IRVING THALBERG

Irving G. Thalberg was a producer, writer and director from the 1920s to the 1930s. In 1920 at 21, he became an executive at Universal Studios, which was then the number one movie studio. He did well there, but he had a failed romance with owner Carl Laemmle's daughter, which likely caused him to leave the studio, and he signed with Louis B. Mayer. When Mayer joined with Metro to form MGM, Thalberg rose in the ranks at the new combined studio and helped turn MGM into the number one studio. He married actress Norma Shearer, and greatly helped her career at MGM. While he made most of the decisions at MGM, he took no screen credit, except on a single movie! Tragically, he died in 1936 of pneumonia, at just 37.