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THE STAR SYSTEM 87
century, but the screen was so distant from the stage that film producers had not applied this method of audience-attraction to their own business. Movies themselves, as an entertainment within the financial reach of the populace, had been all that was needed to build a large, highly profitable industry, and the exploitation of personalities had never been considered as a means of making more money. "Quality," "merit," and "art" as factors in "box-office appeal" now began to enter into calculations of possible larger revenue.
Griffith's analysis of quality had taken the form of better-written stories, more plausible plots, highly developed emotional elements, better direction of carefully selected players, and improved camera work, but the independent producers acquired more faith in the box-office appeal of individual players than in any assemblage of such abstract elements. Their contact with theater patrons convinced them that audiences liked some actors and actresses more than they did others, and from this observation arose the beginnings of star exploitation on the screen.
Imp, the Mutual producers, Powers and his associates, and other independents had already formed the habit of hiring skilled employes from trust studios, and as it seemed but an extension of this practice to lure some of the most appealing players away from General Film, Imp and Mutual each made experiments by obtaining Biograph or Vitagraph players, with gratifying results. Then one day Carl Laemmle and Cochrane got a hunch that "Litde Mary" could be made into a star, and promptly followed the hunch by offering to double her wages. Her mother accepted the offer, Miss Pickford moved from Biograph to the Imp studio, and movie patrons soon learned that "Mary Pickford" was the name of the actress they had enjoyed so much in Biograph films.
Other independents selected other players and advertised them as stars. Enthusiastic movie patrons — just at this time they began to be called "fans" — now were able to demand pictures of their favorites by name, and audiences immediately displayed keen interest in the stars that pleased them. Before long, the showing of a new film of a popular star meant long lines outside the ticket