Louis B. Mayer

A self-made man who rose from his apprenticeship at his father's scrap metal business in Canada to become the highest paid corporate executive in the United States, Mayer was not above changing the particulars of his biography. Born in Imperial Russia in Vilna (in what is now Lithuania), Mayer later claimed his birthplace was Minsk (in what is now Belarus), or a village located between the two cities. He changed the year of his birth from 1882 to 1885 (the latter being the date on his tomb), and after being naturalized as an American citizen, he decided that he would celebrate his birthday on the Fourth of July (the exact date of his birth was uncertain, though he knew he had been born in the summer). He added a "B." as his middle initial to give his name more "dignity", and said that it stood for "Burt" or "Burton".

In the early 1890s, he changed his name to Louis and fudged his birth date to reflect the more "patriotic" date of July 4, 1885.

Mayer was born Lazar Meir in the Ukraine and grew up in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada after his parents fled Russian oppression in 1886. He had a brutal childhood, raised in poverty and suffering physical and emotional abuse from his nearly-illiterate peddler father.

Was the father-in-law of producer/studio boss William Goetz (1903-1969), married to Mayer's daughter Edith (Edith Mayer). As one of the initial investors in Darryl F. Zanuck's fledgling 20th Century Pictures (which would soon merge with ailing Fox), Mayer insisted that his son-in-law be hired so as to get him out of MGM. Goetz served as executive vice president of 20th Century-Fox, heading the studio during Zanuck's leave of absence to serve in the military in 1942. Zanuck, fearful of his underling's ambitions, forced him out of the company upon his return in 1943. Ironically, both Mayer and Zanuck felt that Goetz was decidedly unimaginative and a mediocre film executive. That same year Goetz formed International Pictures, which merged with Universal in 1946. Goetz would go on to become one of the most successful movie moguls in the post-television era.

He moved to Boston in 1904 and struggled as a scrap-metal dealer until he was able to purchase a burlesque house.

Although he made large sums by showing films (he made a sizable fortune off The Birth of a Nation (1915)), his early business ventures favored legitimate theater in New England.

As his theater empire expanded, he had acquired and refurbished enough small movie theaters that he was able to move his business to Los Angeles and venture into movie production in 1918. Along with Samuel Goldwyn and Marcus Loew of Metro Pictures, he formed a new company called Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). Over the next 25 years, MGM was "the Tiffany of the studios," producing more films and movie stars than any other studio in the world. Mayer became the prime creator of the enduring Hollywood of myth, home to stars like Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, and Jean Harlow. Mayer became the highest-paid man in America, one of the country's most successful horse breeders, a political force and Hollywood's leading spokesman.

Production executive for John M. Stahl Productions, formed in 1921, in 1922.

During his career at MGM, Mayer only answered to two men: Marcus Loew--who died on September 25, 1927--and his replacement at MGM parent Loew's Inc., Nicholas Schenck. It was an uncomfortable relationship for both men. Schenck inherently understood Mayer's value as a the head of MGM but resented his price. The two men would fight bitterly over the years over business matters, with Schenck repeatedly planting spies (including E.J. Mannix who soon became a Mayer loyalist) to monitor Mayer's business dealings.

Was highest paid American business executive throughout the 1930s.

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

Salary as head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1937, $1,300,000.

Both he and MGM reached their peaks at the end of World War II, and Mayer was forced out in 1951.

Last words (spoken to Howard Strickling on October 28, 1957): "Nothing matters! Don't let them worry you. Nothing matters!" L.B. was hallucinating under a morphine drip.

He was posthumously awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1637 Vine Street in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.

Mayer, according to Peter Hays' 1991 book "When the Lion Roars", idealized his mother. He was her favorite son, and she was the main influence on his life. She died in 1913, and Mayer kept a picture of her over his bed the rest of his life. With his mother an icon in his eyes, Mayer revered the concept of motherhood. When director Erich von Stroheim expressed the opinion to Mayer that all women were whores, Mayer asked him if he thought of his own mother that way, and then punched him in the face. Mayer told screenwriter Frances Marion, at their first meeting, that she should never write anything that would embarrass Mayer's own wife and two daughters. He told her, "I worship good women, honorable men and saintly mothers.".