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 as a venture premised on allowing actors to control their own interests rather than being dependent upon commercial studios.
Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith in 1919
List of UA stockholders in 1920
Griffith, Pickford, Chaplin (seated), and Fairbanks at the signing of the contract establishing the United Artists motion-picture studio in 1919. Lawyers Albert Banzhaf (left) and Dennis F. O'Brien (right) stand in the background.
David Wark Griffith was an American film director. Considered one of the most influential figures in the history of the motion picture, he pioneered many aspects of film editing and expanded the art of the narrative film.
Griffith in 1922
Griffith circa 1907
Left to right: Griffith, cameraman Billy Bitzer (behind Pathé camera), Dorothy Gish (watching from behind Bitzer), Karl Brown (keeping script) and Miriam Cooper (in profile) in a production still for Intolerance (1916)
The first million-dollar partners: Fairbanks, Pickford, Chaplin and Griffith
