John Gilbert: The Last of the Silent Film Stars

Chapter Five

Chapter Five It’s so great to be a part of anything like this. I just can’t believe I’m really here. —John Gilbert, 1924 When Jack reported to work at the new Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios, he was actually stepping back into his own past: the production headquarters , at 10202 West Washington Boulevard, in Culver City, was the colonnaded old Triangle Studio building. Fellow freshmen starting out at MGM in 1924 and ’25 included leading ladies Aileen Pringle, Blanche Sweet, Anita Stewart, Mae Murray, Norma Shearer, Eleanor Boardman, and Joan Crawford. His competing leading men were Ramon Novarro, William Haines, Lloyd Hughes, and Conrad Nagel—as well as character star Lon Chaney, comic Buster Keaton, and child wonder Jackie Coogan. MGM also had a stable of star directors on hand, including King Vidor, Erich von Stroheim, Clarence Brown, and Tod Browning. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the result of a three-company 1924 merger brainstormed by movie executive Marcus Loew that combined Metro Pictures Corporation, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Pictures Corporation. In 1920 Loew had purchased Metro, which had been founded by Richard Rowland and the boisterous, opinionated workhorse Louis B. Mayer in 1915. Mayer had left that company to open Louis B. Mayer Pictures Corporation in 1918, but Loew kept his eye on him. In 1924 Loew also bought Goldwyn Pictures, which was the 1916 brainchild of Samuel Goldfish and the Selwyn brothers (the joke 75 76 The Peak around town being it either had to be called “Goldwyn” or “Selfish”). Sam Goldfish liked the name so much he wisely changed his own. Goldwyn had lost control of his own studio in 1922, which was now floundering under the management of Frank Joseph Godsol. Loew, who ran the huge Loew’s Theater chain, combined the three organizations, and thus—on May 16, 1924—was born Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (though its releases were still billed as “Metro-Goldwyn” pictures as late as 1926). Louis B. Mayer was such a colorful character that it seems in retrospect that he was solely in charge of the studio, but this was far from the case. Nicholas Schenck—Marcus Loew’s money manager—ran the financial end of the business from New York. Mayer was named first vice president and head of studio operations. Production heads were former Warner Bros. general manager Harry Rapf, and Irving Thalberg. By no means did Mayer have final say on everything. Mayer and Schenck, who cordially hated each other, coexisted (happily, on separate coasts) till Schenck controversially ousted Mayer in 1951. MGM announced in June 1924 that in its first year of production it would spend at least $15 million making more than fifty movies. The studio planned to add four more stages to the lot, three more administration buildings, a prop building, $200,000 worth of equipment, and “a small fortune” in costumes and furniture. Jack was signed at $1,500 a week—he made less than Lon Chaney and Alice Terry (a now-forgotten dramatic actress), but slightly more than Ramon Novarro and Conrad Nagel. Novarro, two years younger than Jack, was a boyishly handsome, ingratiating actor who had been rising steadily since his 1922 breakthrough as a dashing villain in Metro ’s The Prisoner of Zenda. Smart, funny, and likeable, Novarro got to play few villains; he was soon typecast as the lovelorn boy next door (his Mexican accent no impediment in silent films). He had three movies in release in 1924, and in 1925 would star in the year’s blockbuster, Ben-Hur. MGM’s other early male star, Conrad Nagel, never really clicked with audiences and is largely forgotten today. A cooperative team player, the rather bland, blond Nagel (born the same year as Jack, also in the Midwest), was a reliable leading man, able to gaze longingly at the star without really getting in her way. In 1924 he had an impressive eight films in release, supporting Aileen Pringle, Alma Rubens, Blanche Sweet, Jack’s MGM bosses Irving Thalberg and Louis B. Mayer, seen here in 1933 (The Everett Collection). 78 The Peak Eleanor Boardman, and—along with Jack—Norma Shearer, in The Snob. Nagel went on to become president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and he hosted several early Oscars ceremonies; he lived long enough to appear on TV’s Gunsmoke and Perry Mason in the 1960s. Jack’s first project to...