United Artists, Volume 1, 1919–1950: The Company Built by the Stars

1. Artists in Business: 1919

[ 3 ] 1 Artists in Business [1919] THE MOVIE INDUSTRY IN 1919 It is January, 1919. A convention of the First National Exhibitors Circuit is meeting at the Alexandria Hotel in Los Angeles. On the mezzanine floor, in Parlor A, the seven members of the executive board are in session. Below them, in the lobby, the atmosphere among the sages, kibitzers, and gossipers is fraught with excitement. Rumors, conjectures, and guesses about mergers fill the air: mergers that aim to control the industry; mergers that spell the death of the star system; mergers that ,eliminate the small fish of filmdom. A. H. Giebler of Moving Picture World surveyed the scene and said: Did Dave Griffith eat a little snack of lunch with Sam Goldwyn, a merger was seen in the offing. Did J. D. Williams stop Adolph Zukor in the lobby and say, "Dolph, this certainly beats New York for climate," the nucleus for a new com.. bination was born. Did Winnie Sheehan shake hands with Hiram Abrams and ask him politely for news from Broadway, the name of William Fox was written large on the dope sheets.... Did those two mysterious strangers from the East, Hiram Abrams and Benny Schulberg, parade their slow and solemn way along the length of the lobby, eyes were rolled in their direction and bated voices asked: "What have those two wise birds got up their sleeves ... 1" "The First National will control all the stars." "The First National is going to form a combination with Famous Players, Artcraft , Goldwyn, Metro, Fox, and after that they'll tell the stars just where to get off in the matter of salary." "Doug has signed up with First National." "Doug has done no such ofa thing." "Charlie's going to Europe. . . . Mary will renew her contract with First Na.. tional." "Mary will not." "Mary may, but Charlie won't." "See me in the mom.. ing, and I'll give you the whole story." "Don't quote me, but here's the right dope...." Thus it went on all day long, from getting up time until hay time-everywhere -all over the big hotel, upstairs and down, in parlor, bedroom and bath, lobby, grill, tearoom, candy shop and barber shop, until voices grew husky and imaginations were worn to a frazzle. 1 4 ] UNITED ARTISTS An adjustment of industry conditions was clearly imminent. Just before the convention, Richard A. Rowland, president of Metro Pictures, proclaimed that "motion pictures must cease to be a game and become a business." What he wanted was to supplant the star system, which forced companies to compete for big names and pay out-of-this-world salaries for their services. Metro, he said, would thenceforth decline from "competitive bidding for billion-dollar stars" and devote its energies to making big pictures based on "play value and excellence of production."2 Other moguls felt the same way. The industry had been in the grip of the star system for ten years, ever since audiences began to recognize individuals from among the uncredited players on the early screen. People began to ask, for instance, who was that little girl with the blonde curls? Or who was that little man with the funny mustache? Thereafter, as the audiences decided that they preferred this actress to that one, and as millions of fans flocked to theaters to see their favorites and stayed home when their favorites failed to appear, the balance of power shifted from the businessman to the employee. And did the salaries skyrocket: 5100, 5500, 51,000, and for the brightest and most illustrious, Pickford and The Big Four Artists in Business: 1919 [ 5 Chaplin, SI0,OOO a week. Negatives that before World War I cost SI0,OOO to S30,OOO were now requiring expenditures of S50,OOO to SI00,OOO and more, depending on the magnitude of the star. "Acting," as Benjamin Hampton said, "historically one of the most precarious of all professions, suddenly found itself among the best paid on earth."3 Mary Pickford, John Bunny, Francis X. Bushman, and Bronco Billy Anderson were the first to benefit from the new idolatry. Then Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, William S. Hart, Theda Bara, Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish, and a whole constellation of others. There were other reasons for the rise in production costs. Audiences had come to prefer feature-length pictures to the one- and two-reelers and wanted stories having more than...