Louis B. Mayer & Irving Thalberg: The whole equation

Book review by Dr Anne Sarzin

This book, at this particular juncture in our history, is immensely important exactly because it documents the lives and achievements of that first generation of Jewish film producers and directors in Hollywood whose contributions are now being summarily dismissed or effectively erased. This book is significant because we are living through a period of politically and ideologically inspired antisemitism that advocates for the erasure of distinguished Jewish creatives, scientists, philanthropists and diverse pioneers and contributors to multiple fields, who are in real danger of being erased from the history books or expunged from contemporary records.

In 2021, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles opened an exhibition celebrating the diversity of the film industry. However, the exhibition omitted the Jewish founders of Hollywood. As the New York Times pointed out subsequently, the museum aimed to correct that oversight by opening a permanent new exhibition highlighting the formative role that Jewish immigrants such as Samuel Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer played in creating the American film industry. But, as the Times noted, this new exhibition ignited a furore, as it used pejorative descriptors in its wall text that vilified the very personalities they featured. More than 300 Hollywood professionals protested and called on the Academy Museum ‘to thoroughly redo this exhibit so that it celebrates the Jewish founders of Hollywood with the same respect and enthusiasm granted to those celebrated throughout the rest of the museum’. One of the signatories stated, ‘This is not unconscious bias, this is conscious bias. It feels like a hatchet job on the Jews’ (see article ‘Exhibition on Jews will be revised’, New York Times, 12 June 2024).

While this bitter controversy is not alluded to in Turan’s book, which was published earlier this year, its substance speaks to these events with clarity, as it elucidates the strengths, both collaborative and individual, of two major figures responsible for the burgeoning film industry in Hollywood, Mayer and Thalberg. Film buffs will be well acquainted with these eponymous protagonists but, speaking for myself, the massively detailed filmographies and the insightful biographies combined to shine a light into this massive yet embryonic industry where Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s ‘Leo the Lion’ was undeniably the king that roared (as cinemagoers of a certain age will remember) above the cacophany of strident competitors, ambitious actors, aspiring directors,  pragmatic producers and opinionated critics.

The story of the relationship between Mayer and Thalberg is both moving and infinitely touching. They were from very different backgrounds. Thalberg, the son of German Jewish migrants, was born in America.  Frail and delicate, a death sentence hovered over his head and, sadly, he died aged 37. Cultured and intellectual, he was legendary in his own brief lifetime, acclaimed as the ‘boy genius’ of the film world. With immense creativity, he channelled his artistry into star-studded quality films. Mayer, on the other hand, was the child of impoverished Eastern European Jews, who fled the poverty and persecution of the Russian Pale of Settlement, arriving aged four in the United States. Supremely industrious and innovative, already by the age of eight he was scrounging a living to help his family. He thrived in America’s capitalist world, envisaging pathways to prosperity and working hard to achieve his dreams. Married young, with two daughters, he invited and welcomed Thalberg into his world, treating him as the son he never had. The ultimate dissolution of that paternal bond of affection was clearly the cause of pain for both Mayer and Thalberg.

While this book is undoubtedly a fascinating celebrity extravaganza with original anecdotes and personal quotations that enlighten and entertain—featuring a galaxy of stars from Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, to Greta Garbo and Clark Gable—at the same time, it is a deeply thoughtful account of the lives and times of these two titans of the film industry. Their very disparate visions and missions, the opposition of their mindsets and working styles, the intricate politics and especially the complexity of their relationship and its impact on their colleagues, Hollywood’s embryonic film industry and American cinemagoers makes for engrossing reading. Turan points out that whereas Thalberg died too young with his prime years tragically unfulfilled, Mayer outlived his perceived value and usefulness. There is no denying, however, that their collaboration while it lasted was the most consequential in Hollywood history. As Turan notes, ‘they dreamed the same mighty dream, and the movie business they jointly helped create has never been the same’.

This book forms part of the prizewinning series ‘Jewish Lives’, interpretative biographies designed to explore the many facets of Jewish identity. Jewish Lives is a partnership of Yale University Press and the Leon D. Black Foundation.

Louis B. Mayer & Irving Thalberg: The whole equation

By Kenneth Turan

Yale University Press, New Haven and London

2025