Louis B. Mayer

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. Two years later, Schenck agreed to sell Loew's — and MGM — to William Fox, which angered Mayer. But despite his important role in MGM, Mayer was not a shareholder, and had no standing to challenge the sale. So he instead 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. Read Less

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.

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, and Judy Garland. Mayer himself preferred the very successful Andy Hardy films starring Mickey Rooney, observing that "Any good Hardy picture made $500,000 more than Ninotchka made." He was ruthless when negotiating to keep actors' salaries low, even using blackmail to pay Gable below his worth, although Katharine Hepburn referred to Mayer as a "nice man" and claimed she personally negotiated many of her contracts with him. Elizabeth Taylor described Mayer as a monster, but other actors, such as Robert Taylor, Jane Powell, Greer Garson, and Hedy Lamarr, viewed him as a father figure. Read Less