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AVARICE AMONG THE AVOCADOS 73 patently it entered this life on different dates and in different places. If its origin was not multiple, it was at least polygamous. No infant has had more fathers, each stoutly claiming sole paternity. By casual count this plurality of proud papas totals at least a half-dozen. "Mr. A" dates the birth of the industry in 1914, in an orange grove in Hollywood. "Mr. B" recollected it was in New York in 1912. "Mr. C" goes back to the turn of the century, in Flatbush. All, at one time or another, have nodded politely to such titles as "dean of the industry," "the father of motion pictures," "Mr. Hollywood/' "Mr. Motion Pictures. 9 ' And each, at one point or another, has issued his version of film his- tory containing only passing reference, if any, to any other "founder/* In the DeMille bungalow we had our own version of how it all began at a luncheon in the old Claridge Hotel in New York Supposedly, there were three people there, although occasion- ally a fourth entered these historic proceedings on that summer day in 1913, a young lawyer by die name of Arthur Friend. Friend, it appears, had a tongue for oratory, though his powers of persuasion were being tested that day. He sat at a table ringed with pessimism. Friend talked spiritedly about some- thing called "flickers." The others, however, just were not listening. One was chesty, prematurely bald Cecil DeMille, bit actor and fledgling playwright in his early thirties. Up to then his ambitions had been rudely jostled on Broadway. Another, somewhat less dejected, was Jesse Lasky, ex-cornet player and a moderately successful producer of small-time vaudeville. Lasky had just put a lot of money into an American cabaret version of the famous Folies Berg&re. The unprofitable results gave him conclusive evidence that the era was poor in critical judgment. Most dispirited was Lasky s brother-in-law, Sam Goldfish, later permitted by a Federal court to rechristian himself Sam Goldwyn. He was a glove salesman and was re-