Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview this ARC of Girls in the Picture.

Mary and Fran have been life long friends with similar passions. Mary loves to be in the movies, Fran loves to write scripts for the movies. Together they work side by side, changing the game entirely through their daring innovations. While friends they experience loss, heartache, disappointments, and love.

But as Mary's need to be desired and loved, and as Hollywood becomes more complicated and demanding, their friendship begins to strain and even dissolve. We watch as they lose each other, and after many years, find each other again.

I was thrilled to discover after reading it that this is a true story. I honestly didn't know that, so I had a lot of fun researching Mary Pickford and Fran, as well as their husbands and friends. I thought the author did an incredible job painting a heartrendingly real picture of what life was like back then, even as a risen starlet. It's a long story, but I never once tired of it.

I do not have much interest in Hollywood. However, I decided to read this book because I have found through reading 3 other Melanie Benjamin books (The Swans of Fifth Avenue, The Aviator's Wife, and the Autobiography of Mrs Tom Thumb) that Ms. Benjamin brings her characters to life like few other authors.

This story vividly captures not only the long friendship of actress Mary Pickford and scenarist Frances Marion, but also the advent of silent movies followed by the transition to "talkies." Actors Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, and Fred Thomson are also key characters who are brought to life by Ms. Benjamin. The difficulties faced by women working in Hollywood are woven into the story line and unfortunately, some of the same issues faced by Marty and Frances are challenges still today.

Historical fiction is my favorite genre and this book did not disappoint.. It is a very good story and I learned some history - - a win, win!

Melanie Benjamin never disappoints with her historical fiction.

Benjamin always seems to capture a particular time and mood and this book focuses on Hollywood, in 1914. Frances Marion, a name aligned with Hollywood intrigue, becomes a close friend of Mary Pickford, known as "America's Sweetheart." Pickford becomes romantically entangled with Douglas Fairbanks, one of Hollywood's most revered leading men, and the plot takes off from there.
Historical fiction, especially with Hollywood as the background, always seems to fascinate us, and Benjamin doesn't disappoint. What ultimately emerges from the book is not the fun and glamour of an illusory world but the friendship that ultimately prevails between the two stars.

Silent film star Mary Pickford started life as an economically disadvantaged Canadian named Gladys Smith. A stage actress from childhood, the birth of the film industry catapulted Mary to a level of fame no one had imagined in the early 1900’s. Melanie Benjamin’s The Girls In the Picture chronicle’s Mary’s career on screen and behind the camera, as well as her tumultuous personal relationships with family, husbands, and best friend and screenwriter, Francis Marion. Both Mary and Francis wielded an astounding amount of power as women in Hollywood from about 1915 into the 1930’s when the advent of sound in film changed the industry forever.

Melanie Benjamin is an accomplished historical fiction author, best known for Alice I Have Been and The Aviator’s Wife. From the complexities of female friendship, to the rise of mega studios and the arrogance of Charlie Chaplin, Benjamin’s novel is full of stunning details made even more fascinating by the current climate in Hollywood. It’s mind blowing how women in 1920 were writing, producing and directing films as well as running movie studios, while in 2018 they continue to fight for equal pay with their male counterparts. Buy It.

This is the story of two very talented women in a industry where women are not invited.
Melanie Benjamin’s novel is about Mary Pickford, loved by her fans and the studios. She takes a talented gifted scenarist Frances Marion under her wing and the two become best friends. Fran blossoms into a sought after screenwriter and director in Hollywood. Mary Pickford is fighting the male dominated establishment of the movie industry. Together they are a force to be reckoned with and make strides with the studios of their time previously unheard of for women.
The two women, while they come from different backgrounds, they share a common struggle and are both determined to attain their dreams, while standing up for and by each other. A fascinating look at early Hollywood and the studio stars that drove the industry. I loved that the friendship between the two women remained strong as they helped each other traverse the industry.
I highly recommend this book . Thank you for the ARC which did not influence my review.

Adult, Biography, Books, Fiction, HistoricalThe Girls in the Picture by Melanie Benjamin Kristin 1 Month Ago No Comments
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The Girls in the Picture Book Cover Title: The Girls in the Picture
Author: Melanie Benjamin
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Random House
Release Date: January 16, 2018
Pages: 448

It is 1914, and twenty-five-year-old Frances Marion has left her (second) husband and her Northern California home for the lure of Los Angeles, where she is determined to live independently as an artist. But the word on everyone’s lips these days is “flickers”—the silent moving pictures enthralling theatergoers. Turn any corner in this burgeoning town and you’ll find made-up actors running around, as a movie camera captures it all.

In this fledgling industry, Frances finds her true calling: writing stories for this wondrous new medium. She also makes the acquaintance of actress Mary Pickford, whose signature golden curls and lively spirit have earned her the title “America’s Sweetheart.” The two ambitious young women hit it off instantly, their kinship fomented by their mutual fever to create, to move audiences to a frenzy, to start a revolution.

But their ambitions are challenged by both the men around them and the limitations imposed on their gender—and their astronomical success could come at a price. As Mary, the world’s highest paid and most beloved actress, struggles to live her life under the spotlight, she also wonders if it is possible to find love, even with the dashing actor Douglas Fairbanks. Frances, too, longs to share her life with someone. As in any good Hollywood story, dramas will play out, personalities will clash, and even the deepest friendships might be shattered.

With cameos from such notables as Charlie Chaplin, Louis B. Mayer, Rudolph Valentino, and Lillian Gish, The Girls in the Picture is, at its heart, a story of friendship and forgiveness. Melanie Benjamin perfectly captures the dawn of a glittering new era—its myths and icons, its possibilities and potential, and its seduction and heartbreak.



The Girls in the Picture tells the story of Hollywood’s first movie stars and screen writers. Before reading this book I hadn’t considered how Hollywood got its start. I didn’t know the first silent films were shot quickly without permission in front of churches and businesses. Many people in LA discriminated against people associated with movies. It was a shameful new thing to be part of apparently. Despite the naysayers, two women managed to be wildly successful in a man’s world.

I hadn’t heard the names Mary Pickford and Frances Marion before this book. I now realize that I have them to thank for opening doors for women in the industry. It was no easy feat. Men wanted them to fail at every turn. Many resented them. As a team, they faced off against these men. The were determined to have careers even if it was too absurd for these men to understand.

Tragic and unfair, Mary Pickford began acting at the age of 8. Her father had died, leaving her behind with her mom and two siblings. As the eldest sibling, she became the bread winner. Earning just enough money to feed and clothe them all. Deprived of a normal childhood, Mary would later become famous for her brilliance in portraying a child in the movies.

Frances Marion would become the highest paid “scenarist” in the business, and the first to win two Academy Awards. Mary undoubtedly gave Frances her break into Hollywood, but Frances would build her career through her own talent as a writer. She was so rare, the first female to direct a film, that many simply couldn’t believe it at all. Why wasn’t she home knitting or doing something else useful?

Both women would have several marriages. It is arguable that a lot of the reason Mary was able to challenge men in her career was because her marriage protected her. It wasn’t a secret that women were expected to lay on casting couches to earn a role in the movies. As a married woman, a good-girl, she didn’t have to make those choices to further her career.

“I’d seen the way men in power treated actresses; it wasn’t an equal relationship at all, and if you were ambitious, there were many unsavory choices you would have to make.”
Our recent #timesup movement began after a very public exposure of this dirty “secret”. Women’s rights have come so far from the times of Mary and Frances that all of us wanted to believe that women in Hollywood were equal to the men. We wanted to think that the actresses we know and love today didn’t suffer harassment from men in power. Yet, we now know that they did of course. Most of us assumed it happened behind the scenes, but hoped that it didn’t.

Early Hollywood doesn’t sound much different from what we’re hearing today in the media as actresses and even some actors tell their personal stories of harassment and assault. The distinguishable difference is that we now live in a time where these actions are illegal and punishable. Women are powerful enough to speak out about how they’ve been mistreated and enough people in power care. There is legal action that can and has been enforced. Hopefully men will no longer be able to manipulate women and their careers for their own pleasure.

Melanie Benjamin took true historical information and created a dialogue for Mary and Frances. The conversations and events throughout the book all ring true. They all felt authentic. We will never know their actual conversations and motivations, but Melanie Benjamin was very imaginative. I feel she was successful at bringing these two women to life, and did their stories justice.

The Girls in the Picture Were Pioneers for Women and Show Business
I’ll admit that it took me a long while to read The Girls in the Picture. At times it felt drawn out. I was often angry that Frances didn’t speak out to Mary when she should have. I was definitely furious that Mary was missing from Frances’ life at the moments she needed Mary most. We can’t know for certain that it happened that way in real-life; however, I would have liked it if Melanie Benjamin had believed that Frances deserved at least one moment. There were times in their older years when Mary was cruel to Frances and yet Frances allowed it all. She came back to Mary whenever she was called without even talking about their problems. I’d have liked Frances to knock Mary down a few pegs.

I understand why some readers commented that they wished the story ended before their careers dipped and the industry turned them into relics. Of course we all want that glorious happy ending for them. Instead, Melanie took us well past their career heyday and into their senior citizenship. This felt more authentic. Real life isn’t what we see in movies. It isn’t like most of the fiction we read. Real life has both joy, heart break, and doesn’t guarantee us a happy ending. Melanie Benjamin told an important true story with just the right amount of happy fiction mixed with enough realistic disappointment to bring The Girls in the Picture to life.

I love how Melanie Benjamin finds these obscure pockets of American celebrity and expands on them in such interesting ways. I had some basic knowledge of Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks as well as old Hollywood studios, but didn't know anything about Frances Marion.

The Girls in the Picture delves into the careers, romances and most importantly friendships, of these two women. Mary is a super star actress, Frances is her "Scenarist" or screen writer. It also deals with the roll of women in early Hollywood. I was surprised to learn how much power Mary and Frances had, to a point. They also dealt with a lot of harassment and sexism. It also illustrates the earliest days of celebrity scandal and public relations.

I found this book to be very well written and engaging. The characters are well drawn and complex. While real life events are left out of the book, it does not effect the overall realness of the characters and plot. Fran and Mary's tumultuous friendship is great story fodder, as is the legendary romance between Pickford and Fairbanks. This book is a great look into a forgotten moment in time.

(A copy of The Girls in the Picture was provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.)

"The Girls in the Picture" is a historical fiction novel about the friendship between Mary Pickford, the queen of Hollywood in her day, and Frances Marion, her closest friend and screenwriter. Both started on the ground floor of Hollywood, when everything was an experiment and both women established themselves as professionals who held their ground against those who resented their success.

They established a firm friendship early on, meeting in 1914. The novel goes on to explore both their friendship, as well as the personal and professional growth of Mary and Frances in an industry that goes from fledgling to established in a few decades.

Benjamin writes their relationship as a complicated one; Frances Marion is never quite sure of her success, knowing she owes it all to Pickford, the woman who took her chance on an unknown. Pickford, the Queen of Hollywood, grows resentful of Marion for wrongs, imagined or actual, committed over the years. Early in their friendship, they vowed never to let men come between them; it's the vow of schoolgirls and a vow neither one can keep because life carries them in different directions. Pickford and her second husband, Douglas Fairbanks, become international movies stars and the undisputed royalty of Hollywood; Marion establishes herself as the top screenwriter in Hollywood, successfully making the transition from silent movies to "talkies." They become estranged and, like many relationships, neither can pinpoint quite when they began to really grow apart nor can they figure out how to re-establish the close friendship they once had. But throughout the novel they try, and fail, and try again.

I had my doubts when I first started this novel; it moved slowly and I had trouble engaging with the characters. But, as I continued to read, I was drawn in by Benjamin's writing and the life she gave early Hollywood and the characters of Mary Pickford and Frances Marion.

Having never read Melanie Benjamin before, this was a new experience. Her characterization of Mary and Frances was enjoyable, realistic, and approachable. The story follows two young women fresh in Hollywoodland at the inception of the film industry. Based on real life friendship of actress Mary Pickford and screenwriter Frances Marion, this book follows the life of Frances pre-Hollywood and follows Frances and Mary till the end of the 1960's. While this story was interesting from a film fan perspective, it is not a book I would have normally picked up. And ultimately, while entertaining from a historical film perspective, I was not hugely invested in finishing it. After a while, as Mary and Frances' friendship soured ,as did my interest in the book. I gave it three stars to be kind, but I'm not sure if I would have if I were anything less than a raging cinephile.

Overall, I liked this book. I really liked the story as I'm always drawn to historical fiction works. The premise of the story line being set in the early to mid 1900's when the movie business was just beginning was something different and I loved it. I enjoyed reading about these people, women, who were responsible for the new industry of Hollywood.

Fran and Mary were epic characters. Both are so different from each other but also so very similar. I adored them.

The Girls In The Picture fell flat for me in two areas which is why the 3 star review.

First of all, the book was a bit overboard with the "strong women" theme. I love that these women are brave and truly were some of the first very prominent woman in the movie business. However, I got a little bored with it. Sometimes I felt like the title of the book could have been We Don't Need No Stinkin' Men. We get it - they were amazing women, you don't have to keep beating it into the reader.

Second the ending was just meh. It was too neat and tidy after a rocky journey. I felt the neat bow at the end to tie up the story took away from both Fran and Mary. Not every story needs or benefits from a happy ever after.

Fran and Mary have powerful careers. They have a tremendous, unbreakable friendship. They don't need powerful men to define them. Except, in the end it's all kind of a farce. They are both pretty insecure, they are both defined by the men in their lives, and their friendship does break. I felt the author could have planted the women on one side of any of these fences, but they both straddle lines throughout the entire novel.

I absolutely love movies from the early days of Hollywood, so this book was right up my alley. It tells a fictionalized version of how Mary Pickford became the queen of Hollywood, partly due to Frances Marion, one of the most famous early screenwriters. The book follows their journeys from the first silent movies, through World War I, and all the way to the point when "talkies" became all the rage. While the conversations and motivations have been invented by the author, she keeps in enough actual historical details to tell how these women's lives really played out.

While I have read a few books about Hollywood, I had never read one about Mary Pickford or the silent film era. I found this one to be a quick read and entertaining. While Mary was certainly an interesting figure for the time (successful actress, studio owner, and all around trailblazer in the movie industry) I was more interested in Frances Marion - her best friend and equally successful Hollywood script writer. Who knew the power and success that women had early on in motion pictures. While this book focused on the friendship between the two women it also addressed the struggles that women in general faced both as wives and mothers but also as individuals in the working world.

This book was amazing. It tells the story of Frances Marion and Mary Pickford at the beginning of the silent film era. It tells of their struggles, not just personally, but as women in a male dominated industry back in an era when it was uncommon for women to work outside the home. This is particularly timely due to the circumstances that have come to light about the treatment of women in the current film industry. This was well written and I definitely learned a lot about the early film industry. I highly recommend this one.

Title: The Girls in the Picture
Author: Melanie Benjamin
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publish By: January 16, 2018
Buy Link: https://goo.gl/htDzLU
Rating: 4 stars

Review:
This is the story of the evolution of two women who were actresses/directors in the silent film industry prior to when it started to go to the talkies. Historically based as it is historical fiction regarding Frances Marion and Mary Pickford. It details the career of Mary Pickford and how she met Frances Marion. This book is historically accurate as to the people that she worked with her and her marital life. It also is historically accurate about the rise of her career and her entry into directing. But the rest is speculation.
I think this book while good was very long. It was a slow read. I kept stopping to check the names and stuff. I like the story and how she met her first husband Owen and what happened subsequently. I like how she states that she seemed sad at the end of the novel and at the end of her career. It also details how Frances Marion felt about her relationship with her. How she felt indebted to her for allowing her to work with her and get into the picture business.
However, what I didn’t like was the not knowing if what she stated was real. A personal thing I know so I will let you know I gave it a four. For those who like historical fiction then you would like this novel very much.

Disclosure: I didn’t receive compensation for this novel but did receive a proof copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

I really wanted to like this book. It's a fascinating story about two women who I had never heard of--Mary Pickford and Frances Marion. It led me down an extensive Google rabbit hole, and I loved that. However, it read like a autobiography/biography, but it was historical fiction. So many times I did research to figure out what had actually happened in their lives. I prefer that when main characters are actual people their story lines take them into something new and different. I don't want a retelling of their lives when I could just pick up a biography instead of wondering what is real and what is not. This book was so detailed and extensive that I often got bored and frustrated. Clearly the author is passionate about her characters, which is great, but I feel that the extraneous detail and minutia caused the book to not have a clear story. It felt like the story was as much information about these women that could be thrown on the page and have a tiny summary at the end about their lives. I found it lacking.

I was interested in reading this after enjoying Melanie Benjamin's last book "The Aviator's Wife" and this was a very satisfying follow up. I love Benjamin's writing, she writes such vivid characters with a lot of depth, I found myself really relating with all of the girls in the novel. I am looking forward to Melanie Benjamin's next novel.

Back in the early days of the 20th century, a new industry came to life in Hollywood and Mary Pickford one of its first stars. A fictionalized account of the heart days of Hollywood, it's silent film stars and a friendship with Frances Marion who would later receive two Oscars for original sceenplay. A fascinating look at the woman who broke with the studios to form a new studio, United Artists, along with her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. and Charlie Chaplin. Backed by considerable research, the characters come alive and make the era more than just hi.story. Totally readable!

This book starts out slow, but stick with it and you will be glad you did. The story of Mary Pickford and Frances Marion trying to make it in the male-dominated film industry in the early twentieth century resonates greatly with the #MeToo movement of today. You would think that more progress would have been made in a century, but it is still an uphill battle. Thank you to Ballentine Press and NetGalley for this copy for review.