Connery's parents were multimillionaire coal mine owners who provided the million dollars. Over the next three years, Hayakawa produced 23 films and had earned $2 million by 1920, with which he was able to pay back the $1 million he had borrowed from Connery. Hayakawa produced, starred in, and contributed to the design, writing, editing, and directing of the films. Critics hailed Hayakawa's understated, Zen-influenced acting style. Hayakawa sought to bring , or the "absence of doing", to his performances, in direct contrast to the then-popular studied poses and broad gestures. In 1918, Hayakawa personally chose the American serials actress Marin Sais to appear opposite him in a series of films, the first being the racial drama The City of Dim Faces (1918), followed by His Birthright (1918), which also starred Aoki. His collaboration with Sais ended with Bonds of Honor (1919). Hayakawa also appeared opposite Jane Novak in The Temple of Dusk (1918) and Aoki in The Dragon Painter (1919). According to Goldsea Hayakawa's fame rivaled that of Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and John Barrymore. Hayakawa drove a gold plated Pierce-Arrow and entertained lavishly in his "Castle", which was known as the scene of some of Hollywood's wildest parties. Shortly before Prohibition took effect in 1920, he bought a large supply of liquor, leading him to joke that he owed his social success to his liquor supply. He took Aoki on a trip to Monaco where he gambled at the Monte Carlo Casino. Hayakawa left Hollywood in 1922; different authors give various explanations such as prevailing anti-Japanese sentiment and business difficulties. Nakagawa focuses on three events in particular: first on the set of The Swamp (1921) his appendix ruptured and while he was at the hospital there was an attempt to usurp his insurance money, second there was a baseless tabloid report that Aoki had attempted suicide, and third Hayakawa believed there was an attempt on his life by the Robertson-Cole Pictures Corporation, (accused of supporting anti-Japanese legislation,) for insurance money by the collapse of an unsafe earthquake sequence on the set of The Vermilion Pencil, leading to his suing the studio. He visited Japan with Aoki for the first time since he had come to the US. He returned soon afterwards, however and played the lead role in Tiger Lily on Broadway in 1923. The next decade and a half saw him also perform in Japan and Europe.