Friday, December 11, 2015
Douglas Fairbanks - Artifacts
Below are ten blog posts of electronic artifacts for Me, Douglas Fairbanks.
1.
To help control what work I did and secure my future, I
joined a little venture with three of my friends and created United
Artists. The idea originated while
traveling around selling Liberty bonds to help support the WWI effort. On February 5, 1919 UA was incorporated by me,
Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith. We each had a 20% stake with the last 20%
going to William Gibbs McAdoo. Our original logo for United Artists was used
until the sale of UA to Transamerica in 1967.
2.
December 5, 1920 was the release date for The Mark of Zorro,
another black and white film that I starred in.
This film was also produced by my production company, The Douglas
Fairbanks Pictures. This movie was
exciting to me because it was different than my usual boy-meets-girl romance
movies that I usually make. The story of Zorro was originally published in the “All-Story
Weekly” magazine. I am proud to say that
because of my movie, I was able to introduce the Zorro the hero to the American
people.
3.
It was on May 16th 1929 that I was the presenter
of the very first Academy Awards. It was
short by today’s standards, and there was only around 250 people in attendance. Sound was just added to film, so luckily
people were able to actually hear me. The
awards didn’t officially become “Oscars” until 1939. Another note about that magical evening, I
was able to cheer on my good friend Charlie Chaplin that night. He was given an honorary award because he was
removed from the categories that he was originally nominated for.
Image from : http://vickielester.com/2015/02/16/douglas-fairbanks/
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