He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including Grand Hotel, China Seas, A Night at the Opera, Mutiny on the Bounty, Camille and The Good Earth.

His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom", states biographer Roland Flamini.

Among them were Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Spencer Tracy, Luise Rainer, and Norma Shearer, who became his wife.

[3]: 5  When he turned 18, he placed an advertisement in the local newspaper hoping to find better work: Situation Wanted: Secretary, stenographer, Spanish, English, high school education, no experience; $15.

It's possible, however, that the idea of dismissal was simply unthinkable to him or that that he felt he could go over Thalberg's head to Laemmle, and the studio boss would surely want to keep his most prestigious director happy.

"[3]: 74  Studio attorney Edwin Loeb, who also worked to create AMPAS, explained that "the real foundation of Irving's success was his ability to look at life through the eyes of any given person.

[2] As a result, he was never bored or tired, and supplemented his spare time with reading for his own amusement, recalls screenwriter Bayard Veiller, with some of his favorite authors being Francis Bacon, Epictetus, and Immanuel Kant.

[7]: 36 After nearly three years with Universal, Thalberg had supervised over a hundred movies, reorganized the studio to give more control to the managers, and had "stopped the defection" of many of their leading stars by offering them better, higher-paying contracts.

Thus, he kept hundreds of back-lot carpenters at work creating realistic sets, as he did for fifteenth-century Romeo and Juliet (1936), or with China Seas (1935), to replicate the harbors of Hong Kong.

I think it might be better to open just prior to the storm—that awful calm before the storm ... and the typhoon hits and they go through all that hell, and the terrific tiredness after the fight is over—the weariness of Gaskell [Clark Gable], and from behind him this China woman comes and their affair [begins].To be certain of achieving the desired effects, Thalberg made sure his cinematographers were careful in their use of light and shadow.

He had the quality, rare among showmen, and precious among men, of standing back after an achievement and letting the other fellow take the credit ... he never wanted to be known as the big promoter.

"[3]: 105 By the early 1930s, a number of stars began failing at the box office, partly due to the Great Depression that was now undermining the economy, along with the public's ability to spend on entertainment.

Thalberg began using two stars in a film, rather than one, as had been the tradition at all the studios, such as pairing Greta Garbo with John Gilbert, Clark Gable with Jean Harlow, and William Powell with Myrna Loy.

For the part as a Chinese peasant, she was required to act totally subservient to her husband, being perpetually huddled in submission, and barely spoke a word of dialogue during the entire film.

Rainer recalls that Mayer did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it: "He was horrified at Irving Thalberg's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant.

Thalberg was impressed and began grooming the new starlet the following day: "the studio arranged to fix her teeth, made sure she lost weight, and gave her an English tutor.

Marie Dressler, a fifty-nine-year-old early vaudeville and movie star, who had played the top-billed lead, above Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand), in the first feature-length comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), was unable to get any roles in films after leaving show business for some years, finally working as a maid.

Marie Dressler was paired twice, in Min and Bill (1930) and Tugboat Annie (1933), with Wallace Beery, another major silent star who had been struggling to get work in sound pictures until Thalberg cast him.

Thalberg cast him in the role of "Machine Gun Butch," which had been meant for recently deceased Lon Chaney, in The Big House (1930), an energetic prison picture that became a huge hit.

Among the reasons was Thalberg's unique system of developing a script during story conferences with writers before filming began, and later giving "sneak previews" followed by audience feedback through written questionnaires.

Thalberg's bringing Broadway productions to the screen to develop higher picture standards sometimes resulted in "studied" acting or "stagey" sets, notes Flamini.

Thalberg, however, felt differently, and thought the film would affect movie audiences, due to its classic literary source, and would highlight MGM as a major new studio.

Thalberg's reputation by that time for working long hours was widely known, and rumors about the related strain on his fragile health had become front-page news in entertainment trade publications.

The Hollywood Reporter in January 1933 updated its readership about his condition and addressed growing concerns that he might be forced, despite his young age, to quit the business: In an effort to quiet rumors zooming throughout the industry, indicating that Irving Thalberg would be compelled to retire permanently as production head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and take a long rest, a reporter from this publication got in touch with his physician yesterday for a statement as to the real condition of Mr. Thalberg.

[21]Once Thalberg recovered sufficiently from his bout with the "flu" and was able to return to work later in 1933, it was as one of MGM's unit producers, albeit one who had first choice on projects as well as preferential access to all the studio's resources, including over casting its stars.

Loew's was the corporate parent of MGM, so Schenck was the true power and ultimate arbiter at the studio; and he usually supported Thalberg's decisions and continued to do so whenever disagreements about projects or production needs arose.

As a result, Thalberg also continued to produce or coproduce some of MGM's most prestigious and critically acclaimed ventures in this period, such as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) starring his wife Norma Shearer, China Seas (1935), A Night at the Opera (1935), San Francisco (1936), and Romeo and Juliet (1936).

The funeral attracted thousands of spectators who came to view the arrival of countless stars from MGM and other studios, including Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, Al Jolson, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, among the screen luminaries.

"[1]: 273  Leading producers from the other studios also expressed their feelings in published tributes to Thalberg:[5] David O. Selznick described him as "beyond any question the greatest individual force for fine pictures."

Fitzgerald also based his short story "Crazy Sunday", originally published in the October 1932 issue of American Mercury, on an incident at a party thrown by Thalberg and Shearer.