care about film. Not a good week for Mary’s legacy.
It is always sad to see rich bullies, lawyers and accountants prevail over hard working, underpaid teachers and artists. Sadly, it would appear that now, more than ever, this is the American way. It is especially heart breaking to watch the lowest of Los Angeles life forms, the very parasites that pray on the hard earned legacies of great artists and educators, drag Mary Pickford’s name into the moral and cultural sewer of Santa Ana, California. It would apoear that the MPF’s all male Board of Directors has little or no regard for the values and principles that Mary Pickford intended her legacy to support, which has now tragically fallen into their seemingly unworthy hands. They seem to have no qualms about stamping their big, pedicured feet all over a little educational non-profit, and now – ludicrously – nominate themselves for sainthood. The Mary Pickford Foundation Board of Directors appears to have squandered, legally or otherwise, millions of dollars since Mary Pickford’s death, possibly to line their own already well-stuffed pockets, possibly not. If the proverbial fat cats have served various random charities along the way, the educational and film making aspects do not appear – by their own admission – to have ever been very high on their list of priorities, least of all now. Having myself worked with the Institute for a few years, and seen their educational outreach to thousands of public school students, I can say with confidence that the Institute’s work in film education surpasses almost anything currently on offer to K-12 students in California. Their Mobile Film Classroom, in particular, and the film making programs for inner city and at risk youth, were painfully underfunded by the Foundation, even at the best of times. But the Mary Pickford Institute’s small, dedicated and expert staff were fortunately recognized and supported by multiple industry and grant-awarding organizations. For this reason, I believe the Institute will survive all the self-serving bullies who are currently diverting the Pickford millions to their own personal projects, and cruelly depriving the neediest of California students of the Institute’s exceptional opportunities. May Mary Pickford rise again, and exact a bitter-sweet revenge on the Foundation that has dragged her glorious name into the very gutter of overfed, low-level Hollywood accountants and lawyers that the silent movie star would have surely regarded with the utmost contempt. Long live the Mary Pickford Institute!
and the Oscar goes to………
this just may be the best rant I have ever read, but in a Stephen Colbert kind of way. The “random charities” line had me laughing out loud. And the crazy accusations of embezelment but at the end of the sentence he writes “possibly not”. I’m going to be disapointed if this does not go viral. That being said I hope MPI stays funded, sounds like they do a lot of great things.
1958>2002
The Mary Pickford foundation was started by the actress herself. So they should win. Is it some constitutional right that the MPI get funded by the MPF when it’s a totally separate organization? Nope. It seems nice of the foundation to try to buy the assets of the Institute.
It’s good for DH to bring attention to this issue but I wish they had done a little more research before publishing so they could have presented a more balanced picture. The Pickford Foundation claims a broad base rights to the use of Mary Pickford’s name and likeness, but on a Google search only one trademark appears to be registered, regarding pre recorded video cassettes. Another search of their 990-PF (all this is public record and fairly easy to find), shows their assets to be around $15 million. They are required by law to donate 5% annually, so to donate around $400,000 a year for 10 years to an organization they created, whose main mission is to outreach on the behalf of promoting and preserving Mary Pickford’s legacy (since as a private foundation they can only grant money but not do programs directly themselves), does not seem unreasonable since it is under half of what they donate annually. A closer look at their 990-PF shows that the three (male) foundation board members compensated themselves annually at the rate of $60,000 for 12/hrs a week of work, totaling $180,000 in board compensation annually. Where it seems to get murky is when you look at both the MPF records and the Mary Pickford Institute’s website and see that the former Institute CEO was also on the Pickford Foundation board and collected compensation from both positions simultaneously. While Foundation certainly have the right to change their mind about funding, one might wonder about the timing in this particular case. Apparently the CEO of the Institute (and MPF board member), resigned in late spring/early summer of 2011 and just a few months later, as Mr. Stotensberg states, “I’d been telling them since September 2011 we were going in a new direction.” The Pickford Foundation appears to have decided they no longer needed the Institute. Again, probably not a problem if funding was the only issue, but not only did the Pickford Foundation seem to discount all the excellent outreach the Institute had made over the years, it wanted to strip the organization of its name and website. Why? I’m familiar with the work the Institute has done, particularly with their Mobile Film Classroom. ( I especially love their work with elementary age students teaching them to make silent films on topics like bullying and their work with at risk teen girls at Aviva Center.) I’ve understood that the foundation stopped funding the Mobile Film Classroom in 2009, so that program has been mostly self sustaining. I’m not sure that an organization created by The Mary Pickford Foundation to actively promote and educate about the legacy of its namesake founder could attract a large number of outside funders for that mission when there is a Foundation that has $15 million dollars. My last question is what is the Foundation going to do now to promote Mary’s legacy? How are they going to spend her money? And why are there no women on their board or even any one in the film industry. I urge those who care about Mary Pickford’s legacy to ask these questions and also to learn more about the programs the Mary Pickford Institute has been doing since 2002.
the more mud MPI and there friends sling the more mud gets on them too. Looks like everybody is a pig in this.
Daniel forgot to mention the fact that he was on the board of MPI in 2011, and I’m also guessing Daniel is male. Class act.
Half mil a year and not much to show for that large amount but salaries.
Eveyone fighting for Marys money.
Get ride of the whole lot. Foundation and MPI.
What else is the Mary Pickford Foundation doing with its funds? Restoring old prints of movies is all well and good but who will watch them if no one’s ever heard of or feels connected to Mary Pickford? If its mission of the Foundation is to keep Mary Pickford’s legacy alive, then you can find no better endeavor than the Institute. “The Artist” and “Hugo” not withstanding, it is incredibly difficult to make old Hollywood and the silent era relevant to kids today. But the Institute has managed to do it with it outreach and education programs. The Mobile Classroom, for example, introduces at-risk kids to not only Pickford, but also the joy of filmmaking and, most important, gives them a tool to express and empower themselves that is sorely lacking in most of their lives. Think of the example that Mary Pickford gives to young females in some of our most disadvantaged neighborhoods. Considering the dearth of women of color in the film industry, the importance of this cannot be overestimated. Without the name, Mary Pickford, the mobile classroom would lose much of its ability to influence and inspire. Without the Institute, the Mary Pickford Foundation loses its most effective means of keeping Pickford’s work really alive.
If the Foundation is going to be short-sighted about this and de-fund the Institute, that’s bad enough but don’t compound the stupidity by ripping these treasured assets away from the organization that built them up and quite frankly the one organization that is doing the most good with them!