Irving Thalberg
Irving Grant Thalberg (
May 30,
1899 â€"
September 14,
1936) was an
American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and his extraordinary ability for selecting the right scripts, choosing the right actors, gathering the best production staff, and making very profitable films out of them.
Thalberg was born in
Brooklyn, New York to
German Jewish immigrant parents. He had a bad heart and was plagued with other ailments all of his life. Upon completing high school, he was employed by Universal Pictures' New York office, where he worked as personal secretary to legendary studio founder
Carl Laemmle, the boss of
Universal Studios. Irving Thalberg was bright and persistent, and by age 21 was executive in charge of production at Universal City, the studio's
California production site.
He quickly established his tenacity as he battled with
Erich von Stroheim over the length of
Foolish Wives (1922), and controlled every aspect of the production of
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923). In 1924, he left Universal for
Louis B. Mayer Productions, which shortly thereafter linked up with
Metro Pictures Corporation to become
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Thalberg is also famous for creating the "unit production management scheme", by which Hollywood productions are split more definitively into "units", thus spreading out the creative control of a film among producers, directors, etc.
The Big Parade (1925), directed by
King Vidor, was Thalberg's first major triumph at MGM. Until 1932, when he suffered a major
heart attack, he supervised every important studio production, and combined careful preproduction groundwork with prerelease sneak previews which measured audience response.
At the time he joined Metro Pictures, Thalberg was dating actress
Norma Shearer whom he married in 1927. He wanted her to be a stay-at-home mother but she insisted she be given better roles and went on to be MGM's biggest star of the 1930s. They had two children,
Irving Jr. (b. 1930) and Katherine (b. 1935).
Upon Thalberg's illness,
Louis B. Mayer, who had come to resent Thalberg's power and success, replaced him with
David O. Selznick and
Walter Wanger. When he returned to work in 1933, it was as one of the studio's unit producers.
Nonetheless, he helped develop some of MGM's most prestigious ventures, including
Grand Hotel (1932),
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935),
China Seas (1935),
A Night at the Opera (1935), with the
Marx Brothers,
San Francisco (1936), and
Romeo and Juliet (1936).
Thalberg died of
pneumonia in
Santa Monica, California at age 37, during the preproduction of
A Day at the Races (1937), with the
Marx Brothers, and
Marie Antoinette (1938), with his wife. He was interred in the
Forest Lawn Cemetery in
Glendale.
The new multi-million dollar Administration Building built on the old MGM Studios in
Culver City (Now
Sony Pictures Studios) was named after him two years later.
His final film,
The Good Earth (1937), is the one and only time his name ever appeared on the screen. It goes: "To the Memory of Irving Grant Thalberg his last greatest achievement we dedicate this picture".
While alive, he refused to let his name appear in any of his films, and was quoted as saying, "Credit you give yourself is not worth having".
The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, presented by the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is named for him.
F. Scott Fitzgerald based the character of Monroe Stahr in
The Last Tycoon on Thalberg. In the film version (1976) he is played by
Robert De Niro.
Sex Feels Good (1938)
*Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937)
A Day at the Races (1937)
*Maytime (1937)
The Good Earth (1937)
*Camille (1936)
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
*Riffraff (1936)
A Night at the Opera (film) (1935)
*Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
China Seas (1935)
*No More Ladies (1935)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935)
*What Every Woman Knows (1934)
The Merry Widow (1934)
*The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
Riptide (1934)
*Veuve joyeuse, La (1934)
Eskimo (1933)
*Bombshell (1933)
Tugboat Annie (1933)
*Strange Interlude (1932)
Rasputin and the Empress (1932)
*Red Dust (1932)
Smilin' Through (1932)
*Red-Headed Woman (1932)
As You Desire Me (1932)
*Letty Lynton (1932)
Grand Hotel (1932)
*Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
Freaks (1932)
*Mata Hari (1931)
Private Lives (1931)
*Possessed (1931)
The Champ (1931/I)
*The Guardsman (1931)
The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)
*Menschen hinter Gittern (1931)
A Free Soul (1931)
*Just a Gigolo (1931)
The Secret Six (1931)
*Trader Horn (1931)
Inspiration (1931)
*A Lady's Morals (1930)
Way for a Sailor (1930)
*Billy the Kid (1930)
Let Us Be Gay (1930)
*The Unholy Three (1930)
The Big House (1930)
*The Rogue Song (1930)
The Divorcee (1930)
*Redemption (1930)
Anna Christie (1930)
*The Kiss (1929)
His Glorious Night (1929)
*Hallelujah (1929)
The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
*The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929)
Where East Is East (1929)
*Voice of the City (1929)
The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929)
*The Broadway Melody (1929)
West of Zanzibar (1928)
*Show People (1928)
White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)
*Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
The Crowd (1928)
*London After Midnight (1927)
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
*Twelve Miles Out (1927)
Flesh and the Devil (1926)
*Valencia (1926)
The Temptress (1926)
*The Road to Mandalay (1926)
Brown of Harvard (1926)
*Boheme, La (1926)
Torrent (1926)
*Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
The Big Parade (1925)
*The Tower of Lies (1925)
The Merry Widow (1925)
*The Unholy Three (1925)
Greed (1924)
*He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
His Hour (1924)
*The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Merry-Go-Round (1923)
*Foolish Wives (1922)
The Trap (1922)
*The Dangerous Little Demon (1922 )
*''
Reputation (1921)
*
Thalberg: Life and Legend by
Bob Thomas (1969)
*
Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of M-G-M by
Roland Flamini (1994)
*
Mayer and Thalberg: The Make-believe Saints by
Samuel Marx (1975)
