Louis B. Mayer Pictures

Louis B. Mayer Pictures

Founded	1918 (1918)
Founder	Louis B. Mayer
Defunct	April 17, 1924 (1924-04-17)
Fate	Merged with Metro Pictures Corporation and Goldwyn Pictures to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Successors	Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Amazon MGM Studios Library: Warner Bros. (through Turner Entertainment Co.) Public domain (pre-1929)
Parent	Metro Pictures Corporation

Louis B. Mayer Pictures (or Louis B. Mayer Productions) was an American film production company of the silent era which operated from 1918 until 1924.

History

Founded by the New England–based theater owner Louis B. Mayer, it functioned as a high-class producer of films for the first-run market. One of the leading Mayer stars was Anita Stewart who was recruited from Vitagraph Studios. The company had a long-running distribution arrangement with First National Pictures. Mayer appointed Irving Thalberg as head of production following his stint at Universal Pictures.

In 1924, the company was part of a series of mergers by Marcus Loew that brought together Metro Pictures and Goldwyn Pictures into a single outfit MGM, which was a central major studio of the classical era. Although the new company was initially known as Metro-Goldwyn, within a year the name Mayer had been added to the title in acknowledgement of his key role in the studio.

Bibliography

• Eyman, Scott. Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer. Simon and Schuster, 2008.
• Schatz, Thomas. The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era. Henry Holt and Company, 2015.