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Movie Studio History 3 / 4
A look into the history of the movie business and the various movie
studios for which elvis made his films:
Of his career total of 33 feature films, Elvis made 14 for Metro
Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) . Twelve of his MGM films were as an actor:
"Jailhouse Rock", "It Happened At the World's Fair", "Kissin'
Cousins", "Viva Las Vegas", "Girl Happy", "Harum Scarum", "Spinout",
"Double Trouble", "Stay Away Joe", "Speedway", "Live A Little, Love
A Little", and "The Trouble With Girls". The other two MGM films
were feature documentaries: "Elvis-That's The Way It Is" and "Elvis
On Tour".
Elvis's first contract with MGM was in February 1957 for the film
"Jailhouse Rock". He was paid $250,000 plus 50% of the net profits.
As with all the other studios, Elvis's manager Colonel Tom Parker
renegotiated and extended his contracts with MGM over the years.
By1966, Elvis was paid $850,000 per picture plus 50% of the profits.
MGM, like the other studios, is a blend of various companies merging
through the years. Samuel Goldwyn was born Shmuel Gelfisz in Warsaw,
Poland. He immigrated to England at age 11 and then to the U.S. at
age 13. He changed his name to Goldfish. He found work as an
apprentice glove maker in New York, becoming an expert by age 15 and
a successful glove salesperson by age 18. He married into the Lasky
family. Along with his brother-in-law Jesse and the young director
Cecil B. De Mille, he entered the film business in 1913, forming the
Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company. (You might remember from Part 2
of this series that the Lasky company became a part of Paramount
Studios years later.) By late 1916, Goldfish was bought out of
Feature Play Company. He went on to form a new partnership with
Edgar Selwyn. They took the first syllable of Goldfish and the last
of Selwyn and formed Goldwyn, a name Sam Goldfish liked so much that
in 1918 he legally changed his own name to Goldwyn. Unfortunately he
was edged out of the corporation by 1922. Disillusioned about the
problems of partnerships, he then formed an independent company,
free of partners or others to whom he ad to be accountable.
One of Goldwyn's contemporaries was Louis B. Mayer, who was born in
Russia and emigrated with his parents to New York as a child. As a
young adult, he and his wife lived in Boston where he was in the
scrap metal business. In 1907 he bought a down and out motion
picture theater, which he turned into a successful business. He soon
acquired other theaters and eventually owned the largest theater
chain in New England and branched out into film distribution. By
1918 he was producing films and moved his operations to California.
Meanwhile, Marcus Loew, the son of Austrian immigrants, had worked
his way up from owning 40 nickelodeons in 1907 to acquiring over 400
motion picture theaters across the country by 1912. (You might
remember that Elvis was for a time a movie usher for Loew's State
Theater in Memphis.) In 1920 Loew bought Metro Pictures and in 1924
he acquired controlling interest in the Goldwyn
company and Louis B. Mayer Pictures. The three were thus
consolidated into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with Loew's Inc. as the parent
company and Louis B. Mayer as vice president and general manager.
Under Mayer's leadership, MGM thrived and became a powerful part of
the industry with the motto "more stars than there are in the
heavens." They developed their famous logo with the roaring lion,
Leo. Leo was actually "Jackie" from Gay's Lion Farm in El Monte,
California, which housed, trained and exhibited hundreds of African
lions used in the entertainment industry. Along with Leo, the logo
bore the words "Ars Gratia Artis" or "Art For Art's Sake". Mayer, a
staunch conservative, preferred they produce movies with moral
convictions that espoused virtue, patriotism and family life. MGM
became a standard for high quality films such as "The Wizard of Oz",
the "Andy Hardy" series, the "Thin Man" series, the "Tarzan"
adventures, "Meet Me in St. Louis", "Easter Parade", "Show Boat",
"Singing in the Rain", "Guys and Dolls", "Ben Hur", "Doctor
Zhivago", "The Dirty Dozen", "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Moonstruck"
and many more.
In 1970, MGM was bought by Kirk Kerkorian. (You might remember he at
one time owned the International Hotel in Las Vegas, where Elvis
performed.) The studio sold many of its movie artifacts, props and
costumes and switched their company emphasis from movie production
to the hotel industry with their famed MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas.
In 1981 they acquired United Artists, making it a subsidiary. The
company changed hands a few times in the 1990's and then ended back
in the hands of Mr. Kerkorian in 1996. Today, the old MGM studio lot
is owned by Sony Entertainment, which has refurbished the historic
sight and is today home to Columbia /Tristar where the game shows
"Jeopardy" and "Wheel of Fortune" are taped. There is a walking tour
available. Today, the MGM movie catalog is owned by Turner
Entertainment, which is owned by Warner Brothers.
And now, some background on United Artists:
Elvis made four films for United Artists: "Follow That Dream", "Kid
Galahad", "Frankie and Johnny" and "Clambake".
United Artists was formed in 1919 by Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith,
Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks with the goal to make and
distribute their own product. It was a distributor and financier of
independent producers and had no studio of its own. At first this
was somewhat of a handicap. However, by the 50's and 60's they found
it an advantage over some of the more burdened studios with high
overheads. In 1957, United Artists became a public company. In 1967,
it became a subsidiary of TransAmerica Corportation, which sold the
company to MGM in 1981. They made such films as "The African Queen",
"High Noon", "Some Like It Hot", "The Apartment", "One Flew Over The
Cuckoo's Nest", "Rocky", and several James Bond films. |
