Louis Burt Mayer

MGM Co-Founder

Created The Idea Of Oscar - Academy Award

"Be smart, but never show it." -- Louis B. Mayer

American movie producer, born Eliezer (Lazar) Mayer on July 4, 1885 in Minsk. Mayer began (1907) as the operator of a small rundown motion picture theater in Haverhill, Massachusetts gradually gaining control of all the theaters in the city. Within a few years he owned the largest theater chain in New England.  In 1916 he moved to Los Angeles and formed his own producing company merging his Louis B. Mayer Corp. with Metro Pictures Corp in 1924. The company mereged again with the with Goldwyn Pictures Corp and was called Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Mayer, one of Hollywood's most powerful film tycoons, was a great judge of talent and popular taste. He helped to develop the star system, and oversaw such productions as Ben Hur (1926), Grand Hotel (1932), the Andy Hardy series, and Ninotchka (1939).  He was the founder of the Acadenmy Awars in 1927.  Mayer  annual salary (plus bonuses) during the depression was over a million dollars, made him the highest paid person in the United States.  Mayer wasa staunch conservative and very active in politics.  He served as the Republican Committee State Chairman in California.   In 1951 he entered into a power struggle with Dore Schary for MGM and was ousted.  Mayer tried to stage a boardroom coup but failed and largely retired from public life. 

Louis B. Mayer died  on October 29, 1957of kidney failure.  He is  interred in the Home of Peace Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. His last words   were, "Nothing matters."

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