THE LATE IRVING THALBERG

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 303, 18 September 1936, Page 14

THE LATE IRVING THALBERG

THE death of the well-known film director, Irving Thalberg, husband of Norma Shearer, removes from the screen world one of its most talented members and one who will not be easily replaced. Mpre. perhans. than any other man. has he brought the white fire of real inspiration to the making of pictures. His courage in backing his own opinion against opposition, his heavy but sagacious spending, his insistence on accuracy in minute detail, his vaulting imagination and his artistic judgement, have made his position and' reputation unique. Frail in physique, small, sensitive, almost wistful, he became one of the most outstanding figures in Hollywood. It has been said of him that he made the immensely expensive process of retakes an integral part of production technique, instead of a desperate last resort to correct production blunders that were Intolerable. This virtual remaking of films that technically are completed and saleable is an expensive game, only to be justified by results. Thalberg, a small, highly-strung, nervous man, had a brilliant career —as incredible as any film. After finishing his public school education he trained himself for business in his grandfather’s store, practising typewriting, shorthand and Spanish. He advertised for a job at £3 a week, and became stenographer to an export man. Inside of a year he was assistantmanager,’ and promptly resigned for greater opportunities. He stayed for a holiday in a cottage next to Carl Laemmle’s, talked to him, admired him inordinately, and was offered a job. He didn’t take it—it seemed too simple. Later, he got a minor part with Universal in New York, studied the film business through a microscope, was noted afresh by Laemmle, and became that film veteran’s secretary. In two years he knew the innermost coils of the business, and was taken into Unl-

versal City. At nineteen Thalberg was made general manager there, and Laemmle went off on a European holiday with an easy mind. His confidence was justified. Thalberg astonished the film world with such pictures as “The Storm,” “Outside the Law,” “Merry-Go-Round” and “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” But Thalberg was not content He looked for larger worlds, and joined forces with Louis B. Mayer, then an independent producer/ When the Metro-Goljdwyn-Mayer consolidation took place, Thalberg joined Mayer iu the operation of the studios. At twentyfour he was given production leadership, with the permanent problem of deciding what films M.G.M. should make and how it should make them. His early work resulted in some of the screen’s biggest silent pictures, including “Ben Hur” and “The Big Parade.” He induced Norma Shearer to come to Hollywood, ’and after she had been there three years, made his first non-business appointment with her. They were married in 1928, and have two children, Irving and Katherine. When talking films came in 1929, Thalberg waited, not an easy thing in those hectic times. But he avoided the mistakes made in a panic rush - by some other companies—and then after captious planning, made “Broadway Melody.” It smashed records everywhere. Since then his successes have been almost monotonously brilliant He built up personalities; was first to create the multi-star cast, climaxed by “Grand Hotel,” with a galaxy of stellar names; and recently has been responsible for “Riptide,” “Barretts of • Wimpole Street,” “Merry Widow,” “What Every Woman Knows,” “Biography of a Bachelor Girl,” “No More Ladies,” “China Seas,” “Mutiny on the Bounty,” “Night at the Opera” and “Riff Raff.” On his current schedule are “Romeo and Juliet,” “The Good Earth,” “Maytime,” “Prisoner of Zenda,” “Marie Antoinette,” and others of equal size. Some of these should certainly make film history—if he did not think so, he would not have been content to make them, for that was the nature of that dynamic man of thirty-seven, with the curiously calm, soft voice.