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.As Zukorraised Pickford's salary, he passed the cost on to the exhibitor, increasingthe guarantee fee from $35,000 to $65,000 and then $120,000.WhenPickford's salary went up to $10,000 a week, the guarantee fee reached$165,000 (Pickford 1956).After her contract expired in 1918, First Nationalpoached Pickford with an offer of $675,000 for three films, with fifty percent of profits along with authority to select scripts and the right to have asay in the final cut of her films (Balio 1976).If Pickford's business acumen contrasted with the image of 'LittleMary', then so did her private life.Initially married to Owen Moore whenboth were acting at Biograph, the marriage collapsed amidst Moore'sdrunkenness and Pickford's affair with fellow screen idol, DouglasFairbanks.In the press, an image of marital bliss was conveyed, workingto achieve moral closure between the on-screen and off-screen lives ofPickford.Divorce from Moore in 1920 and Pickford's subsequent marriageto Fairbanks could have fractured that closure.De Cordova observes,however, that Pickford's life neatly avoided becoming an early source of35SHORT CUTSFIGURE 1 MaryPickford36THE STAR SYSTEMthe scandal discourse.Instead of scandal, 'the Pickford-Fairbanks affairwas recuperated in a family discourse', with the two stars 'touted as thecountry's ideal couple' (1990: 123).Pickford fought to achieve independence in her dealings with thestudios, making her most direct gesture in 1919 when, followingrumours the studios were intending to cap star salaries, she andFairbanks joined with Griffith and Charlie Chaplin (the most highlypriced male star of the period) to form United Artists (UA).United Artistsfunctioned as a distribution company for the films produced by the starnames, placing the owners in a position where they could extend theireconomic power by negotiating more broadly across the film industry.Tino Balio explains:As heads of their own production companies, [the stars] controlledall artistic aspects of their work - from the creation of the scenario,to the selection of the director, to the final cut.By organising adistribution company, they could oversee, in addition, the crucialfunction of sales, advertising, and publicity.(1987: 10)This power was evident with Pickford's first UA release, Paul Powell'sPollyanna (1919) in which she reprised her little girl image in the title role.Pollyanna was produced through Pickford's own company and distributedby UA.Whereas the established business practice in the exhibition sectorwas to lease prints from distributors for a fixed fee, Pollyanna was madeavailable only on the basis of both a guaranteed base rental fee togetherwith a percentage split of box office income.Despite complaints,exhibitors agreed to UA's terms, transforming the business model fordealings between distributors and exhibitors.During the 1920s, Pickford's career would experience rises and falls inthe star's critical and financial status.Despite taking more adult roles, themovie-going public were reluctant to let Pickford shed her child-womanimage.From its inception, United Artists experienced decades of financialcrises, the cause of which has been partly attributed to the company's starmanagement.When Pickford eventually sold her UA stock in 1951 to Arthur37SHORT CUTSB.Krim and Robert S.Benjamin, partners in the law firm Phillips, Nizer,Benjamin and Krim, she described UA as 'sick unto death' (quoted in Balio1976: 9).At the height of her appeal however, Pickford had clearlydemonstrated the wide ranging power that the star could wield across allsectors of the film industry.Pickford's significance is not limited to thesilent era.She exemplified many of the trends that would develop theHollywood star system in future decades.In particular, Pickford showedhow the star could have the ability to use his or her popular status asleverage to demand from producers rapid rises in salary payments.Hercareer also paved the way for stars to participate in box office earningsfrom the films they appeared in and represented the benefits to be hadfrom stars choosing to form their own independent production companies.These trends would all become key characteristics of the star systemfollowing the decline of the vertically integrated studio system thatdominated Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s (see the following chapter).Pickford was therefore not only a product of the star system in the cinema.She showed how it was possible for stars to find ways to work that systemfor their own gain [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]