Although I have had occasion to mention several instances where his judgment was at fault, I have never once lost the sense of how disproportionate these rare flaws were to the sum of his achievement. As a matter of fact, De Mille is seldom wrong in his valuations of either performer or story. Again and again his judgment proved superior to both Lasky’s and mine. Then, too, he adds to the qualities which make him a big director, a gift for personal relations which I have seldom seen equalled. Farrar was only one of the many Lasky stars who “got along” wonderfully with our chief director. The courteous, self-controlled, kindly De Mille--who, indeed, could dislike him? Certainly my own thought of him always reaches far beyond our mere professional association. To me at a time when I most needed it De Mille was a true friend, and the memory of his truth and loyalty illumines one of the bitterest chapters of my life. _Chapter Nine_ STARS, STARS, STARS! Well, I left my company and I was then not quite thirty-five years of age. I was accustomed to a life where every working hour was inspired by the one thought, “How can I make the Lasky Company more significant?” You can imagine, therefore, the terrible blankness of those days following my resignation. Feverishly I cast about me for a new outlet for my organising energy, and in the Autumn of 1916 I, together with my friends Archie and Edgar Selwyn, the theatrical producers, Margaret Mayo, and Arthur Hopkins, the theatrical producer, founded the Goldwyn Motion Picture Company. The beginning of this second film venture of mine involved conditions very different from those which attended the start of the Lasky Company three years before. Then the story was supreme and the Lasky Company was successful without any really overshadowing personalities. True, the field presented some great celebrities such as Mary Pickford, but the emphasis was not placed upon the player to the degree which afterward swayed the producer. Constantly this emphasis became more irresistible, and by the time that I started the Goldwyn Company it was the player, not the play, which was the thing. Every theatre-owner in the country wanted personalities. Stars were now made over night. New names came out in electric light almost every evening. Obviously, therefore, the only guarantee for the success of a new motion-picture organisation was the assemblage of a list of big names.