There are loyalties that are greater than the loyalties of friendship

Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg first met in November 1922. Thalberg, who was working for Universal Pictures, made a deep impression on Mayer and a few months later was appointed vice-president in charge of production at Mayer's production company, Louis B. Mayer Pictures. In 1924, the company merged with Metro Pictures Corporation and Goldwyn Pictures to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and 25-year-old Thalberg was made part owner and also vice-president and head of production of the new company. Thalberg and Mayer worked well together, Thalberg's ability to combine high quality with commercial success and Mayer's shrewd business sense proving a winning combination. In a few years' time, MGM would become the most successful studio in Hollywood, some of the studio's earlier successes being He Who Gets Slapped (1924), The Merry Widow (1925) and Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925). 

Although Mayer and Thalberg initially got along, their relationship became increasingly strained. By the fall of 1932, Thalberg had come to resent the fact that Mayer and his New York boss, Nicholas Schenck, were getting rich off what he felt were essentially hís successes. Thalberg wanted to take a year off —suffering from depression following the death of his friend Paul Bern— but when Schenck offered him a generous 100,000-share stock option he could not refuse. Mayer, despite being Thalberg's superior, only got 80,000 shares. The stock deal worsened the relationship between Thalberg and Mayer, leaving the latter's ego deeply hurt. Thalberg's growing power and success made Mayer feel increasingly threatened, even more so after an article was published in Fortune magazine in December 1932, depicting Thalberg as the guiding force behind MGM while barely acknowledging Mayer. 

Irving Thalberg, Lillian Gish and Louis B. Mayer in 1926

Then things suddenly changed on Christmas morning 1932 when Thalberg —born with a heart disease and once told he wouldn't live beyond thirty— suffered a heart attack. In order to keep the studio run smoothly, Mayer hired David O. Selznick (his son-in-law) as producer at MGM, giving him his own independent production unit. Thalberg was furious and felt betrayed, thinking that Mayer took advantage of his illness and intended to replace him with Selznick. Although he wasn't being replaced, Mayer would eliminate Thalberg's position of head of production. When Thalberg returned to work in August 1933 (after an extended trip to Europe), MGM had been reorganised and, like Selznick, Thalberg was given a production unit of his own. Several other producers also got their own production units, men who had previously been Thalberg's subordinates like Walter Wanger and Hunt Stromberg. Demoted from head of production to unit producer, Thalberg went along with the new system as long as he didn't have to answer to Mayer. While Selznick and the others were to report to Mayer, Thalberg would report directly to Schenck.

Despite his considerable loss of power, Thalberg continued to make successful films, among them such classics as Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), A Night at the Opera (1935) and Camille (1936). His relationship with Mayer, however, would never be the same. Thalberg biographer Roland Flamini said that what had once been a "friendly rivalry" had "soured into animosity and then degenerated into enmity".

Thalberg won the Oscar for Best Picture for Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), here photographed with Clark Gable and director Frank Capra at the Oscars of 1936. Click here to see and hear Thalberg accept the award from Capra. Thalberg had won the Best Picture Oscar twice before, for The Broadway Melody (1929) and Grand Hotel (1932).

_______

On 23 February 1933, while Thalberg was recovering from his heart attack and about to depart on an extended journey to Europe, Mayer wrote him the following letter. He wanted to restore his relationship with Thalberg after their last meeting had ended in a heated argument and loss of temper. Producer David Selznick had just been hired by Mayer behind Thalberg's back, leaving Thalberg feeling angry and betrayed. As said, the episode caused a rift between Mayer and Thalberg that would never be repaired.

 

Dear Irving: 

I cannot permit you to go away to Europe without expressing to you my regret that our last conference had to end in a loss of temper, particularly on my part. It has always been my desire to make things as comfortable and pleasant for you as I knew how, and I stayed away from you while you were ill because I knew if I saw you it was inevitable that we would touch on business, and this I did not want to do until you were strong again. In fact I told Norma [Shearer] to discourage my coming to see you until you felt quite well.  

It is unfortunate that the so-called friends of yours and mine should be only too glad to create ill feeling, and attempt to disrupt a friendship and association that has existed for about ten years. Up to this time they have been unsuccessful, but they have always been envious of our close contact and regard for each other.  

If you will stop and think, you cannot mention a single motive or reason why I should cease to love you or entertain anything but a feeling of real sincerity and friendship for you. During your absence from the Studio, I was confronted with what seems to me to be a Herculean task, but the old saying still goes —“The show must go on.” Certainly we could not permit the Company to go out of existence just because the active head of production was taken ill and likely to be away from the business for a considerable length of time. I, being your partner, it fell to my lot, and I considered it my duty and legal obligation under our contract, to take up the burden anew where you left off, and to carry on to the best of my ability . . . . 

I regret very much that when I last went to see you to talk things over I did not find you in a receptive mood to treat me as your loyal partner and friend. I felt an air of suspicion on your part towards me, and want you to know if I was correct in my interpretation of your feeling, that it was entirely undeserved. When I went to see you I was wearied down with the problems I have been carrying, which problems have been multiplied because of the fact that the partner who has borne the major portion of them on his shoulders, was not here. Instead of appreciating the fact that I have cheerfully taken on your work, as well as my own, and have carried on to the best of my ability, you chose to bitingly and sarcastically accuse me of many things, by innuendo, which I am supposed to have done to you and your friends. Being a man of temperament, I could not restrain myself any longer, and lost my temper. Even when I did so I regretted it, because I thought it might hurt you physically.  

Regardless of how I felt, or what my nervous condition was, I am big enough to apologize to you, for you were ill and I should have controlled my feelings.  

I am doing everything possible for the best interests of yourself, Bob [MGM attorney Robert Rubin], myself, and the Company, and I want you to know just how I feel towards you; and, if possible, I want you to divest yourself of all suspicion, and believe me to be your real friend, and to know that when I tell you I have the greatest possible affection and sincere friendship for you, I am telling the truth.  

I hope this trip you are about to make will restore you to even greater vigor than you have ever before enjoyed, and will bring you back so that we may work together as we have done for the past ten years. 

And now let me philosophize for a moment. Anyone who has said that I have a feeling of wrong towards you will eventually have cause to regret their treachery, because that is exactly what it would be, and what it would be on my part if I had any feeling other than what I have expressed in this letter towards you. I assure you I will go on loving you to the end.  

I am going to take the liberty of quoting a bit of philosophy from Lincoln. This is a quotation I have on my desk, and one which I value highly: “I do the very best I know how, and the very best I can, and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right, will make no difference.”  

I assure you, Irving, you will never have the opportunity of looking me in the eye and justly accusing me of disloyalty or of doing anything but what a good friend and an earnest associate would do for your interest, and for your comfort.  

If this letter makes the impression on you that I hope it does, I should be awfully glad to see you before you go and to bid you Bon Voyage. If it does not, I shall be sorry, and will pray for your speedy recovery to strength and good health.  

With love and regards, believe me, 

Faithfully yours, 

Louis

Thalberg responded two days later.

 

Dear Louis:  

I was deeply and sincerely appreciative of the fact that you wrote me a letter, as I should have been very unhappy to have left the city without seeing you. I was indeed sorry that the words between us should have caused on your part a desire not to see me, as I assure you frankly and honestly they did not have that effect on me. We have debated and disagreed many times before, and I hope we shall many times again. For any words that I may have used that aroused bitterness in you, I am truly sorry and I apologize.  

I’m very sorry that I have been unable to make clear that it has not been the actions or the words of any—as you so properly call them—so-called friends, whose libelous statements were bound to occur, that have in any way influenced me. If our friendship and association could be severed by so weak a force, I am sure it would long ago have been ruptured by that source. There are, however, loyalties that are greater than the loyalties of friendship. There are the loyalties to ideals, the loyalties to principles without which friendship loses character and real meaning, for a friend who deliberately permits the other to go wrong without sacrificing all—even friendship—has not reached the truest sense of that ideal. Furthermore, the ideals and principles were ones that we had all agreed upon again and again in our association, and every partner shared equally in the success that attended the carrying out of those principles.  

I had hoped that the defense of those principles would be made by my three closest friends [presumably Mayer, Schenck and Rubin]. I say this not in criticism, but in explanation of the depths of the emotions aroused in me, and in the hopes that you will understand. I realize with deep appreciation the effort you have been making for the company and in my behalf, and no one more than myself understands the strain to which you are subjected.  

Believe me, you have my sympathy, understanding and good wishes in the task you are undertaking; and no one more than myself would enjoy your success, for your own sake even more than for the sake of the company.  

Please come to see me as soon as it is convenient for you to do so, as nothing would make me happier than to feel we had parted at least as good personal friends, if not better, than ever before.  

Irving

 

Source: Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince (2009), by Mark A. Vieira

Despite their broken friendship, Thalberg and Mayer remained civil and polite to each other, at least in their letters. Not only the letters above show the courtesies between them, but also the following letter written by Mayer to Thalberg on 31 December 1933. Mayer expresses his wish to "get closer and closer in [his] association" with Thalberg in the new year, and also says he will do anything to make Thalberg's work "light and pleasant". However, it was Mayer who stonewalled Thalberg in preparing his first films as a unit producer. Thalberg found that writers and actors he wanted to work with were suddenly unavailable, assigned elsewhere by Mayer. Also, Mayer had blocked Thalberg's access to MGM's best directors, so for Riptide (1934) Thalberg had to look outside the studio and eventually hired freelancer Edmund Goulding. 

Source: Bonhams

Sunday

Dear Irving

First many thanks for your beautiful gift, when away from home I will think of you. Tomorrow starts the New Year and hope you shall not know of illness. We have much to be thankful for, as for instance your health, that financially we pulled through, but my prayer and fervent hope is that commencing with 1934 we shall get closer and closer in our association. Depend on me to do all in my power to make your task as light and pleasant as lies within my [power].

[signed 

"Faithfully and sincerely Louis B."]

_______

On 14 September 1936, Thalberg suddenly died of pneumonia, only 37 years old. Mayer was very saddened by Thalberg's death and said that he had lost "the finest friend a man could ever have". It must be noted, however, that according to IMDB "some Hollywood observers believe that Mayer was relieved by Thalberg's untimely death, though he professed a great deal of grief publicly...." Whether false or true, after Thalberg's passing Mayer appointed himself head of production in addition to being studio head. Without Thalberg MGM continued to thrive, and it was under Mayer's leadership that a few years later MGM released Gone with the Wind (1939), the story once rejected by Thalberg who famously said: "No Civil War picture ever made a nickel".

Thalberg with wife Norma Shearer and Mayer in 1932

Just so you won’t forget that I love you dear

By the mid-1920s, Norma Shearer was one of MGM's biggest stars and had every intention to remain one. For that purpose she regularly visited the office of Irving Thalberg (head of production at MGM), complaining about the routine films in which she was cast and pleading to be given better roles. Thalberg listened to Norma's complaints but said that MGM knew best and that the films they had chosen for her had ultimately made her a star.

Attracted from the start by Thalberg's charm and commanding presence, Norma soon became romantically interested in her boss. While Thalberg didn't feel the same way about Norma, the two started going out together from July 1925 onwards (their first public appearance together was at the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush). At the time Thalberg was still involved with Constance Talmadge and Rosabelle Laemmle, yet on occasion asked Norma to be his date. "When Rosabelle or Constance are away, or someone stands him up, I'm always available. I'll break a date any time to be with him", Norma had said to Irene Selznick, referring to herself as "Irving's spare tire". Norma waited patiently, which eventually paid off. After dating on and off for two years, she and Irving were married on 29 September 1927 and had two children, Irving Jr. (b. 1930) and Katharine (b. 1935). The marriage lasted until 1936 when Thalberg suddenly died as a result of a congenital heart defect, aged 37.

In 2011, a group of more than 40 telegrams exchanged between Norma and Thalberg was auctioned at Bonhams, offering an intimate peek into the couple's relationship. A few of these telegrams are seen below. The messages clearly suggest that the two were in love, despite rumours that their marriage had been one of convenience. (A persistent rumour was that Norma had married her boss purely for the sake of her career.) The first telegram is from Thalberg to Norma and was sent in April 1927, five months before the couple got married. The other three messages —two of them shown only in transcript— are from 1929. 

Transcript:

SANTA MONICA CALIF APRIL 21 1927

MISS NORMA SHEARER

ARROWHEAD SPRINGS CALIF

JUST SO YOU WONT FORGET THAT I LOVE YOU DEAR

IRVING

_______

A telegram from Irving to Norma dated 16 March 1929: 

DEAREST CUTEST SWEETNESS DARLING ANGEL BUNNY HOPE YOU HAVE MISSED ME AS I HAVE MISSED YOU LOVE PAPA 

Another telegram from Irving to Norma dated 22 December 1929: 

HAVE FORD TRUCK FROM STUDIO MEET US PASADENA FIND OUT HOW LATE TRAIN IS SO LITTLE CUTIE DON'T WAIT LOVE=IRVING 

To this Norma responded with the following message (written on the back of the telegram):

Transcript:

Will be counting every minute sweetest little fella 

whats the truck for Eddie Loeb [MGM attorney]

I’ll find out how late the train is going to be honey 

+ I’ll sue the railroad for every minute 

Love from your lonesome baby little momma

Source: Bonhams

In order to marry Thalberg, Norma first converted to Judaism. The couple married at the Temple B'nai Brith in Beverly Hills. Above is their certifcate of marriage, dated 29 September 1927. Witnesses to the wedding were MGM boss Louis B. Mayer and studio attorney Edwin J. Loeb. (Source: Heritage Auctions)

Dear Miss Shearer

Canadian-born Norma Shearer arrived in New York in 1920 aged 17, hoping to become one of Florenz Ziegfeld's new 'Follies'. Ziegfeld, however, rejected her after which Shearer, determined to make it in America, sought and found work as an extra in several films. A year later, Shearer got a bigger break, landing a minor role in a B-film called The Stealers. Irving Thalberg, vice-president of Louis B. Mayer Pictures (later Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), was impressed with Shearer's work and eventually signed her to a contract in November 1923. Shearer's first contract was a six-month contract with options for renewal, her first salary being $250 per week.

On 6 May 1924, Irving Thalberg wrote the following letter to Norma Shearer regarding the renewal of her contract. Thalberg informed Shearer that her contract would be extended for one year and her salary raised to $450 per week. By the end of 1925, Shearer had signed a new contract with MGM at $1,000 per week, to be increased to $5,000 over the next five years. Shearer would be at the height of her career in the 1930s when she was known as the 'Queen of MGM'. In 1937, she signed her last contract with MGM, which was a six-picture deal at $150,000 per film (the deal included Marie Antoinette (1938), The Women (1939) and Escape (1940)). 

Thalberg's letter was written 3 years before he and Shearer would be married. The couple remained married until Thalberg's untimely death in 1936. They had two children.

Via: Nitrateville

Transcript:

May

Sixth

1924.

Miss Norma Shearer

C/o Louis B. Mayer Studios, Inc.,

43800 Mission Road,

Los Angeles, California.

Dear Miss Shearer:

Referring to your contract of employment with us, dated November 14th., 1923, and particularly to paragraph Twenty-two (b) 22 (b) thereof, you are hereby notified that the undersigned elects to and does hereby exercise the option provided for in said paragraph Twenty-two (b) 22 (b), namely, of extending the term of your employment for an additional period of twelve (12) months, commencing June 14th., 1924, upon the terms and conditions contained in said contract, and that the compensation to be paid to you for a period of not less than forty (40) weeks during said period shall be Four Hundred and Fifty Dollars ($450.00) per week. 

Yours very truly,

LOUIS B. MAYER STUDIOS, INC.

BY "signed Irving Thalberg"

Waiting for Thalberg's reply

The film adaptation of Pearl Buck's novel The Good Earth (1937) was producer Irving Thalberg's final achievement. For the music score of the film Thalberg initially wanted to hire Austrian composer Arnold Schönberg after hearing his Verklärte Nacht ("Transfigured Night") on the radio. Impressed with Schönberg's music, Thalberg arranged for a meeting with the composer at the MGM studios in November 1935. 

Screenwriter Salka Viertel who was also present at the memorable meeting described it in her memoir The Kindness of Strangers (1969): "Thalberg [....] was explaining why he wanted a great composer for the scoring of the Good Earth. When he came to: "Last Sunday when I heard the lovely music you have written...", Schoenberg interrupted sharply: "I don't write 'lovely' music" [.....] He had read the Good Earth and would not undertake the assignment unless he was given complete control over the sound, including the spoken words. "What do you mean by complete control?" asked Thalberg incredulously. "I mean that I have to work with the actors," answered Schoenberg. "They would have to speak in the same pitch and key as I compose it in. It would be similar to Pierrot lunaire but, of course, less difficult." [source] 

While Thalberg felt his enthusiasm slowly vanish, he still wanted to work with Schönberg. In the end, it was not a creative issue but money that killed the deal. During a second meeting, Schönberg demanded a fee of $50,000 whereupon Thalberg lost interest completely. The assignment was eventually given to composers Herbert Stothart and Edward Ward. 

Irving Thalberg died before production of "The Good Earth" was completed, he was only 37 years old.

After the second meeting between Thalberg and Schönberg, three weeks passed by without Schönberg hearing from the MGM producer. Upset and offended to be treated with so little respect, Schönberg wrote Thalberg this letter on 6 December 1935.

Source: the rest is noise

Transcript:

Mr Thalberg, Producer

Metro Goldwin [sic] Mayer Studio

Thalberg Bungalow

10202 Washington Boulevard

Culver City

December,6, 1935

Dear Mr Thalberg,

when I left you, about three weeks ago, you told me you would answer in a few days. Having got no answer untill [sic] today, I can not believe this is your intention: to give me no answer at all. Maybe you are disappointed about the price I asked. But you will agree, it is not my fault, you did not ask me before and only so late, that I had already spent so much time, coming twice to you, reading the book, trying out how I could compose it and making sketches. I should be very, very sorry if I had to realize, that you do not only not pay attention to the respectfull [sic] way in which I am accostumed [sic] do [sic] be treated as a person of international reputation, but even not for the time I have spent on this occasion. And I should be very sorry if you should write me, it were only a mistake of an officer, that I got not an answer in time, because I came personally to you and have the right to expect, that you personally examine whether I have been answered so as it is fitting to my rank.

As before said, I cannot believe it is your intention not to give me an answer at all. But even in case you are still considering to make me a proposition, I wanted to ask you to give me your decision or at least to write me a letter.

Looking forward to such a letter with many regards I am,

yours very truly

Note: Despite his letter, Schönberg never heard from Thalberg or anyone else at MGM.

Arnold Schönberg and a poster of the film for which he would not compose the music. 

An irreparable loss to the motion picture industry

On 14 September 1936, producer and MGM executive Irving Thalberg died of pneumonia at the early age of 37. His premature death shocked the whole film industry. Known as MGM's "Boy Wonder", Thalberg was responsible for many of the studio's earliest successes, including such classics as Greed (1924, co-produced with Erich von Stroheim), Grand Hotel (1932), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and A Night at the Opera (1935). Always striving for both commercial success and the highest quality --he was the first man to realise that a good film needed a good script, not only big stars--, Thalberg oversaw the production of more than 400 films during his twelve years at MGM. To achieve the quality he wanted, he introduced several production methods which became standard for the whole industry (including sneak previews to gauge the public's reaction and the re-shooting of scenes). Furthermore, Thalberg created many new stars and helped the careers of established stars, like Norma Shearer who became his wife in 1927. During his lifetime, Thalberg never wanted screen credit as producer; it wasn't until his last picture The Good Earth, which was completed after his death and released in 1937, that he was finally credited on screen. 

Irving Thalberg and Norma Shearer photographed in 1929. The couple was married from 1927 until Thalberg's death in 1936.

The document for this post is not a letter, but a statement to the press issued on the day of Irving Thalberg's death. On 14 September 1936, Will H. Hays, President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), addressed the press with the following words.

Source: mppda digital archive

Transcript:

Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Inc.

28 West 44th Street 

New York, N.Y.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MONDAY, SEPT. 14, 1936

STATEMENT BY WILL. H. HAYS

Hollywood, Calif., Sept. 14---Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, today said:

"The death of Irving Thalberg is an irreparable loss to the motion picture industry. No one can take his place, though others may come to do his work. 

"Brilliant, courageous, a careful workman, who always gave his best, he had the vision and the genius which made him a leader in the industry's constant progress toward the highest levels of art and entertainment. It is a tragedy that he should be taken from us in the very fullness of his youth. For one of his abilities, life offered so much more to do. 

"Such productions as THE BIG PARADE, THE BARRETTS OF WIMPOLE STREET, MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY and ROMEO AND JULIET will stand as monuments to Irving Thalberg, but he was destined for ever finer things.

"He will be a living memory. He had the highest esteem and the deepest affection of everyone in the industry. Through his death the industry has lost one of its foremost figures and I have lost a friend."

Clockwise: Norma Shearer, Irving Thalberg and son; Norma and Irving in July 1936; Will H. Hays, president of the MPPDA; Irving, Norma and Louis B. Mayer at the premiere of "The Great Ziegfeld" on 18 April 1936.