| The creation of MGM was orchestrated by Marcus Loew (1870–1927), who began building a chain of vaudeville and nickelodeon theaters in 1904 and 1905; by 1919, when it became Loew's, Incorporated, it was the leading chain of first-class theaters in the United States, concentrated in the New York area. Loew began to expand beyond film exhibition with the 1920 purchase of Metro Pictures, a nationwide distribution company with modest production facilities in Los Angeles. Two major acquisitions in 1924 completed Loew's expansion into full-scale, vertically integrated operation. The first was Goldwyn Pictures, an integrated company whose major component was its sizable production plant in Culver City. Built in 1915 by studio pioneer Thomas Ince (1882–1924) as the home of Triangle Pictures, the forty-acre expanse featured glass-enclosed stages, a three-story office building, and a full complement of labs, workshops, dressing rooms, storage facilities, and staff bungalows. Cofounder Sam Goldwyn (1882–1974) had been forced out in an earlier power struggle, so Loew was in need of top executives to manage the studio. Thus the second acquisition involved Louis B. Mayer Productions, a small company that focused on A-class pictures and was capably run by Mayer and his young production supervisor, Irving Thalberg (then age twenty-five), who had already supervised production at Universal. |
