The Moguls!
Louis B. Mayer |
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….the Boston junk dealer who rose to head
Hollywood’s most prestigious film studio.
Part I
Lazar Mayer was born on an unknown date in an unknown town…but as Louis B. Mayer he became known everywhere in the world where movies were shown. All he remembered about his childhood was the hunger. He later adopted a birthplace and even a birthday but the hunger never left him. When food was no longer a problem he hungered for money, fame and recognition…no matter what the cost. When he died, his eulogy was read by Spencer Tracy to mourners who had come from all over the world….but it was written by others because even a great actor like Tracy couldn’t find the right words.
 Young Louis |
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Sometime after 1885, Jacob and Sarah Mayer joined the exodus of Jews fleeing Russian persecution with their two daughters, Yetta and Ida and a very young Lazar. They left the Ukraine, crossed Austria-Hungary to Warsaw or Berlin and finally made their way to America. First Louis would claim Minsk as his birthplace but later when he applied for American citizenship, he changed that to Dumier in the northern Ukraine (possibly Dumier was closer to the truth). Vagueness about their origins was a form of protection against being sent back to Russia. After a stay in New York where two more sons (Rubin and Gershon) were born, the family migrated to Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. The 1901 Canadian census lists Jacob Mayer’s occupation as “pedler” (sic) and Lazar (now Louis) had a birth date of July 12, 1884 ( on his citizenship application Louis changed that to July 4, 1885).
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 Sarah Mayer |
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While Jacob was collecting other people’s castoffs and selling them door-to-door, he discovered that metal salvage from shipwrecks in the Bay of Fundy was much more lucrative, Soon he had Louis and Jerry (Gershon) helping to gather the salvage even to diving for pieces under the water. There were reports that Jacob wouldn’t let Louis back in the boat until he had something of value to bring up. The boy had a close relationship with his mother but Jacob was hard on his oldest son often beating him for the slightest infraction. Louis grew up with a deep affection for women but was inclined to treat the men around him like children or indentured servants.
 Margaret and the girls |
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At 19 Louis left Saint John for Boston where he started his own salvage business. He also met and married Margaret Shenberg. Their first daughter, Edith was born in 1901 in Boston and a second daughter, Irene was born in 1907 shortly after they moved to Brooklyn, New York. But 1907 proved to be a year of panics and bank failures making any business a struggle so Louis moved his family back to Boston. A friend told him “When you are at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on.” Louis was about to tie that knot when he heard about an old burlesque theater for sale in Haverhill and began to dream bigger dreams.
 Mayer's first theater |
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With financial help from his family and the repair and renovation done mostly by his brothers, Louis turned the “Gem” into “The Orpheum” his first movie theater for “high class films…the home of refined amusement devoted to…moving pictures and illustrated songs.” The first film shown was “The Passion Play”, a story of Christ’s last days, a film Louis was sure would erase the theater’s former bawdy reputation. But he was only getting started. Soon there were six more theaters, all with their own identity….all western or all romance or comedy. The Colonial, built from scratch in 1911, was his masterpiece with a 95-foot lobby done in old rose and green frescoes, a marble staircase and walls covered with pictures of the era’s biggest stars. Over the fireplace Louis hung his favorite painting of a reclining lion!
By 1913 Louis had extended his Louis B. Mayer Company into Pennsylvania and New York. But his success was marred by the death of his beloved mother Sarah in October of that year. Louis was devastated. “Only God was more important to me than her”. Mayer’s daughter always believed that had Sarah lived to share in her son’s success Louis would have been less driven and more open and trusting.
 Scene from "Birth of a Nation" 1915 |
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In 1914, with two partners (George C. Elliott and Charles Howard, Louis founded the American Feature Film Corporation and bought the New England rights to “The Squaw Man” produced by Jesse L. Lasky and Cecil B. De Mille in California (at that time most film companies were operating on the east coast). He later claimed he pawned everything he owned to get them. But it was the rights to D.W.Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation” (1915) that refilled the Mayer coffers.
 Francis X Bushman and Beverly Bayne
in "Romeo and Juliet" 1916 |
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He also joined Richard Rowland and J. Robert Rubin to set up Metro Pictures in New York. It seemed no matter how many pieces Louis cut himself into, every one breathed success. One mark of his good cinema sense was his idea that films would only be as good as the stars who appeared in them and encouraged Rowland and Rubin to sign Francis X. Bushman and Beverly Bayne ( his co-star and mistress) when their options came up at Essanay Studio. It was a stroke of genius at the time but much later Mayer would crush Bushman’s career when the actor decided to leave his wife and 5 children to marry Bayne.
Then, in 1918, Mayer’s eldest daughter Edith caught the Spanish flu that was becoming epidemic around the world. Although she finally recovered, Louis decided to move the family west to a better climate. He sold all his holdings in New England and took Louis B. Mayer Productions to Los Angeles. His nephew, Gerald Mayer, would later say “He made his first success as a theater owner…Then he became a distributor and then he realized that if you made your own product, you were in a better position that someone who didn’t…he was an extremely rational man.”
 at the Mission Street Studio in 1920 |
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Louis rented a small corner of the SeligStudio property on Mission Street with four stages and dressing rooms for several stars, enough room on the back lot for outdoor sets and a eucalyptus grove for outdoor scenes. He also distrusted cars back then and rented a house nearby so he could walk to work.
 with Mildred Harris Chaplin |
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Then he began gathering talent….director Marshall Neilan, innovative director Lois Weber, actress Anita Stewart and former child actress Mildred Harris Chaplin. Her estranged husband Charlie Chaplin blew his top over that and accosted Mayer outside the men’s room at the Alexandria Hotel with “You can’t use my name in your pictures”. “What are you going to do about it?” replied Mayer. Onlooker Robert Rubin reported that then Chaplin lunged at Mayer who stuck out his fist just in time for Charlie to run into it.
 Irving Thalberg |
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Louis added more stars to his films and even took to making all-star movies with Wallace Beery, Anna Q. Nillson, Norma Shearer, Ramon Novarro and Renee Adoree. He also began distributing his films through First National and Metro. In 1923 he hired Irving Thalberg away from Carl Laemmle never realizing that Irving would later become a thorn in his side. At that time the wolf was still at the door but its growl had sweetened a bit.
 Marcus Loew |
 Nicholas Schenck |
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Meanwhile, back in New York, Marcus Loew, head of the Loew’s, Inc. theater chain was eagerly eyeing Sam Goldwyn’s Culver City studio now teetering on extinction. Over its gates rose the imposing lion and the motto Ars Gratia Artis (Art for art’s sake). Marcus and his lieutenant, Nicholas Schenck also purchased Metro and joined it with the Goldwyn acquisition. J. Robert Rubin, the new legal counsel, suggested they make the Mayer company another part of the new combine with Louis B. Mayer in charge of studio operations at Culver City. It was an offer Louis couldn’t refuse.
It was the beginning of an era. No other Hollywood studio could claim to be greater than Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during the thirty-five years the lion roared.
Next issue: Part II….
MGM and the reign of Louis B. Mayer from 1925 to 1940