Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince

“No story ever looks as bad as the story you've just bought; no story ever looks as good as the story the other fellow just bought.” — Irving Thalberg

One of the most important and influential Hollywood figures in history, Irving Thalberg defined movie-mogul at its finest — authoritative, regal, efficient and utterly ruthless.  Garnering industry mythos for his firing of notorious prima donna actor/director Erich von Stroheim from the multi-million dollar “Foolish Wives” in 1922, Thalberg’s prodigious rise through the ranks of Hollywood’s Golden Age is a tale for the ages.

Head of production at Universal Studios by age 21, it was Thalberg’s teaming with Louis B. Mayer to found MGM Studios in 1924 that garnered the hard-driven perfectionist monumental status as one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood by the age of 25. It was at MGM that Thalberg, as producer, oversaw the production of some 400 films, including such prestigious endeavors as “Mutiny On the Bounty,” “Grand Hotel” and 1925s multi-million dollar masterpiece “Ben-Hur.” The life story of Thalberg, whose authority virtually overnight empowered the role of producer with higher rank than the director on film sets, can be defined in one word — pressure. And film historian Mark A. Viera tells this story well with utmost perfection in his vastly entertaining and enthralling biography “Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince.”

Hollywood legends Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer (whom Thalberg married in 1927), Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, Lionel Barrymore and Jean Harlow each owed their success to Irving Thalberg. But it was the mogul’s own drive for perfection that added onto the immense pressures he already faced, including the coming of sound in motion pictures, the looming effects of the Great Depression, the unionization of Hollywood and growing strains between he and partner Louis B. Mayer. And all of this under the shadow of Thalberg’s most devastating of obstacles, a defective heart weakened by childhood illness that ultimately led to mortal heart failure in 1936 at the age of 37.

I found great pleasure reading this detail-rich, well-researched biography of a true Hollywood legend, risk taker and artistic perfectionist. I can only thank Viera for giving us, and Thalberg’s legacy, such a gift.