UNITED ARTIST CORPORATION (UA) IS FOUNDED IN 1919

Today, The Grandma has been reading about United Artist, the American production and distribution company, that was founded on a day like today in 1919.

United Artists Corporation (UA), was an American production and distribution company.

Founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the studio was premised on allowing actors to control their own interests, rather than being dependent upon commercial studios.

UA was repeatedly bought, sold, and restructured over the ensuing century. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired the studio in 1981 for a reported $350 million ($1 billion today).

On September 22, 2014, MGM acquired a controlling interest in entertainment companies One Three Media and Lightworkers Media, then merged them to revive United Artists' television production unit as United Artists Media Group (UAMG). However, on December 14 of the following year, MGM wholly acquired UAMG and folded it into MGM Television.

United Artists was briefly revived again in 2018 as United Artists Digital Studios, being launched along with the Stargate Origins web series and the Stargate Command streaming service. In December 2019 following the closure of Stargate Command, by early 2020 the original UA incarnation was folded, this time permanently, into MGM.

Mirror, the joint distribution venture between MGM and Annapurna Pictures, was subsequently rebranded as United Artists Releasing in early February 2019, in honor of its 100th anniversary, and currently the UA name lives on in that company.

In 1918, Charlie Chaplin could not get his parent company First National Pictures to increase his production budget despite being one of their top producers. Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks had their own contracts, with First National and Famous Players-Lasky respectively, but these were due to run out with no clear offers forthcoming. Sydney Chaplin, brother and business manager for Charlie, deduced something was going wrong, and contacted Pickford and Fairbanks. Together they hired a private detective, who discovered a plan to merge all production companies and to lock in exhibition companies to a series of five-year contracts.

More information: Far Out Magazine

Chaplin, Pickford, Fairbanks, and D. W. Griffith incorporated United Artists as a joint venture company on February 5, 1919.

Each held a 25 percent stake in the preferred shares and a 20 percent stake in the common shares of the joint venture, with the remaining 20 percent of common shares held by lawyer and advisor William Gibbs McAdoo. The idea for the venture originated with Fairbanks, Chaplin, Pickford and cowboy star William S. Hart a year earlier. Already Hollywood veterans, the four stars talked of forming their own company to better control their own work.

They were spurred on by established Hollywood producers and distributors who were tightening their control over actor salaries and creative decisions, a process that evolved into the studio system. With the addition of Griffith, planning began, but Hart bowed out before anything was formalized. When he heard about their scheme, Richard A. Rowland, head of Metro Pictures, apparently said, The inmates are taking over the asylum.

The four partners, with advice from McAdoo (son-in-law and former Treasury Secretary of then-President Woodrow Wilson), formed their distribution company. Hiram Abrams was its first managing director, and the company established its headquarters at 729 Seventh Avenue in New York City.

The original terms called for each star to produce five pictures a year. By the time the company was operational in 1921, feature films were becoming more expensive and polished, and running times had settled at around ninety minutes (eight reels). The original goal was thus abandoned.

UA's first production, His Majesty, the American, written by and starring Fairbanks, was a success. Funding for movies was limited. Without selling stock to the public like other studios, all United had for finance was weekly prepayment installments from theater owners for upcoming movies. As a result, production was slow, and the company distributed an average of only five films a year in its first five years.

In 1941, Pickford, Chaplin, Disney, Orson Welles, Goldwyn, Selznick, Alexander Korda, and Wanger -many of whom were members of United Artists- formed the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers (SIMPP). Later members included Hunt Stromberg, William Cagney, Sol Lesser, and Hal Roach.

The Society aimed to advance the interests of independent producers in an industry controlled by the studio system. SIMPP fought to end ostensibly anti-competitive practices by the seven major film studios -Loew's (MGM), Columbia Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Universal Pictures, RKO Radio Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Warner Bros./First National-that controlled the production, distribution, and exhibition of motion pictures.

In 1942, SIMPP filed an antitrust suit against Paramount's United Detroit Theatres. The complaint accused Paramount of conspiracy to control first-and subsequent-run theaters in Detroit. This was the first antitrust suit brought by producers against exhibitors that alleged monopoly and restraint of trade.

In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court Paramount Decision ordered the major Hollywood movie studios to sell their theater chains and to end certain anti-competitive practices. This court ruling ended the studio system.

By 1958, SIMPP achieved many of the goals that led to its creation, and the group ceased operations.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired the studio in 1981 for a reported $350 million ($1 billion today).

More information: Cobbles

Time is the great author.
Always writes the perfect ending.

Charles Chaplin