Actors and actresses in early cinema never made any suggestions or demands to the director on the movie set. Directors were to never be questioned, and scripts were to be followed to the letter.
However, in Biograph Studio's August 1910 movie "Wilful Peggy," actress Mary Pickford, in her second year with Biograph, read the scene where her character, a rambunctious, high-spirited daughter of a peasant woman, was willing to docilely marry an older aristocrat. Pickford told the film's director, D. W. Griffith, that in no way would the daughter, who had exhibited a uncontrollable independent streak that attracted the aristocrat, would so meekly obey her mother to such a momentous demand. The actress asked Griffith to insert a scene where the mother chases her daughter around a tree trying to corral the hesitant Pickford. Griffith listened and was persuaded to film the scene just as Pickford had described. What is seen on film is the first documented suggestion of an actress made to a director which was accepted.
"Wilful Peggy" is also the picture that established Pickford's on-screen persona. Her rebellious spirit, her comedic skills, her versatility and her long-haired curls, which earned her the nickname "The Girl With The Golden Curls" long before the public knew her name, all came into the fore in this film. Pickford would temporarily leave Biograph Studios and Griffith's direction for Carl Laemmle's IMP Studios in December 1910. But the actress had yet reached her pinnacle of stardom.
