Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s divorce has shocked millions of people around the world
who for some reason are personally invested in the personal lives of that they will never
meet.
But did you know eighty years ago the original Brangelina broke up which means that all of
this is just Hollywood history repeating itself.
So take yourself down a peg, Pitt.
Long before Brad plus Angelina equaled Brangelina, Douglas plus Mary equaled Dairy.
During the heyday of the silent film era, Douglas Fairbanks Sr. and Mary Pickford were
dubbed the king and queen of Hollywood, beloved by audiences for their on-screen athleticism
and charming sausage curls respectively.
But in 1916 when they met old Dougy and Mary couldn’t become Dairy because both Dairy
and Mary were married.
What?
But they were also two of the first A-list celebrities ever, with Mary Pickford already
nicknamed America’s sweetheart and running her own production company by the tender age
of 22 btw, while Douglas Fairbanks Sr. was busy becoming the Silver Screen’s favorite
swashbuckling hero.
So of course such a power couple couldn’t let a little something like the sanctity of
marriage get in the way of their lust.
During their three year affair, old Dougy and Mary kept busy outside the bedroom too,
first of all selling war bonds for World War I so that was nice but also in 1919 getting
together with their old pals Charlie Chaplin and D.W.
Griffith to begin a little company you might have heard of called United Artists which
was intended to give actors like themselves more creative and financial control making
it somewhat like a Tidal for talkies.
And then later that year Douglas Fairbanks Sr. finally threw in the towel with his Jennifer
Anniston so to speak, a Rhode Island trust-funder named Anna-Beth Sully.
Dougy, how could you?
And Mary Pickford followed suit a few months later calling it quits with her actor husband
Owen Moore.
I could really use some self-care with Smart Water and Aveeno lotion but they haven’t
been invented yet.
That’s a Jennifer Anniston joke, I don’t know if anyone got that.
Then on March 28th, 1920, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks Sr. finally got hitched
in what the tabloids called the wedding of the century.
And old Dougy really played up to the press by buying his new bride a wedding gift of
a palatial Beverley Hills estate featuring the neighborhood’s very first swimming pool
that they called Pickfair.
The estate that is, not just the swimming pool.
But their honeymoon didn’t seem all the relaxing considering how it was international
news and they attracted massive crowds everywhere they went.
Not to mention because of the gender roles of the day Mary felt compelled to issue a
wire press service announcement that no, she would not be quitting her job just because
she got married.
And even though Dougy especially would get down in the dumps if Mary’s star ever outshone
his, for the most part they were happy and tremendously successful.
That is until the talkies came to town.
[Sad trombones.]
And that audio technology of the late 1920s was the death knell for the silent era that
Dairy had dominated.
And transitioning their stardom from silent to sound was way more of a hurdle for old
Dougy than Mary.
You see, 1929 was a pretty good year for Mary Pickford because she snagged her first leading
actress Oscar for her role in ‘Coquette’.
But for old Dougy, the best thing he got was a co-starring role with Mary P. in ‘The
Taming of the Shrew’ which was a massive flop.
Going from silent films to talkies was kind of hard for me, I don’t know why.
But much like ‘Gigli’ for Ben Affleck and J. Lo, the Shakespearean adaptation proved
the beginning of the end for the couple, with them gradually drifting apart, staying separated
for a few years and finally getting divorced in 1956 once Douglas Fairbanks Sr. made it
adamantly clear that no he was not going to quit sleeping with his mistress Lady Sylvia
Ashley.
Darling don’t hate the player, hate the game.
So little surprise then that when Mary Pickford who Entertainment Weekly as called the Angelina
Jolie of her day, finally filed the papers for a divorce, old Dougy said ‘no contest’.
Well you win some you lose some.
And now 80 years and a lot more kids involved later, Brangelina is just doing the same thing
all over again.
So really, is Dairy the original Brangelina or is Brangelina just the new Dairy?
Kind of like almond milk.