Douglas Fairbanks

Few people have influenced Hollywood history thanDouglas Fairbanks. And who better than his niece and Fairbanks familyhistorian, Letitia, to relate that story? On-screen and offscreen, he was aforce of nature, progressing in easy leaps and bounds from the Broadwaystage to silent movies when feature-length film was just a few years old.His happy, healthy characters and acrobatic acting style brought a newenergy to the medium. But it was through his extraordinary success as aproducer that Fairbanks achieved the goal of all creative people: to runhis own show. This he did by co-founding United Artists in 1919 with hissoon-to-be wife Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, and D. W. Griffith. Asa producer, he showed visionary taste, collaborating with his directorsand designers to enact gallant tales in spectacular settings. Whether heplayed a young man on the go or a swashbuckling hero in a fairy-taleland, Fairbanks—one of the thirty-six founders of the Academy of MotionPicture Arts and Sciences—put America’s hopes and dreams on film. Thisupdated version of the original 1953 biography has been expanded bythe Fairbanks family with archival materials as well as never-before-seenphotographs from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,Margaret Herrick Library.