Irving Thalberg — How to Be a Producer (1926) 🇺🇸
The simplest way to tell that is to relate how young Irving Thalberg got that way
by Dorothy Herzog
The sun was shining. Why not? It had nothing to lose. Therefore we took heart as we breezed up Broadway and bethought ourself of meeting young Irving Thalberg, reckoned the “boy wonder,” “the Miracle Man of pictures,” and other reckless superlatives.
Of course, we argued against ourself. Mr. Thalberg comes to town haloed by glamorous publicity. No man can be 26 years old and merit such awesome titles.
On the other hand, argued ourself to us, Mr. Thalberg is a Vice President of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He holds millions of dollars in the hollow of his hand. As a producer he guides the precarious destinies of such stars as Norma Shearer, Jack Gilbert, Lillian Gish, Renée Adorée, Conrad Nagel, et cetera and ad lib.
I wanted to know how he got that way.
At this asbestos moment, our body came to a halt before the hostelry in which the disturbing Mr. Thalberg had checked in that morn. In we strolled and so up in the elevator to his suite.
A girl interviewer and a bored male of the same profesh lolled in the ante-room.
“Hello,” greeted the g.i., who knew us socially.
“Have you seen him?”
“Have I seen him!” Her optics disobeyed the law of gravitation and rolled upwards. “My dear, he is wonderful. So boyish, so modest, so natural.”
Bosh, likewise piffle, we murmured, and turned as the guardian of the Miracle Man’s room entered. We shook hands and sparred for round one, following him into “the presence.” We failed to discover “the presence.” Instead, a human being of medium height, slight physique, passable good looks, and extraordinary alive eyes of brown greeted us with direct scrutiny and boyish smile.
We introduced ourself as the girl interviewer who meets all the incoming trains. Whereupon the youth before us actually blushed. He protested mildly on being interviewed when New York was full of movie stars.
Of course, that could have raised a question, but we don’t believe in raising anything, even questions. The longer Mr. Thalberg talked, and he can talk once he has an idea ahead of him, the more intrigued we became. To us he seemed a combined Horatio Alger hero, Peter Pan, Napoleon, Falstaff and J. Pierpont Morgan, and we aren’t being prodigal with these names simply to demonstrate how well versed we are in the classics.
Not only has Mr. Thalberg a sense of humor; he is also honest. He came right out and said he was born in Brooklyn, N. Y. He plunged deeper. He declared he held his first job in that Metropolitan borough. His interests, when a youth who left high school for good after an illness of eight months, centered originally in a drygoods store position, which he soon abandoned to learn shorthand and typewriting. Secretarial work won him next. He became man-Friday to an exporter and eventually rose to bossing himself. This position offered no future, so determined young Irving canned himself and millionaired it to Long Island on his savings.
Here he met Carl Laemmle, rotund president of Universal Pictures. Thalberg didn’t know if Universal Pictures were postal cards or a tabloid paper, but he soon learned. The boardwalk acquaintance blossomed and the two men swapped ideas. Mr. Laemmle liked the youth’s vitality, enthusiasm, keenness, fertile brain. He offered him a secretarial job. Irving turned it down flatter than a pancake. It came too easy. Perhaps this was the first and last time Carl Laemmle ever met with such an experience. It served to make him remember Thalberg.
Some time later, C. L., as Irving calls him, went a-visiting to his company’s distributing offices. What was his surprise to espy his boardwalk vis-a-vis ensconced behind a desk. He learned Thalberg had just walked in and talked himself into the job. Whereupon C. L. transferred him promptly to the once disdained secretarial position.
From this Irving learned the intricacies of running a huge motion picture concern. He learned what the exhibitors wanted, or thought they wanted. He learned how the public responded to various type pictures. And all this time he was working a la a family of ants. When C. L. departed for Europe and left his alert secretary on the Coast, Thalberg plunged avidly into production routine. He achieved so much in a short period that C. L. gave him the job permanently. In less time than it takes to sew a button on an overcoat, Irving Thalberg had risen to be general production director of the massive Universal plant.
So “they” — the picture folk — pointed to him as the “boy Wonder,” “the Miracle Man,” a genius of motion pictures. George Randolph Chester, now demised, took exception to such rantings and penned satirical fiction for a great weekly around young Thalberg, baptizing his story character, Izzy Einstein. Through Izzy, Irving became a national figure.
Now it happens that Mr. Thalberg has, foremost among his business code, three principles: Slick to a good idea enthusiastically until it materializes; work eight hours daily in three unions; never remain in a job when you have everything from it you can get.
Obeying the latter principle, he left Universal to become Louis B, Mayer’s leftenant. Mr. Mayer, then an independent producer, gave his aid plenty of rope. Instead of hanging himself. Thalberg did tricks with it, tricks that box-office and public relished.
So it came about that when Mr. Mayer merged with Metro and Goldwyn, he took Irving Thalberg with him. That wide-awake organization rewarded the youth’s impressive results by making him Vice President, raising his salary to dizzy figures and placing him in charge of his own producing units, a few stars and directors, and the run of the stock company at his disposal. And Irving Thalberg, today, is only 26 years of age.
We wanted to know how he went about achieving results. He illustrated with The Big Parade.
This war-romance was turned over to him He selected King Vidor to direct it and assigned Jack Gilbert to a role that suited him like an immaculate kid glove, Gilbert, to Thalberg, has “it” plus. He has fire, passion, romance. The character of the French girl went to Renée Adorée. Miss Adorée had been with M. G. M. for several years and during that time had achieved only mediocre success.
Mr. Thalberg vows Renée is a wonderful actress. She is a distinct type, as well as an individual. What she needed to prove this to the world was the right part. She got it in The Big Parade.”
The picture was put into production. The director, the players dropped in to see Mr. Thalberg from time to time. He pepped them up, inspired them, sponsored enthusiasm in them, and they returned to work determined to realize what he convinced them could be done After considerable hard work, the picture was completed and given to Mr. Thalberg to pass judgment on. Every man and woman in the company were worn to the verge of exhaustion by the long hours and strenuous efforts put into its making. What would their 26 year old chief say?
“A great picture,” he praised, “but the beginning and the end will have to be retaken.”
They were in a way that heightened suspense and drama and drew the story closer to its theme. Today, this picture rates the best production of its kind since “The Birth of a Nation.”
Thalberg has a decisive mind, mellowed with imagination and line sensibilities. He knows when a person is good or a picture is good. He gets a “hunch” when he is right.
That is the way he explains how he “discovered,” though did not get, Norma Shearer, years ago. He saw Norma enact a small role, for which she received no screen credit, in a film yclept “The Stealers.” He tried to find her whereabouts but failed. Years later, he learned she was making a picture in Buffalo. He communicated with her, but they couldn’t come to terms.
When he went with Mr. Mayer, Thalberg suggested Norma Shearer to him as likely star material. Mr. Mayer signed her on his say-so. You know the rest.
Mr. Thalberg is desirous of increasing his roster of players He wants newcomers and more newcomers, for players must be developed to inherit the spotlight the older stars will vacate. In an effort to find talented novices and unknowns. M. G. M. devotes an hour every afternoon to making screen tests of those recommended by friends, agents, studio employees, even strangers. Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent yearly for these tests and Thalberg estimates if three or four possibilities are found among the hundreds who get a test, the expenditure is merited.
Though he emphasizes the need of newcomers, he pauses to deplore the hundreds of girls who pour into Hollywood seeking fame and fortune in the dicker world. There are approximately one hundred applicants for one picture job.
He claims a screen aspirant cannot be a modern Laura Jean Libbey heroine because she is the exact image of Norma Talmadge, or Gloria Swanson, or Mary Pickford. Nor can her hope be realized through physical accomplishments or drawing-room niceties.
Mr. Thalberg points out that a screen hopeful should have something to give before she can get anything from this business. Norma Shearer gives freshness, youth, buoyancy to the screen. Renée Adorée, smouldering emotions, coquettishness, allurements. Conrad Nagel, cleanness, sincerity. Roy D’Arcy can exemplify the leering, suave hypocrite.
Just how talented girls from all parts of the country are to be given their chance to swell the picture ranks without throwing caution to the wind and swooping unknown and minus assets into the Cinema City is a problem even the astute Irving Thalberg cannot answer. Some day it will be solved and, he hints, that day is not far off.
So it was on this optimistic note that we departed Mr. Thalberg’s presence, for a “presence” he is, despite the fact he is a human being — modest, brilliant, blessed with the rare gifts of humor, human insight, and brains.
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And He Didn’t
“And listen,” counseled the producer’s business adviser, “when you sign that bird up, I wouldn’t pay him any more than I had to.”
“Don’t worry,” said the producer, “I won’t even pay him that much!”
Collection: Photoplay Magazine, April 1926