:For the North Carolina jurist, see Louis B. Meyer.

Louis Burt Mayer (born Eliezer Meir 1882 – October 29, 1957) was an early film producer, most famous for his stewardship and co-founding of the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

He is generally cited as the creator of the "star system" within Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in its golden years. Known always as Louis B. Mayer (pronounced Louie) and often simply as "L.B.", he believed in "wholesome entertainment" and went to great lengths to collect "more stars than in the heavens".

Born to a Jewish family in Minsk, Russian Empire (now Belarus), Mayer emigrated with his family to Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada when he was still very young and Mayer attended school there. His father started a scrap metal business, J. Mayer & Son. Louis, as the son, salvaged material from sunken vessels on the ocean floor, where his father would throw him overboard and would not let him return onto the boat until he had what his father needed. Though out Mayer's childhood he was constantly abused by his father. He married Margaret Shenberg on June 14, 1904, and, three years later, moved to Amsterdam

Mayer renovated the "Gem Theater", a rundown, 600 seat burlesque house in Haverhill, Massachusetts, which he reopened on November 28, 1907 as the "Orpheum", his first movie theater. To overcome the unfavorable reputation that the building once had in the community, Mayer decided to debut with the showing of a religious film. He would say years later that he went with From the Manger to the Cross , although other sources place the release of that film as 1912 . Within a few years, he owned all five of Haverhill's theaters, and, with Nat Gordon, created the Gordon-Mayer partnership that controlled the largest theater chain in New England . Mayer partnered with Richard A. Rowland in 1916 to create Metro Pictures Corporation, a talent booking agency, in New York City. Two years later, Mayer moved to Los Angeles and founded Louis B. Mayer Pictures Corporation to form his own production company. The first production was 1918's Virtuous Wives . A partnership was set up with B. P. Schulberg to make the Mayer-Schulberg Studio. Mayer's big breakthrough, however, was when Marcus Loew, owner of the Loew's theatre chain, merged Metro Pictures, Samuel Goldwyn's Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, and Mayer Pictures into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. As "Vice-President in Charge of Production", Mayer effectively controlled MGM.

As a studio boss, Louis B. Mayer built MGM into the most financially successful motion picture studio in the world and the only one to pay dividends throughout the Great Depression of the 1930s. However he frequently clashed with production chief Irving Thalberg who preferred literary works over the crowd-pleasers Mayer wanted. He ousted Thalberg as production chief in 1932 while Thalberg was recovering from a heart attack and replaced him with independent producers until 1936 when he became head of production as well as studio chief. This made Mayer the first executive in America to earn a million-dollar salary. Under Mayer, MGM produced many successful films with high earning stars including Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Lon Chaney, Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, Judy Garland and many others.

Although Mayer had a reputation for ruthless expediency and allegedly narrow views about what subjects were suitable topics for motion pictures, Katharine Hepburn referred to him as a "nice man" (she personally negotiated many of her contracts with him), and young actresses such as Debbie Reynolds, June Allyson, and Leslie Caron who matured as MGM contract players viewed him as a father figure.

By 1948, due to the introduction of television and changing public tastes, MGM suffered a considerable dropoff in its success. Three years without a major Oscar award provoked further conflict between Mayer and Nicholas Schenck, president of MGM's parent, Loews, Inc. Mayer worked to control costs and searched for a "new Thalberg", hiring writer and producer Dore Schary as production chief. Schary (who was 20 years Mayer's junior) preferred message pictures in contrast with Mayer's taste for "wholesome" films. Three years later, Mayer reportedly called Loews headquarters in New York with an ultimatum, "It's either him, or me" and Schenck fired Mayer from the post he'd held for 24 years. Mayer tried to stage a boardroom coup but failed and largely retired from public life.

Mayer had two daughters from his first marriage to Margaret Shenberg. The eldest, Edith (Edie) Mayer, (b. August 14, 1905 - d.1987), from whom he would later become estranged and whom he would disinherit, married producer William Goetz (who became President of Universal Pictures). The younger, Irene Gladys Mayer, married producer David O. Selznick. Irene Mayer Selznick later wrote in her autobiograpy, "A Private View", about having to wait to marry her betrothed, David Selznick, until Edie, the older sister, was married, in accordance with her family's views on propriety. Irene, David and LB Mayer had a fight about the date of Irene and David's wedding being too close after Edie's. David Selznick protested, saying he had waited long enough while Edie was courted and planned her wedding, and that his schedule at Paramount Pictures, for whom he then worked, decreed he must get married when he and Irene wished, regardless of LB's protestations.

Active in Republican Party politics, Mayer served as the vice chairman of the Republican Party of California from 1931 to 1932 and as its state chairman between 1932 and 1933. He and Thalberg played a role in attacking muckraker and reformist Upton Sinclair's 1934 California gubernatorial bid.

Mayer owned or bred a number of successful thoroughbred racehorses at his ranch in Perris, California, east of Los Angeles.

In the 2005 biography, Lion of Hollywood, author Scott Eyman wrote that: "Mayer built one of the finest racing stables in the United States" and that he "almost single-handedly raised the standards of the California racing business to a point where the Eastern thoroughbred establishment had to pay attention." Among his horses was Your Host, sire of Kelso, the 1945 U.S. Horse of the Year, Busher, and the 1959 Preakness Stakes winner, Royal Orbit. Eventually Mayer sold off the stable, partly to finance his divorce in 1947. His 248 horses brought more than $4.4 million.

In 1976, Thoroughbred of California magazine named him "California Breeder of the Century".

A 1937 stag party put on by Mayer for MGM salesmen resulted in the rape of at least two of the 127 women procured as entertainers for the event. The recent documentary "Girl 27" about one of those, Patricia Douglas, revealed that Mayer was involved with covering up the rape allegations by bribing witnesses, Douglas' attorney and even Douglas' own mother to help keep the rape silent. Douglas' lawsuit against Mayer and others was one of the first rape charges filed in federal court.

Louis B. Mayer died of kidney failure on October 29, 1957 and was interred in the Home of Peace Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California. His last words (reportedly) were, "Nothing matters."

Son-in-law David O. Selznick (who married Mayer's daughter Irene in the 1930s), refused any financial help from Mayer, and instead chose to establish an independent film production studio. Gone with the Wind, David O. Selznick's largest-scale picture, was released in 1939. Ironically, Gone with the Wind was eventually bought by MGM and now is one of several thousand films in the MGM library - which at the present, is divided between MGM themselves (1986-present), and Warner Bros. (which owns the pre-1986 films).

Mayer has been portrayed numerous times in movies including: *Mommie Dearest (by Howard Da Silva) *RKO 281 (by David Suchet) *De-Lovely (by Peter Polycarpou) *The Aviator (by Stanley DeSantis) *The Last Tycoon (by Robert Mitchum) and *Barton Fink (parodied by Michael Lerner) *Hollywoodland *Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows<i> (by Al Waxman) Mayer has a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.

* Time 100 profile of Louis B. Mayer * Louis B. Mayer at IMDb

*Other Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood *Selig Polyscope Company

* Scott Eyman. </i>Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B Mayer'' (2005) Simon & Schuster ISBN 0-7432-0481-6

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