Irving Grant Thalberg (May
30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an Academy Award-winning American
film producer during the early years of motion
pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and
his extraordinary ability to select the right scripts, choose the
right actors, gather the best production staff, and make very
profitable films.
Biography
Thalberg
was born in Brooklyn, New
York
, to German Jewish immigrant parents. He had a bad heart
and was plagued with other ailments all 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.
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 MGM studio production, and combined careful
pre-production 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. She considered early
retirement after having her second child with Thalberg, but he was
convinced he could continue to find good roles for her and
encouraged her to continue acting. She went on to be MGM's biggest
star of the 1930s. Their two children were
Irving Jr. (1930 – 1988) and Katherine
(1935 – 2006).
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, albeit one who
had first choice on projects and MGM resources, including its
stars, due to his closeness to
Nicholas
Schenck, who was then president of MGM corporate parent Loew's
Inc. Schenck, who was the true power and ultimate arbiter at the
studio, usually backed up Thalberg. As a result, 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).
Death
Thalberg
died of pneumonia at age 37 in Santa Monica,
California
. At the time of his death, he was working on
the preproduction of
A Day
at the Races (1937) and
Marie Antoinette
(1938).
Thalberg is buried in a private marble tomb in the Great Mausoleum
at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, lying at rest
beside his wife Norma Shearer Arrouge (Thalberg's crypt was
engraved, "My Sweetheart Forever" by Shearer).
Legacy
Thalberg's name appeared on the screen in only two of the pictures
he produced, both of which were completed after he died. While he
was alive, he refused to allow his own name to appear in his films.
The credit for his final film,
The Good Earth (1937) reads: "To
the Memory of Irving Grant Thalberg his last greatest achievement
we dedicate this picture." Another dedication to him appeared in
the opening credits of
Goodbye, Mr. Chips
(1939), a film that Thalberg set into motion, but never lived to
see.
Thalberg, a good friend of the
Marx
Brothers and responsible for saving their careers, once sent
this often-repeated quote to
Groucho
Marx via letter on the latter's birthday: "The world would not
be in such a snarl, if
Marx had been Groucho
instead of Karl."
In 1938,
the multi-million dollar administration building built on the old
MGM Studios in Culver City
– now Sony Pictures Studios
– was named for Thalberg. The
Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award,
presented by the
Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences, is also named for him.
In popular culture
F. Scott Fitzgerald based the character of
Monroe Stahr in
The Last
Tycoon on Thalberg. In the 1976
film version he was played by
Robert De Niro. Thalberg was
portrayed in the movie
Man
of a Thousand Faces (1957) by
Robert Evans, who later was the
producer of
Chinatown (1974) and
The Godfather (1972).
In an episode of
The Young Indiana Jones
Chronicles, the Universal Pictures of the silent era is
depicted, along with characterizations of Irving Thalberg,
John Ford,
Erich von
Stroheim,
Carl Laemmle, and
Jack Warner.
In a sketch from the British TV comedy series
Monty Python's Flying
Circus, a high-profile, egotistical movie producer named
Irving C. Salzberg (played by
Graham
Chapman) pitches a movie to a team of yesmen writers. Contrary
to Thalberg's tendency to not credit himself, the end credits of
this episode (which came right after this sketch) credited him for
nearly everything, and all the names were slightly changed to look
more like Irving C. Salzberg (such as John C. Cleeseburg).
Filmography
Producer
Writer
Awards
Academy Awards
Footnotes
References
- The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the
Studio Era. Thomas Schatz. Pantheon Books, New York,
1988.
Further reading
- 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)
- Irving Thalberg's MGM by Mark Vieira (2008)
External links
- Cinemagraphe Review of the Roland Flamini
biography of Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of MGM
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