Then came Lloyd Manton, her present manager, and the first of a
new type of business man to enter the picture field. Manton was
essentially a promoter. His predecessors had been men carried to
success by the growth of the new art. Old Pop Belman, for
instance, had been a fifth-rate oculist who rented and sold
stereopticons as a side line. With blind luck he had grasped the
possibilities of Edison's new invention. Just before the break-up
of General Film he had become many times a millionaire and it was
then that he had sent a wave of laughter over the entire country
by an actual cable to William Shakespeare, address London, asking
for all screen rights to the plays written by that gentleman.

Manton represented a secondary phase in film finance. Continent
Films, his first corporation, was a stockjobbing concern.
Grasping the immense popularity of Stella Lamar, he had coaxed
her away from the old studio out in Flatbush where all her early
successes had been photographed. With the magic of her name he
sold thousands of shares of stock to a public already fed up on
the stories of the fortunes to be made in moving pictures. When
much of the money so raised had been dissipated, when Continent's
quotation on the curb sank to an infinitesimal fraction, then it
developed that Stella's contract was with Manton personally.
Manton Pictures, Incorporated, was formed to exploit her. The
stock of this company was not offered to outside investors.

Stella's popularity had in no way suffered from the business
methods of her manager. Manton, at the least, had displayed rare
foresight in his estimation of public taste. Except for a few
attempts with established stage favorites, photographed generally
in screen versions of theatrical classics and backed by