The First Independent Actor
In 1937 he walked away from a studio contract. What that decision made possible — for him, and for everyone after.
The seven-year contract was the mechanism by which studios owned actors. Grant, at the peak of his early bankability, refused to renew.
Instead, he moved from picture to picture as a freelance — selecting his own scripts, his own directors, and a share of the gross. It was almost unheard of in 1937. Within a generation it was the industry norm.
Every leading actor with script approval today can trace the arrangement back, in part, to a decision made in a Los Angeles lawyer's office ninety years ago.
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