SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
They were the exemplary Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside. One was the proud son of a junk man. The other looked like - and, in fact, was often mistaken for - the office boy. But together, they made Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer...
(SOUNDBITE OF MGM LION ROAR)
SIMON: ...The great Hollywood film factory...
KENNETH TURAN: (Laughter).
SIMON: ...Of the 1920s through the '30s, churning out musicals that lifted the Depression and epics that stirred hopes. "Louis B. Mayer And Irving Thalberg: The Whole Equation" is the new book by Kenneth Turan, longtime critic for the Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio. It's part of the Yale Press' Jewish Lives series. And Ken joins us now from our studios in Culver City, California. Thanks so much for being with us.
TURAN: It's great to be here, Scott.
SIMON: Louis B. Mayer, immigrant family from Ukraine, in his father's scrap metal business at the age of 12. How did he become a Hollywood mogul?
TURAN: (Laughter) It's a very good question. I think sometimes he must have asked himself the same question, because it's such an unlikely trajectory. But he kind of stumbled into the movie business, as many of the original moguls did. They were looking for anything that made money, and the movies were making money even in their earliest days. And he turned out to have a gift for it. And, you know, for seven consecutive years, the newspapers reported him as the man with the highest salary in the entire country.
SIMON: And Irving Thalberg, born to a New York German Jewish family, and born with a congenital heart disease. He, I think at the age of 19, became a secretary in the film company. How did he rise so high so quickly?
TURAN: Thalberg had this almost innate gift for story and for what audiences would like. The line is he ran Universal before he was old enough to sign the checks. He was just a phenomenon.
SIMON: Let me ask you about some of the films they made. "Ben-Hur," and I don't mean the Charlton Heston one.
TURAN: (Laughter).
SIMON: But "Ben-Hur: A Tale Of The Christ," a silent film, 1925, Ramon Novarro as Ben-Hur. Crowd scenes are amazing, aren't they?
TURAN: They are. They're quite spectacular. I mean, even by today's standards, you look at them and you say, wow.
SIMON: 'Cause this was before CGI. I mean, how did they do it?
TURAN: Well, they didn't have CGI, but they did it two ways. First of all, they did gather a lot of people. A great film historian, Kevin Brownlow, discovered this. They were very shrewd at finding things that they would place in front of the camera, special props that made it look like there were a lot of people. They could manipulate these things. Ultimately, they grabbed people off the streets...
SIMON: Right.
TURAN: ...Close to where this was being filmed, and said, you know, come inside and watch a movie.
SIMON: Yeah. "Anna Christie," I mean, what a gimmick. Garbo talks.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ANNA CHRISTIE")
GRETA GARBO: (As Anna Christie) Gimme a whiskey. Ginger ale on the side. I'm awfully stingy, baby.
TURAN: (Laughter).
SIMON: I shouldn't call it a gimmick, should I?
TURAN: Yeah. Well, no, no, I mean, the gimmick is the ad campaign, Garbo talks. There's a story that when Garbo met the man who came up with that line, she looked at him and said, aren't you ashamed?
(LAUGHTER)
TURAN: Greta Garbo was a huge star at MGM in the silent era, and they were very careful about how they were going to transition her to sound. And "Anna Christie," the O'Neill play - very celebrated play - it had been filmed once before. And it was about an immigrant. So the fact that she spoke accented English was exactly what was called for. So that's how they picked it, and it turned out to be a huge hit for her.
SIMON: I have to ask about antisemitism in Hollywood, because there's some very prominent people. And I'm thinking of a bishop of Los Angeles who did not like Hollywood films and blamed what they did on - and I'm going to quote the LA bishop - "Jewish studio owners."
TURAN: This was one of the surprises for me in researching the book. I mean, I always knew that there was some antisemitism in America at the time. But the extent of it, and the extent of it as it applied to Mayer and Thalberg, really surprised me. And Mayer and Thalberg, they just kind of shrugged it off. You know, this was business as usual for them. They weren't surprised by it. They weren't happy about it. But they just knew this was something they had to endure.
SIMON: Another film I want to ask about.
(SOUNDBITE OF TARZAN YELL)
TURAN: (Laughter).
SIMON: The sound of a WEEKEND EDITION editorial meeting.
TURAN: (Laughter).
SIMON: Tarzan the ape man, played by Johnny Weissmuller, who will forever be the best-known graduate of Senn High School in Chicago.
TURAN: (Laughter).
SIMON: I say that as a Senn grad myself. This was a famous British novel that the studio put together, and what did they do? They created a franchise.
TURAN: They created a huge franchise, you know? And it's a very interesting story, because other people had made Tarzan movies before MGM. But Mayer and Thalberg didn't really care. They felt that their touch would make a difference, and these other movies would just disappear into, you know, the cosmos, which is what happened.
SIMON: And then Irving Thalberg - I think this is Ben Hecht's phrase - caught cold and died, right...
TURAN: Yes.
SIMON: ...At the age of 67.
TURAN: Yes. He had a heart condition. He was always frail. I mean, people thought that he would die young from - you know, when he was born. And it turned out he died of pneumonia. And, you know, at that period of time, just coming into use were what they call sulfa drugs - things like penicillin. They were practically experimental drugs, but they were being used. But his wife, Norma Shearer - who was a big actress - she was uncertain. But finally, they voted no on the sulfa drugs, and Thalberg died. And she held herself responsible for a certain period of time. Even though everyone knew that he might die young, it still was a huge shock to Hollywood when he died.
SIMON: It is painful to read about Louis B. Mayer's relationship with Judy Garland. On the one hand, they meant a lot to each other. On the other hand...
TURAN: You know, that's - it's very sad. She wrote an autobiography in which she said, you know - it was not published - but Gerold Frank, who wrote this classic biography of her, uncovered this - you know, where she said that he would molest her. You know, he would...
SIMON: Yeah.
TURAN: ...Say, you know, you sing from the heart and he'd put his hand on her breast to kind of emphasize where the heart was. They had a really toxic relationship, even though they meant a lot to each other. It's really one of these puzzling relationships.
SIMON: Did Thalberg and Mayer create what I'll call the American dream factory that became just part of what America is around the world to so many people?
TURAN: I think so. I mean, there were key players in it. A lot of people, you know, helped contribute to it. Obviously, they wanted films to make money. They were not public servants. They wanted a profit. But they really believed that film could create a culture, could do good in the world. And they really - in a lot of their films, they attempted to do that. They felt that this was something movies could do.
SIMON: Ken, I got to ask. You and a lot of other people in Southern California suffered a serious loss recently. What happened? How are you doing?
TURAN: Well, you know, my house and everything in it - 40 years of things my wife and I have, you know, gathered together - they're all gone. And you try to move on, because there's no other choice. That stuff is not coming back.
SIMON: Kenneth Turan, his new book, "Louis B. Mayer And Irving Thalberg: The Whole Equation." Thank you so much for being with us.
TURAN: Scott, it's been a pleasure to talk to you, really. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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