After sustaining a back injury as a result of an accident while filming The Perils of Pauline (1914), Pearl White used a stunt-double, although this was never publicized until after he himself died from an accident during the making of Plunder (1923), at which time the truth came out. Pearl retired from films and moved to Paris, where she died in 1938 from a liver ailment, alcoholism and drugs. In the film, Pearl's accident occurs on the Paris stage after her film career was over, and one is led to believe that now, unable to walk, she lived happily ever after with her fictional husband.
Pearl White was married and divorced twice; her second husband committed suicide in 1928, 7 years after their 1921 divorce. In the film, she never marries, although a forthcoming marriage to the fictional Michael Farrington is implied at the finale, which takes place sometime in the mid-1920's.
In reality, Pearl began making films for Powers Pictures, then went to Pathé, where she made most of her serials, and to Crystal, where she made a long succession of comedy shorts; in the film, she works for Artcraft, which did not exist when Pearl began in 1910.
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