Born Lazar Mayer sometime between 1880-1886 (his actual birth date is unknown), he overcame a particularly brutal poverty-stricken childhood at the hands of his near-illiterate father, who moved his family to Eastern Canada to avoid Jewish persecution. The only regular trade his father undertook was as a scrap metal dealer, a highly sanitized term for scrounging bits of metal and participating in the rare windfall of stripping a shipwreck. Lazar would grow up with few fond memories of his childhood, other than an idealized vision of his mother. He was short, built like a tank and had a quick, perceptive mind. Few, if any, studio moguls suffered as much as Mayer growing up as he literally had to scratch and claw out a meager living using his wits. He moved to Boston in 1904 and became enthralled with the theatrical business; he diligently saved enough money for his theater, a burlesque house and soon afterward was alternating live shows with the latest rage, motion pictures. He courted and married Margaret Shenberg in 1904; the union would produce 2 daughters and last 43 years. Mayer slowly moved up into the ranks of the middle class and struck gold with The Birth of a Nation (1915), which he was able to acquire on a states rights basis. He came to realize the future was in film production and, alarmed at the strong arm tactics of the Edison Trust, moved his family west to Hollywoodland. Fortune smiled on Mayer when he was able to hire the disgruntled ex-Universal Pictures boy-genius, Irving Thalberg as his production manager and the two men set about creating a small but profitable venture called Louis B. Mayer Productions. Mayer was always conscious about his image, even in the early days when he was an unknown, gave himself a patriotic birth date (July 4, 1885) and added a fictitious initial (and later turning it into a middle name) to his biography. His east Los Angeles specialized in low-budget turgid melodramas that were sold off to the hundreds of film exchanges around the country. Mayer was the macro-manager and Thalberg immersed himself with the minute details of film production; this relationship would remain unchanged for nearly 20 years, although their personal relationship would morph dramatically. In 1924 Mayer was approached by the legal representative of Loew's Inc., a burgeoning theatrical empire headed by Marcus Loew. The mogul was desperate for someone competent to helm his newly and uncomfortably merged film production operations, Metro Pictures and Samuel Goldwyn Pictures. Loew's vision was to supply his huge theater chain with a steady supply of quality films, but these individual companies had previously entered into two projects, Greed (1924) and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) that had the potential to sink his dream. After some heated negotiations regarding Thalberg's position (incredibly, Loew didn't initially want him) and profit participation, a deal was cut. Louis B. Mayer's company was rolled into the Goldwyn facility, which was then state-of-the-art. Mayer and Thalberg worked furiously to assess strengths and weaknesses, hiring and firing stars and unproductive staff and simultaneously tackling the problem productions. Thalberg reigned in Erich von Stroheim's unmarketable nightmare that was still underway in the torturous Death Valley Desert. He ordered severe edits - some said butchered - and gave it a truncated release. For the Italian-based production of "Ben Hur," they fired the director, scrapped the existing Italian footage and ultimately opted to bring the production back to Los Angeles at tremendous expense. Although it attracted huge crowds, an unfavorable contract with the stage producers and weighed down by a staggering negative cost, prevented profitability. They put the best face on these "prestige" pictures and vowed to allow anything like this to happen again (although their Trader Horn (1931) would have several similar issues). With Marcus Loew's deep pockets, these early nightmares were brushed aside and Metro-Goldwyn Pictures (Mayer's name would soon be added) would rapidly surpass Universal Pictures as the world's premier studio. Its first truly home-grown monster hit, The Big Parade (1925) grossed $15 million on a $250,000 investment, becoming the studio's most profitable production for the next 14 years. Mayer faced his first real test of power when Marcus Loew unexpectedly died in 1926. His hand-picked replacement was Nicholas Schenck and it wasn't an ideal relationship. In the fall of 1927, the studio capitalized on the domestic demise of Pathe and entered into a deal with independent producer Hal Roach to distribute his popular ("Our Gang," "Laurel & Hardy" shorts and occasional features); this deal would remain in effect until Mayer became alarmed at Roach's dealings with Benito Mussolini in 1937 (Mayer would eventually buy the "Our Gang" series from Roach in 1938 where it would continue with ever-decreasing returns into 1944). MGM was very slow to adapt to talkies, probably in consideration of parent Loew's monumental task of converting it's theaters to sound, along with the early technical battle between competing sound-on-film and the unwieldy sound-on-disc formats. Thalberg crafted a system of producing crowd-pleasing films around the teaming of a trio of popular stars, with Jean Harlow, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer (Thalberg's wife), or Myrna Loy competing for the interchangeable affections of Clark Gable, William Powell, Robert Montgomery &/or Spencer Tracy (substitute Franchot Tone, James Stewart, Cary Grant a little later on) with occasional galaxy productions like Grand Hotel (1932) and Dinner at Eight (1933) that became remarkable hits. The rift between Mayer and Thalberg occurred in 1934 after Schenck awarded Thalberg a particularly large incentive bonus to remain with MGM after suffering a heart attack. Mayer was insulted over both the amount and the fact that he, as Thalberg's ostensible superior, wasn't consulted. After a year's recuperation in Europe, Thalberg returned to the studio only to find that Mayer had revamped the various production units, diminishing his power and to some degree, authority. In the reduced capacity of a unit production manager, Thalberg still had the ability to green-light productions and continued to score hits. Mayer reveled in his status and enjoyed pulling the strings of his stars' personal lives (he intervened in Van Johnson and Keenan Wynn's marital triangle, detrimentally manipulated Judy Garland's health and personal life and for decades kept Robert Taylor's salary the lowest of any major Hollywood star). He was a master of reading peoples' weaknesses and capitalizing on them while still maintaining a veneer of paternalism. If necessary, he'd beg, threaten, cry and scream as if on cue in order to get his way. Irving Thalberg's 1936 death didn't cause Mayer to miss a step and with his other established unit producers, guided MGM through increased profitability and cunning business moves, culminating with the stunning deal to obtain the distribution rights for Gone with the Wind (1939), which otherwise would've been distributed by United Artists. Demonstrating that his son-in-law's blood wasn't thicker than water, he capitalized on Selznick's desperation not once but twice: formerly for the use of Clark Gable and a relatively minor production loan and in the latter, actual ownership of the film when Selznick fell into dire financial straits after WW2 in shoring up his independent company. While MGM prospered during the war years, it would rapidly become obvious that Mayer fell seriously out of touch with audience post-war tastes. While there are several Depression-era examples of MGM films that deviated from Mayer's traditional values (The Big House (1930), Possessed (1931), The Beast of the City (1932), even the The Thin Man (1934)), he stood defiant against the tide of film nior and so-called "message pictures" in the following decade. Mayer seemed far more comfortable checking off on lavish musicals and dramas promoting women capable of projecting qualities he personally admired (Greer Garson is a classic example) than chasing current cinematic trends. Like the other major studios, MGM could masterfully play out a profitable film series, but it seemed that the studio's inability to generate (or possibly muster the enthusiasm for) replacements for the long-running "Andy Hardy" and "Doctor Gillespie" films coincided with Mayer's refusal to embrace change. He also rejected television outright (admittedly, so did almost every other major studio, with the exceptions of Paramount and Columbia); in retrospect, a serious financial error. By mid-1947 MGM had slipped considerably from it's ranking among the major studios and by the next year would be surpassed by Paramount and Columbia with the men in New York examining Mayer's every move. Mayer found himself confronted with his last great professional challenge in the re-appearance of Dore Schary in 1948; he'd been connected with MGM off and on since the early 1930's but had came and went, disgusted by studio politics. Schary, who had just left RKO in similar disgust over 'Howard Hughes' , was the very antithesis of Louis B. Mayer: he was a college-educated liberal and, most alarmingly, he had the ear of Nick Schenck at a time when MGM was faltering. Schary's affection for "message pictures" sickened Mayer but his nemesis' stock rose considerably with the hit Battleground (1949) which was produced over Mayer's objections (Hughes had previously rejected it for RKO), and being proven wrong never sat well with the aging mogul. In truth, Schary's track record was choppy, but he seemed to remain in Loew's favor despite himself. Schary scored another big hit with The Asphalt Jungle (1950), which was again produced over Mayer's protests. On a personal note, Mayer was divorced and remarried in the 40's and gained considerable notoriety as a stellar horse breeder. By the early summer of 1951, the two men had an impossible relationship that came to a head during the production of The Red Badge of Courage (1951), made over Mayer's earlier veto. Mayer, always hyper-sensitive to any perceived slight, appealed directly to Schenck, who overruled his decision for the final time. Although Mayer was still heavily involved in production details related to the lavish Italian epic, Quo Vadis (1951) (ironically produced at the same Italian studio that Roach had planned to use under the RAM--- "Roach And Mussolini" organization) he found himself in an intolerably weakened position within the MGM-Loew's empire and quit. Ironically, Mayer's instincts were ultimately proven correct; Schary's civil war film, regarded as a minor classic today, bombed badly while the public paid millions to see his Christians thrown to the lions. Although he was a multi-millionaire, Mayer made a miserable retiree. He was wholly unsuited for the "new" Hollywood: independent production, having effectively plotted industry strategy, not the nuts-and-bolts of filmmaking. Mayer spent the next five years dabbling in real estate, granting occasional interviews decrying the modern state of the American movie business and closely observing his vaulted former studio fall into an irreversible decline in the face of television (which he continued to despise) and the Supreme Court's decision to force theater divestment, which eventually devastated his old studio. Mayer contracted leukemia and died in 1956.
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