Coquette, 1929 – Academy Award for Best Actress

Coquette is a 1929 American pre-Code drama film directed by Sam Taylor and starring Mary Pickford, who won the second Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.

Coquette stars silent star Mary Pickford, one of the most popular stars in silent film, in her first talkie. She became one of the first major stars of the silent era to find success in the new era of sound films. At her Pickfair Studios, she installed a sound stage in 1928 and began preparing for her first talkie. Despite Pickford’s embrace of the new medium, she was concerned about how her voice would sound, although she had enjoyed a successful stage career before entering film. After reviewing her first sound test, she reportedly remarked, “Why that sounds like a little pipsqueak voice!” She immediately began intensive vocal lessons, hoping to accomplish a realistic Southern accent for the role. Pickford became nervous during preparation, firing her sound man when a take was not ready for her review on time. On set during an emotional scene, she notoriously fired her longtime cameraman and friend Charles Rosher when he yelled “Cut!” in the middle of one of her lines. After she learned that Rosher’s exclamation only occurred after a shadow had fallen across her face, spoiling the shot, she wrote him an apologetic letter writing: “Tragedy is an ugly mask. I don’t want to look like something on a candy box or a valentine.”