Louis B. Mayer
Mayer in 1953
Born	Lazar Meir July 12, 1884(1884-07-12) Minsk, Russian Empire
Died	October 29, 1957(1957-10-29) (aged 73) Los Angeles, California
Occupation	Film producer Studio executive
Years active	1915–1950
Spouse	Margaret Shenberg (m.1904-1947; divorced) Lorena Danker (m.1948-1957; his death)

Louis Burt Mayer (July 12, 1884^[1] – October 29, 1957) born Lazar Meir (Russian: Лазарь Меир) was an American film producer. He is generally cited as the creator of the "star system" within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in its golden years. Known always as Louis B. Mayer and often simply as "L.B.", he believed in wholesome entertainment and went to great lengths so that MGM had "more stars than there are in the heavens".

Early life[link]

He was born Lazar Meir, possibly on July 12, 1884, to a Jewish family in Minsk, Russian Empire.^[1][2] His parents were Jacob Meir and Sarah Meltzer and he had two sisters—Yetta, born in 1878, and Ida, born in 1883. Mayer first moved with his family to Rhode Island, where they lived from 1887 to 1892 and where his two brothers were born—Rubin, in April 1888,^[3] and Jeremiah, in April 1891.^[4] Then, they moved to Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada and Mayer attended school there. He and his brothers often faced anti-Semitic bullies and Mayer was constantly involved in fights.^[5] His father started a scrap metal business, J. Mayer & Son. In 1904, the 19-year-old Mayer left Saint John for Boston, where he continued for a time in the scrap metal business, married, and took a variety of odd jobs to support his family when his junk business lagged.

Early career[link]

Mayer renovated the Gem Theater, a rundown, 600 seat burlesque house in Haverhill, Massachusetts,^[6] which he reopened on November 28, 1907 as the Orpheum, his first movie theater. To overcome the unfavorable reputation that the building once had in the community, Mayer decided to debut with the showing of a religious film. Years later, Mayer would say that the premiere at the Orpheum was From the Manger to the Cross,^[7] although most sources place the release date of that film as 1912.^[8] Within a few years, he owned all five of Haverhill's theaters, and, with Nathan H. Gordon, created the Gordon-Mayer partnership that controlled the largest theater chain in New England.^[9]

In 1914, the partners organized their own film distribution agency in Boston. Mayer paid D.W. Griffith $25,000 for the exclusive rights to show The Birth of a Nation (1915) in New England. Although Mayer made the bid on a film that one of his scouts had seen, but he had not, his decision netted him over $100,000.^[10] Mayer partnered with Richard A. Rowland in 1916 to create Metro Pictures Corporation, a talent booking agency, in New York City.

Two years later, Mayer moved to Los Angeles and formed his own production company, Louis B. Mayer Pictures Corporation. The first production was 1918's Virtuous Wives.^[11] A partnership was set up with B. P. Schulberg to make the Mayer-Schulberg Studio. Mayer's big breakthrough, however, was in April 1924 when Marcus Loew, owner of the Loew's chain, merged Metro Pictures, Samuel Goldwyn's Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, and Mayer Pictures into Metro-Goldwyn. Loew had bought Metro and Goldwyn some months before, but could not find anyone to oversee his new holdings on the West Coast. Mayer, with his proven success as a producer, was an obvious choice. He was named head of studio operations and a Loew's vice president, based in Los Angeles, reporting to Loew's longtime right-hand man Nicholas Schenck. He would hold this post for the next 27 years. Before the year was out, Mayer added his name to the studio with Loew's blessing, renaming it Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Loew died in 1927, and Schenck became president of Loew's. Mayer and Schenck hated each other intensely; Mayer reportedly referred to his boss, whose name was pronounced "Skenk," as "Mr. Skunk" in private.^[12] Two years later, Schenck agreed to sell Loew's — and MGM — to William Fox. Mayer was outraged; despite his important role in MGM, he was not a shareholder. Mayer used his Washington connections to persuade the Justice Department to delay the merger on antitrust grounds. During the summer of 1929, Fox was severely injured in an auto accident. By the time he recovered, the stock market crash had wiped out his fortune, destroying any chance of the deal going through even if the Justice Department had lifted its objections. Nonetheless, Schenck believed Mayer had cost him a fortune and never forgave him, causing an already frigid relationship to get even worse.

MGM boss[link]

With Joan Crawford at the premiere of Torch Song (1953)

As a studio boss, Louis B. Mayer built MGM into the most financially successful motion picture studio in the world and the only one to pay dividends throughout the Great Depression of the 1930s. Although he initially got along well with production chief Irving Thalberg, their relationship soon frayed over philosophical differences. Thalberg preferred literary works over the crowd-pleasers Mayer wanted. He ousted Thalberg as production chief in 1932 while Thalberg was recovering from a heart attack and replaced him with independent producers, e.g. David Selznick, until Thalberg's death in 1936, when Mayer became head of production as well as studio chief. He became the first person in American history to earn a million-dollar salary. For nine years from 1937, when he earned $1,300,000—equivalent to $21,016,667 today^[13]—Mayer was the highest-paid man in the United States.^[14]

Under Mayer, MGM produced many successful films with high earning stars, including Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Lon Chaney, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, Judy Garland and many others. Mayer was ruthless when negotiating to keep his actors' salaries low, even using blackmail to pay Gable below his worth,^[15] although Katharine Hepburn referred to him as a "nice man" and claimed she personally negotiated many of her contracts with Mayer. Elizabeth Taylor described Mayer as a monster,^[16] but other actors, such as Robert Taylor,^[15] Jane Powell,^[17] Greer Garson,^[18] and Hedy Lamarr,^[19] viewed him as a father figure.

Later years and fall from power[link]

By 1948, due to the introduction of television and changing public tastes, MGM suffered a considerable dropoff in its success. The glory days of MGM as well as other studios were also over because of United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. (1948), a Supreme Court decision that severed the connection between film studios and the movie theater chains that showed their films (though it would be another six years before Loew's sold majority control of MGM).

Under orders to control costs and hire "a new Thalberg," Mayer hired writer and producer Dore Schary as production chief. Schary, who was 20 years Mayer's junior, preferred message pictures in contrast with Mayer's taste for "wholesome" films.

By 1951, MGM had gone three years without a major Academy Award, which provoked further conflict between Mayer and Schenck. Believing that Mayer could not turn the tide, Schenck fired Mayer from the post he had held for 27 years, replacing him with Schary. The firing reportedly came after Mayer called New York and issued an ultimatum--"It's him or me" (or "It's either me or Schary", depending on the source). Mayer tried to stage a boardroom coup but failed and largely retired from public life.

Personal life[link]

Mayer had two daughters from his first marriage to Margaret Shenberg. The eldest, Edith (Edie) Mayer (b. August 14, 1905 - d.1987), whom he would later become estranged from and disinherit, married producer William Goetz (who became president of Universal Pictures). The younger daughter, Irene Gladys Mayer (1907–1990), married producer David O. Selznick.

Mayer lived on Saint Cloud Road in the East Gate Bel Air section of Los Angeles, California.^[20]

Active in Republican Party politics, Mayer served as the vice chairman of the California Republican Party from 1931 to 1932, and as its state chairman between 1932 and 1933.

As a delegate to the 1928 Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Louis B. Mayer supported Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California. Mayer became friends with Joseph R. Knowland, Marshall Hale, and James Rolph, Jr. Joseph Schenck was an alternate delegate at the convention. L.B. was a delegate to the 1932 Republican National Convention with fellow California Republicans Joseph R. Knowland, James Rolph, Jr. and Earl Warren. Mayer endorsed the second term of President Herbert Hoover.

Mayer also loved boats and racehorses, and owned a number of each.

Thoroughbred horse racing hobby[link]

Mayer owned or bred a number of successful thoroughbred racehorses at his 504-acre (2.0 km²) ranch in Perris, California, 72 miles (116 km) east of Los Angeles.

In the 2005 biography, Lion of Hollywood, author Scott Eyman wrote that: "Mayer built one of the finest racing stables in the United States" and that he "almost single-handedly raised the standards of the California racing business to a point where the Eastern thoroughbred establishment had to pay attention." Among his horses was Your Host, sire of Kelso, the 1945 U.S. Horse of the Year, Busher, and the 1959 Preakness Stakes winner, Royal Orbit. Eventually Mayer sold off the stable, partly to finance his divorce in 1947. His 248 horses brought more than $4.4 million. In 1976, Thoroughbred of California magazine named him "California Breeder of the Century".

Death and legacy[link]

Louis B. Mayer died of leukemia on October 29, 1957.^[21] He was interred in the Home of Peace Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California. His sister, Ida Mayer Cummings, and brothers Jerry and Rubin are also interred there.

• The primary screening facility for Loyola Marymount University's School of Film and Television—the Mayer Theatre—is named after him. Mayer permitted the university's sports teams to use the MGM lion as their mascot.^[22]
• The main theatre at Santa Clara University bears his name.
• Mayer was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1990.
• A street in Laval, Quebec a suburb of Montreal, Quebec holds the name of Louis-B-Mayer.
• The Louis B. Mayer Research Laboratories building at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute opened in 1988.
• Former MGM Studio Lot in Culver City, is now Sony Pictures Studios.

Mayer has been portrayed numerous times in film and television including:

• Mommie Dearest (by Howard Da Silva)
• RKO 281 (by David Suchet)
• De-Lovely (by Peter Polycarpou)
• The Aviator (by Stanley DeSantis)
• The Last Tycoon (by Robert Mitchum)
• Barton Fink (by Michael Lerner as Jack Lipnick)
• Hollywoodland
• Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (by Al Waxman)
• Cats Don't Dance (by George Kennedy as the voice of L.B. Mammoth)
• Harlow (by Jack Kruschen)
• Gable and Lombard (by Allen Garfield)
• The Big Knife
• The Scarlet O'Hara War (by Harold Gould)
• The Three Stooges(2000) (by David Baldwin)

Jacqueline Susann portrayed Mayer in Valley of the Dolls as Cyril H. Bean, referred to by his employees as "The Head".

Mayer has a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.^[23]

See also[link]

• Other Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood
• Selig Polyscope Company

Notes and References[link]

Bibliographic References[link]

• Eyman, Scott, Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer (Simon & Schuster, 2005) ISBN 0-7432-0481-6
• Charles Highman, Louis B. Mayer MGM and the Secret Hollywood (Pan Books, 1993) ISBN 0-330 333143
• Gabler, Neal (1988). An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. Crown. ISBN 0385265573. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Louis B. Mayer

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Louis B. Mayer

• Time Magazine, LOUIS B. MAYER: Lion Of Hollywood
• Louis B. Mayer at the Internet Movie Database
• Louis B. Mayer at Find a Grave

Scott Eyman (born March 2, 1951) is an American author and book editor of the Palm Beach Post and contributor for The New York Observer. His books specialize in the Golden Age of Hollywood. He is the author of Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille, (2010), Louis B. Mayer: Lion of Hollywood (Simon and Schuster, 2005), Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford (2001), Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise (2000), and The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930 (1997).

Robert Wagner's autobiography, Pieces of My Heart: A Life, written with Eyman, was published on 23 September 2008.

External links[link]

• Articles for The New York Observer
• Book review: 'Empire of Dreams' by Scott Eyman, Los Angeles Times, August 25, 2010
• Review of "Empire of Dreams," Scott Eyman's biography of Cecil B. DeMille, The Washington Post, October 24, 2010
• Scott Eyman at the Internet Movie Database
• Biography, Scott Eyman website

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2008)

Suzanne DeLee Flanders Larson (known professionally as Susanna Foster) (December 6, 1924^[1] – January 17, 2009^[2]) was an American film actress best known for her leading role as Christine in the 1943 film version of The Phantom of the Opera.

Early life[link]

Foster was born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota.^[3] She was taken to Hollywood at the age of twelve by MGM, who sent her to school and groomed her for an acting and singing career. Two of her classmates at this school were Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. She claimed the high point of being at MGM was meeting her idol Jeanette MacDonald and Clark Gable, who treated her like "the Queen of England."^[4] Foster was originally slated to star in the MGM production of B Above High C, a film that was never made. The movie's title referred to the top of her vocal register.^[5] MGM offered her the lead in National Velvet, which she declined because there "wasn't any singing in it".^{[citation needed]} This in part, led to MGM dropping her. It later would become Elizabeth Taylor's breakthrough role.

Career[link]

After hiring agent Milo Marchetti, Foster was signed by Paramount Pictures where she began to study voice for the first time with Marchetti's sister Gilda. She soon would go on to make her first film at fourteen years of age where she was introduced as 'Susanna Foster' in The Great Victor Herbert (1939) opposite Mary Martin and Allan Jones.^[5]

After seeing Foster in The Great Victor Herbert, William Randolph Hearst flew her to his 67,000-acre (270 km²) estate Wyntoon for a private recital for him and Marion Davies. The following year for Paramount she appeared in There's Magic in Music opposite Allan Jones and Glamour Boy opposite Jackie Cooper. She then signed with Universal Studios, where she portrayed the ingénue in the 1943 film version of the Gothic melodrama Phantom of the Opera opposite Nelson Eddy and Claude Rains. The film garnered two Academy Awards and was Universal's biggest money-maker that year. Hearst columnist Louella Parsons, who had the power and reputation to make or break stars, stated, “Susanna Foster establishes herself as one of the great stars of today.” She became so popular the studio set her on a meteoric rise with back-to-back pictures during the years 1943 to 1945, including Star Spangled Rhythm, Top Man, This Is the Life, The Climax, Bowery to Broadway, Frisco Sal, and That Night With You.

Despite the meteoric rise that delivered a wondrous prosperity to her poverty-stricken family and a dozen movies for Universal and Paramount on her resume, she abruptly quit the film business in 1945. She also turned down a joint concert tour with Nelson Eddy, which she later regretted.^[4]

She soon would attempt to rescue her two younger teenage sisters by selling her mink coat and renting the home of actress Jean Arthur, who was living in Monterey, California at the time. Desperate to hold onto its star, Universal sought to make her dream of grand opera come true, financing a six-month tour of a post war Europe in 1946 with Dusolina Giannini.

On her return from Europe, she was pressed by Universal to appear as guest soloist for the White House Press Photographer’s Ball with President Harry Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt in attendance. After the performance, Truman and Roosevelt praised Foster with their turn at the microphone. She shared the table with Roosevelt, Truman, and his daughter Margaret. With Margaret being only ten months Foster’s senior and an aspiring singer herself, she was thrilled to meet the musical guest.

Back in New York, she accepted the lead role in the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera’s production of Naughty Marietta headed by Rodgers and Hammerstein associate Edwin Lester. In 1948 she married her leading man Wilbur "Wib" Evans, a renowned baritone 20 years her senior.^[6] The couple performed in operettas and stage musicals, touring extensively. After a debilitating and tragic miscarriage, their first son Michael was born 8 weeks premature in December 1950.

Evans was soon chosen as Mary Martin’s co-star in London’s South Pacific,^[7] the show that gave Sean Connery his start as a dancing and singing sailor.^[8] During the London engagement is when their second son was born, brought into the world by Queen Elizabeth’s doctor, John Peel, who also attended in the births of others to the Royal family, including Prince Charles and Princess Anne. Philip was named in honor of the Queen’s husband Prince Philip.^[9]

Later life[link]

Foster did make several attempts at a comeback. In 1962, Arthur Lubin, the director of her hit film Phantom of the Opera offered her several spots on TV shows at the time including Mr. Ed of which he was producing. One of the stipulations was that she would have to relocate to Los Angeles with her two boys. Evans reportedly became enraged, immediately taking Foster to court suing for custody of the two boys. It was a public fight with articles in many of the New York and Philadelphia papers, with one headline declaring "Wilbur Evans Calls Ex-Wife Beatnik."

Evans lost the custody suit but was successful in keeping his ex-wife from living further than "100 miles of Columbus Circle" in New York City. Ironically, Evans would soon withhold payments for rent, alimony and child support, disappearing from the lives of his two boys. Soon, Foster and her two boys Michael and Philip were evicted and lived for a time in several hotels on the upper west side of Manhattan. Foster found work as a receptionist for several Wall Street firms and an answering service operator. She would often work 80 hours a week trying to make a home for her two boys. For the bulk of this time they lived in a small one bedroom apartment on West 82nd street in New York City. This was when the boys became "latchkey kids" and "things went terribly down hill from there" as Foster would later tell a reporter.

In 1985 Philip lapsed into hepatic coma (liver failure) on Foster's living room floor and died three days later in the Van Nuys Hospital. Her surviving son, Michael, brought her back to the East Coast, where she spent the last five years of her life living at the Lillian Booth Actors Home.^[4]

Death[link]

Susanna Foster died unexpectedly at 5:30 a.m. EST on January 17, 2009(2009-01-17) (aged 84). She had been residing at The Lillian Booth Actor's Home in Englewood, New Jersey since 2003.^[2]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Susanna Foster at the Internet Movie Database
• The Susanna Foster Chronicles, the story of Susanna Foster and her family as blogged by her son Michael David Evans
• Susanna Foster at the CinéArtistes (French)
• Susanna Foster at Find a Grave

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James Sayers (or Sayer) (1748 - April 20, 1823) was an English caricaturist.

He was born at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, the son of a merchant captain. He began as clerk in an attorney's office, and was for a time a member of the borough council. In 1780 his father's death provided him with a small fortune, and he went to London. As a political caricaturist he supported William Pitt the Younger. His plate of "Carlo Khan's triumphal entry into Leadenhall Street" was admitted by Charles James Fox, against whom it was directed, to have damaged his public image. Sayer was always at his best when attacking Fox, whose strong features he portrayed with remarkable power, always so as to make them convey expressions of defiant impudence or anger. Pitt, not known as a patron of the arts, provided Sayer with a place as marshal of the Exchequer court. He died in Curzon Street, Mayfair.

Sayer's "Carlo Khan" has been frequently reproduced. But he can only be judged with confidence after examining the collection in the British Museum, or other public libraries. His drawings, made originally with pencil on oil paper, were etched for him by the Brethertons. They were then sold in collections of the size of a large octavo copybook, under such titles as Illustrious Heads (1794) or Outlines of the Opposition (1795). Sayer left a complete gallery of small full-length pictures of the public men of his time, slightly caricatured. In his large plates he is inferior to James Gillray, and he never has the grace of Thomas Rowlandson, but he was closer to the truth than either.

References[link]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Doug McGrath, born in Nova Scotia, Canada on Aug 21,1939 is a Canadian actor whose most notable role was of "Peter" in the acclaimed Canadian film Goin' Down the Road and its sequel Down the Road Again. He also played in acclaimed Canadian films Wedding in White, The Hard Part Begins and Black Christmas. He also had a supporting role as a gym teacher in Porky's. He has a starring role in "Goin Down the Road Again", directed by Don Shebib. Principal shooting ending in October 2010.

McGrath spent a significant amount of time acting in the U.S. and appeared in films alongside Clint Eastwood, such as The Gauntlet, Pale Rider and The Outlaw Josie Wales.

External links[link]

• Doug McGrath at the Internet Movie Database
• 'Down the Road Again' with actor Doug McGrath