Back in high school, I had to write a biography on a famous person for the English class. So I picked Louis Burt Mayer, one of the most famous movie producers ever in the history of film. He was one of the most powerful men in Hollywood back then. I enjoyed writing this biography on him, and a character based on him was featured in a recent film, The Aviator. He may not be a familiar face to most people, but he is a familiar face to me because of his powerful influence on the film industry.
By Paul Moreau
Louis Burt Mayer was born on July 4, 1885 in Minsk, Russian Empire that is known as Belorus today. His birth name was Ezemiel Mayer instead of Louis Burt Mayer. Louis Mayer was approximately a couple years old when his family emigrated from Minsk to Canada. They settled in Portland, which is in New Brunswick renting a shabby tenement. “He absolutely adored his mother, but he didn’t have a lot of warmth for his father. The relationship with his mother was the most interesting. The rest of his life, the sentimental way of looking at women came through.”[1]
He had two spouses, he was married to Margaret Shenberg on June 14, 1904 till 1944 when he divorced. Louis and her had two children. He remarried to a woman named, Lorena L. Danker on December 4, 1948 until October 29, 1957 when he died. They had no children..
In reference to the first sentence, Mayer actually wasn’t certain about the exact birth date, but he did know that he was born in the summer, so he picked the Fourth of July as his birthday. He started out as a scrap metal dealer inspired by his father. But the business belly-flopped big time after moving to Boston leaving the family behind in New Brunswick.
After the business failed miserably, he purchased a 600-seat theater called, “The Gem” which was in the Boston suburb of Haverhill in 1907.[2] The theatre was renamed “The Orpheum.” Louis Mayer made a promise that only “high-class films” would be shown at the theatre. After “The Orpheum” theatre became a success, Mayer made the decision to expand into film distribution; he started it by opening the Louis B. Mayer Film Company.[3] In the year of 1913, Louis Mayer got involved with an arrangement with Jesse Lasky, who was a movie producer in California, and some of the other film producers. Then a couple years after the arrangement, Mayer and several partners formed the Metro Pictures Corporation.[4] Some of the first films they received for distribution were “Birth of a Nation” (1915) which was a classic of D.W. Griffith’s.
After “Birth of a Nation” became an enormous financial success, Louis Mayer went on to form a series of distribution companies such as Master Photoplays, Serial Producing Company, and American Feature Film Company.[5] In 1918, Louis formed another company called, “Louis B. Mayer Pictures” and lured the actress Anita Stewart away from Vitagraph to Los Angeles. “Virtuous Wives” became the first production of his, which starred the actress he lured, Anita Stewart and Hedda Hopper. The movie was another successful film. “I will only make pictures that I won’t be ashamed to have my children see, “ Mayer said.[6]
While in the progress of building the studios, Mayer managed to hire Irving Thalberg who once worked at Universal Studios and give him the position of Vice-President and Production Assistant in the year of 1923. Joseph Godsol, president of the Goldwyn Company signed a deal with Mayer to merge their studios into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. That name of the studios, “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer” is still around as we speak. But they don’t make the movies like they used to with the themes of honour, fidelity, decency, and virtue.[7] The epic “Ben-Hur” (1925) with Ramon Novarro and Francis X. Bushman in it was one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s first big productions which also were partially filmed in Italy.[8] Unlikely today, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer released an average of one movie per week. Louis Mayer went on to become the first business executive in the country to make over a million dollars per year. It stayed that way for a long time till after 1944.
His business partner, Thalberg felt that he was entitled to an equal share. But the problem was that Mayer started to resent the opinion that Thalberg was the real brain behind the success of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It led to an angry Thalberg threatening to leave the business, but that conflict between Mayer and Thalberg ended in 1936 when Thalberg died of pneumonia. One of the leading men at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, John Gilbert made some disparaging remarks about women in general, and mothers were included in his description. Louis Mayer took the liberty of beating the daylight out of him!
Some of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s big stars were Joan Crawford, Elizabeth Taylor, Judy Garland, the Marx Brothers, Mickey Rooney, and many other stars during his 27-year tenure. It was known that Mayer ruled over Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a big family with Mayer in the role of the paternalistic authority who rewards loyalty, obedience, punishing insubordination and regarding opposition as person betrayal.[9]
When they were approaching so closely to the 1950s, the golden years for the studio moguls were put to an end. It was due to the government forcing the film industry to divest its theater chains with top stars and directors demanding a share of the profits, which Mayer had always denied them.[10] The finances became to slump very badly, and Dore Schary, head of production at RKO Studios was hired to replace Thalberg. After he returned to the studios lot, things started to get off the ground and do better. After these situations, Louis Mayer had a good chance of being forced out by Nick Schenck, the head of Loew’s, Inc because they had control over Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1951, Mayer finally submitted his resignation due to Schenck choosing Schary over Mayer. But when Schenck retired in 1955, Mayer tried to convince the major Loew’s stockholders to let him take control of the studio again, but he got rejected a few weeks before his death in 1957 in the city of Los Angles.[11] It was due to complications of leukemia.
If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t have the Oscars, because he happened to be one of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.[12] In 1950, Mayer received a special Academy Award under the title of, “For Distinguished Service to the Motion Picture Industry.” Jeanette MacDonald sang the song called, “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life” at Mayer’s funeral. Samuel Goldwyn, the founder and former head of the Goldwyn Company kept on saying “The Reason why so many people showed up at his funeral was because they wanted to make sure he was dead.”
Bibliographies
“Hollywood Remains to be Seen” Cemetery Guide
Available: http://cemeteryguide.com/mayer.html
This website provided detailed information and background on the life of Louis Mayer. There were a lot of detailed information associated with his businesses.
“Louis B. Mayer, Movie-Maker from Saint John” Theatre: Heritage Resources Saint John
Available: http://www.saintjohn.nbcc.nb.ca/~Heritage/Theatre/LouisMayer.htm
This website provided the basic background and information of Louis Mayer. A very short biography.
“Biography for Louis B. Mayer” IMDb
Available: http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Mayer,+Louis+B.
This provided some facts and detailed information on the life of Louis Mayer.
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