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The successor, however, never really developed. By then Pickford had become a Hollywood mogul as well as a star. In 1919 she joined with Fairbanks, Griffith and Charlie Chaplin to form United Artists. For years she had a firm hand in the running of the company. Her fortune was ultimately some $50 million, much of it from real estate. Unlike Douglas Fairbanks, she was frightened by the mass adulation that greeted their public appearances. It was unprecedented, the need of the public to touch these images when they appeared in the flesh. He thrived on it and restlessly roamed the globe as his popularity faded. The rest lessness became sexual and finally caused their divorce in 1936. By then she was 42, and all she really wanted was a chance to enjoy her winnings in comfort. Pickfair was perhaps the most comfortable great house in America, elegant and welcoming. In 1937 she married Buddy Rogers, the band leader and actor who had given her that first screen kiss. Until her final withdrawal into solitude, she occupied herself with various causes, including work for the aged. At the end, she was devoted to her Bible and her booze, allegedly sipping away a bottle of it each day. It is also said that in her nightmares she would cry out for her mother and for her great love, Douglas Fairbanks. On the good days, though, she could still regale friends and family with tart and funny stories about the times when she and the medium she helped to develop were young. The films of those years are her legacy, still capable of rekindling the admiration and affection she once knew in astounding measure.
— Richard Schickel