I might marshal a great many adjectives and nouns to Mr. Zukor’s credit, but I feel that I can suggest his fundamental character more skilfully by recalling one incident. Several years after I had met him we were coming home from some entertainment together when we saw a blaze in the locality of the Famous Players’ studio which, unlike our own, was situated in New York. We were soon to discover that it was the studio itself. In it were thousands of dollars’ worth of undeveloped negatives--many of them of Mary Pickford. Their destruction would have meant financial ruin to Mr. Zukor. He himself realised this fully. Yet the only words that he said, the words which he kept repeating all through the crisis, were, “Oh, do you think anybody’s hurt?” _Chapter Three_ MARY PICKFORD It was some months after I first met our competitor that I received my first impression of the most noted screen actress in America. As I walked into Mr. Zukor’s office one evening I noticed a girl talking to him. She was very small and her simple little navy suit contrasted with the jungle of fur coat from which peeped another woman. “They’ve offered me five hundred for the use of my name,” I heard her say, “but do you really think that’s enough? After all, it means a lot to those cold-cream people.” I looked at the lovely profile where every feature rhymes with every other feature. I listened to the lovely light voice. And I was struck by the disparity between sentiment and equipment. Yet somehow she did invest these words of mere commerce with a quality quite apart from their substance. There was something in her tone, something in the big brown eyes, which made you think of a child asking whether it ought to give up its stick of candy for one marble or whether perhaps it could get two. As I saw her slight figure go out the door it was the appeal of her manner rather than the text of her question which made me ask immediately who she was. “What!” Mr. Zukor exclaimed. “Didn’t you recognise her? Why, that was Mary Pickford.” That was just about eight years ago. Miss Pickford was already a star, and she was twinkling under the auspices of Adolph Zukor; for, early in his career of producing, our competitor had been fortunate enough to secure the services of that great pantomime artiste who has undoubtedly contributed more than any other single person to his present eminence.