In 1925 he contracted tuberculosis and didn't work for almost a year while he was recuperating. When he was finally well enough to return to work, he found that none of the big studios would hire him, mainly because he had previously clashed with powerful studio heads
Louis B. Mayer of MGM and
Adolph Zukor of Paramount, and he was effectively blackballed. He wound up freelancing for lower-ranked studios like Columbia and Universal and cranking out low-budget action pictures for the independent states-rights market until he got a contract making shorts at Vitaphone.