United Artists

The United Artists Corporation (aka United Artists Associated, United Artists Pictures, and United Artists Films) was formed on February 5, 1919 by five of the leading figures in early Hollywood, Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, William S. Hart and D. W. Griffith. They were motivated in part by a desire to control their own pictures, as well as their futures. When he heard of this plan, Richard Rowland, head of Metro Pictures, said, "The inmates are taking over the asylum." The five friends, with advice from former Secretary of the Treasury William G. McAdoo (son-in-law of then-President Woodrow Wilson), formed their distribution company, with Hiram Abrams as its first managing director.

See also

• United Artists Records
• List of Hollywood movie studios