1899-1936
Movie Producer

Boy Wonder.

Irving Thalberg became an icon of American success mythology, but he did not rise from poverty; his German- Alsatian Jewish family was middle class. A Brooklyn boy who had not finished high school because of illness, Thalberg was employed at eighteen as a secretary in the New York office of Universal Pictures; he became general manager of the California studio when he was twenty. The story went around Hollywood that he was running a major studio before he was old enough to sign the payroll.

M-G-M.

In 1923 Thalberg joined Louis B. Mayer as vice president of the Mayer Company. When Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer was formed by Loew's, Inc., in 1924, Thalberg became second vice president and supervisor of production. Mayer as president and Thalberg built the largest and most successful studio in Hollywood, based on its stable of stars and expensive productions. The...