Marcus Loew
Encyclopedia
Marcus Loew was an American
business magnate and a pioneer of the motion picture industry who formed Loews Theatres and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
(MGM).
, he was forced by circumstances to work at a very young age and thus had little formal education. Nevertheless, beginning with a small investment from money saved from menial jobs, he bought into the penny arcade
business. Shortly after, in partnership with Adolph Zukor
and others, Loew acquired a nickelodeon and over time he turned Loew's Theatres into the most prestigious chain of movie theater
s in the United States.
By 1905, Marcus Loew was on his own and his success eventually necessitated that he secure a steady flow of product for his theaters. In 1904, he founded the People's Vaudeville Company, a theatre chain which showcased one-reeler films as well as live variety shows. In 1910, the company had considerably expanded and got the name Loew's Consolidated Enterprises. His associates included Adolph Zukor
, Joseph Schenck
, and Nicholas Schenck
. In 1919, Loew reorganized the company under the name Loew's, Inc. In the early 1920s, Loew purchased Metro Pictures Corporation
. A few years later, he acquired a controlling interest in the financially troubled Goldwyn Picture Corporation which at that point was controlled by theater impresario Lee Shubert
. Goldwyn Pictures owned the "Leo the Lion
" trademark which at the time was inconsequential to the importance of its studio property in Culver City, California
. Without Samuel Goldwyn
, the Goldwyn studio lacked capable management. With Loew's assistant Nicholas Schenck
needed in New York City to help manage the large East Coast
movie theater operations, Loew had to find a qualified executive to take charge of this new Los Angeles
entity.
Loew found himself faced with a serious dilemma: his merged companies lacked a central managerial command structure. Film production had been gravitating toward southern California since 1913, while he himself was loath to relocate west. He also wisely recognized his limitations; he was not a hands on movie mogul, rather he was a theater owner and took immense pride in owning the largest chain of the grandest movie palaces in the United States. Loew's new conglomeration of companies had mired themselves in several costly troubled productions (among them, Ben-Hur
(1925), and tangled contractual dealings with Erich von Stroheim
, whose cost overruns doomed any production he was associated with) that threatened to bring the entire venture to its knees.
Loew recalled meeting a film producer named Louis B. Mayer and through due diligence, learned that he had been operating a successful, if modest, studio in east Los Angeles. Mayer had been making low budget turgid melodramas for a number of years, marketing them primarily to women. Since he rented most of his equipment and hired most of his stars on a per-picture basis, Loew wasn't after Mayer's brick and mortar business; he wanted Mayer. What Loew didn't fully realize is that a tremendous amount of Mayer's success was due to his Chief of Production, a former Universal Pictures executive, Irving Thalberg
. Nicholas Schenck was dispatched to cut a deal that, incredibly didn't include Thalberg. Mayer, to his credit, insisted that Thalberg remain with the company and after tense negotiations, Loew caved.
In April 1924, Metro-Goldwyn Pictures was formed. Loew, Mayer, and Thalberg set about to create the world's premier film studio (which had previously been Universal Studios
), with Thalberg taking immense pleasure in overtaking his former employer on every production level. Thalberg's career at Universal had been marred with a failed romance with Carl Laemmle's daughters and a recognition that his future at the paternalistic studio had hit a wall. Mayer and Thalberg scored an almost immediate coup by signing Universal star Lon Chaney to Metro's first non-inherited production He Who Gets Slapped
(1924).
Mayer's company folded into Metro Goldwyn with two notable additions: Mayer Pictures' contracts with key directors such as Fred Niblo
and John M. Stahl
, and up-and-coming actress Norma Shearer
, later married to Thalberg. Mayer would eventually be rewarded by having his name added to the company. Loews Inc. would act as MGM's financier and retain controlling interest for decades.
While immediately successful, Loew never got to see the powerhouse that MGM was to become. He died three years later of a heart attack
at the age of 57 in Glen Cove, New York
. He was interred in the Maimonides Cemetery in Brooklyn
.
For his very significant contribution to the development of the motion picture industry, Marcus Loew has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
at 1617 Vine Street. To this day, the Loew name is synonymous with movie theaters.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
business magnate and a pioneer of the motion picture industry who formed Loews Theatres and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
(MGM).
Biography
Born into a poor Jewish family in New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, he was forced by circumstances to work at a very young age and thus had little formal education. Nevertheless, beginning with a small investment from money saved from menial jobs, he bought into the penny arcade
Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade may refer to:* Penny arcade, a venue for coin-operated devices* Penny Arcade ** Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, a series of video games based on the webcomic...
business. Shortly after, in partnership with Adolph Zukor
Adolph Zukor
Adolph Zukor , born Adolph Cukor, was a film mogul and founder of Paramount Pictures.-Early life:...
and others, Loew acquired a nickelodeon and over time he turned Loew's Theatres into the most prestigious chain of movie theater
Movie theater
A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
s in the United States.
By 1905, Marcus Loew was on his own and his success eventually necessitated that he secure a steady flow of product for his theaters. In 1904, he founded the People's Vaudeville Company, a theatre chain which showcased one-reeler films as well as live variety shows. In 1910, the company had considerably expanded and got the name Loew's Consolidated Enterprises. His associates included Adolph Zukor
Adolph Zukor
Adolph Zukor , born Adolph Cukor, was a film mogul and founder of Paramount Pictures.-Early life:...
, Joseph Schenck
Joseph Schenck
Joseph Michael Schenck was a pioneer executive who played a key role in the development of the United States film industry.Born in Rybinsk, Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia to a Jewish household, he and his family-including younger brother Nicholas- emigrated to New York City in 1893, he and Nicholas...
, and Nicholas Schenck
Nicholas Schenck
Nicholas M. Schenck was a motion picture mogul and impresario.One of seven children, Schenck was born to a Jewish household in Rybinsk, a Volga River village in Tsarist Russia...
. In 1919, Loew reorganized the company under the name Loew's, Inc. In the early 1920s, Loew purchased Metro Pictures Corporation
Metro Pictures
Metro Pictures Corporation was an American motion picture production company founded in late 1915 by Richard A. Rowland . Louis B. Mayer who worked for Metro Pictures Corporation early on. It is not to be confused with MGM which is a much later franchise concerning itself, Goldwyn and Louis B....
. A few years later, he acquired a controlling interest in the financially troubled Goldwyn Picture Corporation which at that point was controlled by theater impresario Lee Shubert
Lee Shubert
Levi "Lee" Shubert was a Polish-born American theatre owner/operator and producer and the oldest of seven siblings of the theatrical Shubert family....
. Goldwyn Pictures owned the "Leo the Lion
Leo the Lion (MGM)
Leo the Lion is the mascot for the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and one of its predecessors, Goldwyn Pictures, featured in the studio's production logo, which was created by the Paramount Studios art director Lionel S. Reiss....
" trademark which at the time was inconsequential to the importance of its studio property in Culver City, California
Culver City, California
Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883, up from 38,816 at the 2000 census. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also shares a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Culver...
. Without Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn was an American film producer, and founding contributor executive of several motion picture studios.-Biography:...
, the Goldwyn studio lacked capable management. With Loew's assistant Nicholas Schenck
Nicholas Schenck
Nicholas M. Schenck was a motion picture mogul and impresario.One of seven children, Schenck was born to a Jewish household in Rybinsk, a Volga River village in Tsarist Russia...
needed in New York City to help manage the large East Coast
East Coast of the United States
The East Coast of the United States, also known as the Eastern Seaboard, refers to the easternmost coastal states in the United States, which touch the Atlantic Ocean and stretch up to Canada. The term includes the U.S...
movie theater operations, Loew had to find a qualified executive to take charge of this new Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
entity.
Loew found himself faced with a serious dilemma: his merged companies lacked a central managerial command structure. Film production had been gravitating toward southern California since 1913, while he himself was loath to relocate west. He also wisely recognized his limitations; he was not a hands on movie mogul, rather he was a theater owner and took immense pride in owning the largest chain of the grandest movie palaces in the United States. Loew's new conglomeration of companies had mired themselves in several costly troubled productions (among them, Ben-Hur
Ben-Hur (1925 film)
Ben-Hur is a 1925 silent film directed by Fred Niblo. It was a blockbuster hit for newly merged Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This was the second film based on the novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace...
(1925), and tangled contractual dealings with Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim
Erich von Stroheim was an Austrian-born film star of the silent era, subsequently noted as an auteur for his directorial work.-Background:...
, whose cost overruns doomed any production he was associated with) that threatened to bring the entire venture to its knees.
Loew recalled meeting a film producer named Louis B. Mayer and through due diligence, learned that he had been operating a successful, if modest, studio in east Los Angeles. Mayer had been making low budget turgid melodramas for a number of years, marketing them primarily to women. Since he rented most of his equipment and hired most of his stars on a per-picture basis, Loew wasn't after Mayer's brick and mortar business; he wanted Mayer. What Loew didn't fully realize is that a tremendous amount of Mayer's success was due to his Chief of Production, a former Universal Pictures executive, Irving Thalberg
Irving Thalberg
Irving Grant Thalberg was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and his extraordinary ability to select the right scripts, choose the right actors, gather the best production staff and make very profitable films.-Life and...
. Nicholas Schenck was dispatched to cut a deal that, incredibly didn't include Thalberg. Mayer, to his credit, insisted that Thalberg remain with the company and after tense negotiations, Loew caved.
In April 1924, Metro-Goldwyn Pictures was formed. Loew, Mayer, and Thalberg set about to create the world's premier film studio (which had previously been Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
), with Thalberg taking immense pleasure in overtaking his former employer on every production level. Thalberg's career at Universal had been marred with a failed romance with Carl Laemmle's daughters and a recognition that his future at the paternalistic studio had hit a wall. Mayer and Thalberg scored an almost immediate coup by signing Universal star Lon Chaney to Metro's first non-inherited production He Who Gets Slapped
He Who Gets Slapped
He Who Gets Slapped is a 1924 film starring Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, and John Gilbert. It was directed by Victor Sjöström. The film is based on the Russian play Тот, кто получает пощёчины by playwright Leonid Andreyev, which was published in 1914 and in English, as He Who Gets Slapped, in 1922...
(1924).
Mayer's company folded into Metro Goldwyn with two notable additions: Mayer Pictures' contracts with key directors such as Fred Niblo
Fred Niblo
Fred Niblo was an American pioneer film actor, director and producer.-Biography:He was born Frederick Liedtke in York, Nebraska, to a French mother and a father who had served as a captain in the American Civil War and was wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg...
and John M. Stahl
John M. Stahl
John Malcolm Stahl was an American film director and producer.Born in New York City, New York, he began working in the city's growing motion picture industry at a young age and directed his first silent film short in 1914. In the early 1920s Stahl signed on with Louis B...
, and up-and-coming actress Norma Shearer
Norma Shearer
Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress. Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in North America from the mid-1920s through the 1930s...
, later married to Thalberg. Mayer would eventually be rewarded by having his name added to the company. Loews Inc. would act as MGM's financier and retain controlling interest for decades.
While immediately successful, Loew never got to see the powerhouse that MGM was to become. He died three years later of a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
at the age of 57 in Glen Cove, New York
Glen Cove, New York
Glen Cove is a city in Nassau County, New York on the North Shore of Long Island. As of the United States 2010 Census, the city population was 26,964....
. He was interred in the Maimonides Cemetery in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
.
For his very significant contribution to the development of the motion picture industry, Marcus Loew has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 1617 Vine Street. To this day, the Loew name is synonymous with movie theaters.
Further reading
- Robert SobelRobert SobelRobert Sobel was an American professor of history at Hofstra University, and a well-known and prolific writer of business histories.- Biography :...
, The Entrepreneurs: Explorations Within the American Business Tradition (Weybright & Talley, 1974), chapter 7, "Marcus Loew: An Artist in Spite of Himself" ISBN 0-679-40064-8