My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin (most read book in the world TXT) 📕

On that night Mary Pickford, D. W. Griffith, W. S. Hart, Douglas Fairbanks and myself sat at a table in the main dining-room. The effect was electric. J. D. Williams unsuspectingly came in for dinner first, saw us, then hurried out again. One after another the producers came to the entrance, took a look, then hurried out, while we sat talking big business and marking the table-cloth with astronomical figures. Whenever one of the producers appeared in the dining-room, Douglas would suddenly talk a lot of nonsense. ‘The cabbages on the peanuts and the groceries on the pork carry a great deal of weight these days,’ he would say. Griffith and Bill Hart thought he had gone mad.

Very soon half a dozen members of the Press were sitting at our table taking notes as we issued our statement that we were forming a company of United Artists to protect our independence and to combat the forthcoming big merger. The story received front-page coverage.

The next day the heads of several production companies offered to resign their posts and become our president for a small salary and an interest in the new company. After such a reaction we decided to go through with our project. Thus the United Artists Corporation was formed.

*

We arranged a meeting at Mary Pickford’s house. Each of us turned up with a lawyer and manager. It was such a regal gathering that what we had to say was like public oratory. In fact, every time I spoke it made me quite nervous. But I was astonished at the legal and business acumen of Mary. She knew all its nomenclature: the amortizations and the deferred stocks, etc. She understood all the articles of incorporation, the legal discrepancy on page 7, paragraph A, article 27, and coolly referred to the overlap and contradiction in paragraph D, article 24. On these occasions she saddened me more than amazed me, for this was an aspect of ‘America’s sweetheart’ that I did not know. One phrase I have never forgotten. While solemnly haranguing our representative she came out with: ‘It behoves us, gentlemen– ’ I broke into laughter and kept repeating: ‘It behoves us! It behoves us!’

In spite of Mary’s beauty in those days, she had the reputation of being quite astute in business. I remember Mabel Normand, who first introduced me to her, saying: ‘This is Hetty Green * alias Mary Pickford.’

My participation at those business meetings was nil. Fortunately my brother was as shrewed in business as Mary; and Douglas, who assumed a debonair nonchalance, was more astute than any of us. While our lawyers haggled out legal technicalities, he would cut capers like a schoolboy – but when reading the articles of incorporation he never missed a comma.

Amongst the producers who were willing to resign and join our company was Adolph Zukor, president and founder of Paramount. He was a vivid personality, a sweet little man who looked like Napoleon and was just as intense. When talking business, he was compelling and dramatic. ‘You,’ he said in his Hungarian accent, ‘you have every right to get the full benefits of your efforts because you are artists! You create! It is you that the people come to see.’ We were modestly in accord. ‘You,’ he continued, ‘have come to form what I consider the most formidable company in the business, if–if,’ he emphasized, ‘it is properly managed. You are creative at one end of the business, I am creative at the other. What could be sweeter?’

He went on in this way, holding us absorbed, telling us of his visions and beliefs; he admitted he had plans to amalgamate both the theatres and the studios, but said he would be willing to give it all up to cast his lot with ours. He spoke in an intense, patriarchal way: ‘You think I am your enemy! But I am your friend – the artist’s friend. Remember, it was I who first had the vision! Who swept out your dirty nickelodeons? Who put in your plush seats? It was I who built your great theatres, who raised prices and made it possible for you to get large grosses for your pictures. Yet you, you are the people who want to crucify me!’

Zukor was both a great actor and business man. He had built up the largest circuit of theatres in the world. However, since he wanted stock in our company, nothing came of our negotiations.

Within six months Mary and Douglas were making pictures for the newly formed company, but I still had six more comedies to complete for First National. Their ruthless attitude had so embittered me that it impeded the progress of my work. I offered to buy up my contract and to give them a hundred thousand dollars’ profit, but they refused.

As Mary and Doug were the only stars distributing their pictures through our company, they were continually complaining to me of the burden imposed upon them as a result of being without my product. They were distributing their pictures at a very low cost of twenty per cent, which ran the company into a deficit of a million dollars. However, with the release of my first film, The Gold Rush, the debt was wiped out, which rather softened Mary and Doug’s grievances, and they never complained again.

*

The war was now grim. Ruthless slaughter and destruction were rife over Europe. In training camps men were taught how to attack with a bayonet – how to yell, rush and stick it in the enemy’s guts, and, if the blade got stuck in his groin, to shoot into his guts to loosen it. Hysteria was excessive. Draft-dodgers were being sentenced to five years and every man was made to carry his registration card. Civilian apparel was a dress of shame, for nearly every young man was in uniform and, if he was not, he was liable to be asked for his registration card, or a woman