Memorandum of agreement, dated February 5th 1919 between Charles Chaplin and United Artists Corporation. The constitutive act of United Artists was signed on April 17th 1919 by Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, David W. Griffith and Chaplin. The artists invited Oscar Price to be president, who came up with the original idea, and Hiram Abrams, former president of Paramount, as administrator, who remained with United Artists until his death in 1928. For more information, see Robinson and Benjamin B. Hampton, History of the American Film Industry.