Louis Burt Mayer (/ˈmeɪ.ər/; born Lazar Meir; July 12, 1884[3] – October 29, 1957) was a Canadian-American[1] film producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios (MGM) in 1924.

Under Mayer's management, MGM became the film industry's most prestigious movie studio, accumulating the largest concentration of leading writers, directors, and stars in Hollywood.

Mayer was born in the village of Dymer, in what is now Kyiv Oblast, Ukraine (then part of the Russian Empire), and grew up poor in Saint John, New Brunswick.

He was controversial for his treatment of the actors under his management, demanding compliance from female stars by threatening their livelihoods, such as in the case of Judy Garland, whom he forced to go on diets, take drugs, and work punishing schedules.

Andrzej Krakowski has suggested that the birthplace has been misinterpreted and Mayer was in fact from the town of Mińsk Mazowiecki in eastern Poland, which at the time was subjugated by the Russian Empire.

[30] Using earnings from the popularity of The Birth of a Nation, Mayer partnered with Richard A. Rowland in 1916 to create Metro Pictures Corporation, a talent booking agency, in New York City.

By the time he recovered, the stock market crash had wiped out his fortune, destroying any chance of the deal going through even if the Justice Department had lifted its objections.

That goal began with their early silent films, when stars such as Greta Garbo, Mayer's discovery, acted in lush settings with spectacular camera work.

Garbo laughed in Ninotchka; Goodbye, Mr. Chips won an Oscar (it was nominated for seven); and Hedy Lamarr, another of Mayer's personal discoveries, made her film debut.

[43] In his overall management skills, Mayer was considered a great executive, someone who could have run General Motors equally as well as a large studio like MGM, said producer Joseph L.

We hired geniuses at make-up, hair dressing, surgeons to slice away a bulge here and there, rubbers to rub away the blubber, clothes designers, lighting experts, coaches for everything—fencing, dancing, walking, talking, sitting and spitting.

[51] He also signed up dancing team Marge and Gower Champion and discovered Mario Lanza, then a young tenor from Philadelphia, who Mayer hoped to turn into a "singing Clark Gable".

[61] Beyond the well-entrenched aspect of sound by 1932, other technologies being discussed at that time in newspapers and on studio lots included color features, widescreen formatting, and even early television.

[62] He sometimes arranged marriages, and coping with occupational hazards such as alcoholism, suicide, and eccentric sexual habits were as much a part of his job as negotiating contracts with stars and directors.

"[54] Mayer's paternalism could extend to productions; for example, he revised the Dr. Kildare stories in order to keep an ailing Lionel Barrymore, who required the use of a wheelchair due to arthritis, on the job.

[69] In the late 1940s, she began having personal problems, which affected her acting, and Mayer tried his best to protect her star reputation while keeping her overworked and making money for MGM.

During Hollywood's golden age, MGM had more child actors than any other studio, including Jackie Cooper, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Freddie Bartholomew, Margaret O'Brien, Elizabeth Taylor, and Roddy McDowall.

"[65] When he hired writers, he made those objectives clear at the outset, once telling screenwriter Frances Marion that he never wanted his own daughters or his wife to be embarrassed when watching an MGM movie.

[81] Nevertheless, MGM produced Three Comrades in 1938, despite movie censor Joseph Breen warning Mayer that the film was "a serious indictment of the German nation and people and is certain to be violently resented by the present government in that country.

The Voice of America radio network broadcast the minister's speech from the film, magazines reprinted it, and it was copied onto leaflets and dropped over German-occupied countries.

"[89] Bosley Crowther (1960 biographer of Mayer, below), wrote in his New York Times review that Mrs. Miniver was the finest film yet made about the war, "and a most exalting tribute to the British.

He filled the cast with MGM stars including Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson, Adolphe Menjou and Angela Lansbury, but the film only broke even.

On his final day, as he walked down a red carpet laid out in front of the Thalberg Building, executives, actors and staff lined the path and applauded him for his contributions.

According to Gerald Clarke's book Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland, Mayer "held meetings with the young woman seated on his lap, his hands on her chest".

[95] Cari Beauchamp, author of Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood, observed: "Mayer chased actress Jean Howard around the room.

[99] At his home on Saint Cloud Road in the East Gate Bel Air neighborhood, Sundays were reserved for brunches in what was an open house, which often included visiting statesmen or former U.S. presidents, along with various producers, directors or stars.

On one occasion in 1943, Mary Pickford called to tell him she met a movie-struck Royal Canadian Air Force pilot from New Brunswick, where Mayer grew up.

[38] Placed in his proper perspective, he was probably the greatest single force in the development of the motion picture industry who brought it to the heights of prosperity and influence it finally attained.

At the event, screenwriter Charles Brackett presented the award and thanked him for guiding MGM's "production policy with foresight, aggressiveness and with a real desire for taste and quality".

"[44] Director Clarence Brown compared him to newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst: Louis B. Mayer ... made more stars than all the rest of the producers in Hollywood put together. ...