While reading Mark A. Vieira’s wonderful biography, “Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince” I discovered an interesting fact. In April 1924, Marcus Loew merged three shaky film studios, Metro Pictures with the Goldwyn Company and Louis B. Mayer Productions, into one studio whose now-famous Leo the Lion logo was inherited from Goldwyn. Hollywood legend has always had it—or so I thought—that this was the birth of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It turns out that that’s not the case. At the time, the merger birthed a studio simply called Metro-Goldwyn. Mayer’s surname wasn’t officially part of the studio’s name but instead, he got the title credit “Louis B. Mayer Presents” at the start of each movie. It wasn’t until some time toward the end of 1925 that Mayer managed to convince his corporate overlord, Marcus Loew, to allow his name to be added.
While reading Mark A. Vieira’s wonderful biography, “
I’m halfway through this book and savoring it slowly. It’s an absolute joy.
and the lion’s pet name wasn’t Leo–it was “Rickey”
There was actually a succession of lions but off the top of my head, I don’t know their names.