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144 IT TOOK NINE TAILORS
ducers discovered that the best way to turn a weak picture into a hit was to put "sin," "sex," or "sinner" in the title. I played a fifty-year-old widower who got rejuvenated (new glands) and courted a girl half his age; but she fell in love with my son, so in the end I settled down to carpet slippers and frustration.
I had just finished Sinners in Silk when Adolph Zukor sent for me and offered me a contract with Paramount. At that time Paramount Pictures and its subsidiaries held a commanding position in the motion-picture business. It owned or controlled production studios in Hollywood and Long Island, several thousand theaters, a world-wide distributing organization, and a list of contract stars that included Gloria Swanson, Thomas Meighan, Valentino, Bebe Daniels, Pola Negri, Agnes Ayres, Richard Dix, Betty Compson, Mae Murray, and Milton Sills. A contract with Paramount was an important step toward becoming a top Hollywood star. I signed with the company at $1,000 a week, with options for two more years up to $3,000.
My first year with Paramount was not entirely a happy one. I had a feeling that the sophisticated character I was playing would soon be passe, so I was impatient to get better parts and better scripts; and I wanted to win the girl occasionally, because the fellow who got the girl usually got the best salary.
But Jesse Lasky, vice-president in charge of production, could not see me as the type that the heroine falls in love with. She could fall in love with the fatherly characters Tommy Meighan played or the bumbling bumpkins portrayed by Charlie Ray or wistful boys like Richard Barthelmess, but not with a slick guy who obviously had dishonorable intentions the moment he looked at her.
But when The Swan was released, the critics disagreed. They said, "Poor Menjou! He is always giving up the girl. Won't somebody find Adolphe a girl of his own? . . . The audience would have liked to shanghai the hero and see Menjou get the girl."
That was all I needed. I demanded a new deal for Menjou. But Zukor refused to see me and Lasky just shook his head to