The Lions of Hollywood: Louis B Mayer and the MGM Mascots

Venus is retrograde in Leo from July 25 to September 5, 2015. Mercury and Venus retrogrades are often perceived negative as they seem to coincide with irritating problems in communication, travel, and relationships. It's a different story when they're retrograde in a natal chart! They can signify a unique perspective and special talents.

Last week we looked at Jon Stewart and his retrograde Venus in Scorpio. Louis B. Mayer was born with retrograde Venus in Cancer in a tight conjunction with Mercury. Mercury-Venus conjunctions signify abundant talents in the arts. Mayer's Mercury-Venus Rx are conjunct his Cancer Sun. This condition is known as combustion, an unfortunate position as the Sun scorches nearby planets in his solar beams. As planets pass through the “body” of the Sun, their energies are transformed in some way.

Louis B. Mayer is a perfect example of the phenomenon of combustion. He transformed himself from a poor immigrant boy into the best-paid man in the United States. His early misfortunes led to superb fortune through many business partnerships throughout his career. Mayer's Sun, Venus Rx and Mercury show how combining the right people with the right talents can create artistic triumphs.

He was born Lazar Meir on July 12, 1884 in Dymer, Russia (now Ukraine). His father collected scrap metal. Lazar quit school at age 12 to help his dad. But he had ambitions! Mayer's chart contains a dynamic Mars-Uranus conjunction in Virgo. He pounced on the new film technologies by starting a film distributing company in 1914. In 1917, the Gordon-Mayer partnership formed. Within seven years they controlled the largest theater chain in New England.

Film distribution was lucrative but producing movies was more exciting. Mayer moved to Los Angeles in 1922 and joined with B. P. Schulberg to found the Mayer-Schulberg Studio. Mayer immediately hired Irving Thalberg, an early directorial genius. The historic Mayer-Thalberg team became the foundation of one of Hollywood's greatest movie studios. Thalberg and Mayer had diametrically opposite personalities. Mayer handled the business details while Thalberg produced and directed films.

A major film distributor, Lowe's, purchased Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, and the Mayer-Schulberg Studio. This gave birth to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, better known as MGM, in December 1924. Lowe's needed a man to run the west-coast studio. Jupiter and Mercury in Sagittarius were forming a fiery trine to Neptune in Leo in December 1924. Who could be better for the job than Louis B. Mayer, the man with a prominent Jupiter in Leo?

Mayer was a hard-core workaholic with an uncanny gift for spotting talent and hiring the right person for the right job. Under his leadership MGM developed the “studio system.” The Cancerian studio head created a family-like setting at MGM. The studio managed almost every detail of performers' lives and careers. Some actors were grateful for Mayer's paternalistic guidance while others found him intrusive and meddlesome. With natal Saturn square his Mars-Uranus conjunction, Mayer's propensity for controlling things sometimes generated fierce enmity. Biographers swing from praise to criticism. The Saturn-Mars/Uranus square makes him difficult to assess even decades after his death.

Saturn, the planet of managerial skills, occupies the sign of the Twins. Mayer micro-managed MGM's actors but used a hands-off approach with the studio's department heads. His family-oriented Cancer Sun-Mercury-Venus cluster and watery Pisces Moon generated a keen desire to be involved in intimate details. Mayer's open-door policy was genuine; he solved problems and resolved disputes on a daily basis. Readers with Cancerian friends or relatives are well aware of their inclination to have a finger on the pulse of the lives of their loved ones!

One of Mayer's greatest talents was his ability to listen. This often-underrated skill combines an ability to focus acute attention on people's words and absorb information. His Pisces Moon gave him sympathetic resonance, but the intellectual vacuum cleaner was his natal Saturn trine the North Node. Information was power, and he sucked up as much as possible! Watching and listening helped him spot new talent during his many travels. Mayer discovered the inimitable Greta Garbo after seeing her first film in Germany. He immediately offered her a contract and shipped her to LA when she was only 17 years old! She achieved mega-star status at age twenty after her second MGM film was released in 1926.

Under Mayer's leadership MGM was revered for managerial stability, job security, and top salaries. Mayer never forgot the difficulties of his impoverished childhood. With his natal Neptune in Taurus, he had the intuitive awareness that rock-solid stability and shared profits are the best foundation for feeding the chaotic frenzy of artistic fertility.

Louis B. Mayer was the first man in America to earn a million-dollar-a-year salary in 1937. His efforts to produce wholesome, family-oriented entertainment peaked in 1939, considered by many to be the Golden Year of Hollywood. MGM produced such notable films as The Wizard of Oz, Babes in Arms, The Marx Brothers at the Circus, The Woman, Ninotchka, and Goodbye Mr. Chips, and the studio distributed Gone With The Wind (produced by Mayer's son-in-law David O. Selznick). By the 1940s, MGM had over 6,000 employees working on 185 acres in Culver City, California producing sixteen to eighteen films at a time.

World War II (c 1940-1945) changed the movie industry and public tastes. The idealized escapism and extravagant musicals that were popular during the Great Depression of the 1930s shifted to a preference for dramatic intrigue and gritty realism in the 1950s. MGM's profits declined after 1947. Louis B. Mayer retired in 1951. In addition to hundreds of MGM films made during his twenty-six years as studio head, he was one of the founders of the Academy Awards. His stable of top-quality race horses improved the status West-coast thoroughbreds and race tracks. Mayer died of leukemia on October 29, 1957 at age 73.

Louis B. Mayer was known as the “Lion of Hollywood.” Another Mayer legacy is the iconic lion featured in the heraldic logo that precedes every MGM film. Seven lions have held this job through 91 years of MGM productions. The first was a lion named Slats, born on March 20, 1919 at the Dublin Zoo. Slats appeared in the black and white silent films produced at the beginning of Mayer's term as studio head from 1924 to 1928. Two lions, Telly and Coffee, appeared briefly as MGM’s mascots from 1928 until 1932.

The lion Jackie was MGM's mascot from 1928 to 1958. He was the first lion to roar as “talkies” (films with sound tracks) were invented in the late 1920s. Jackie also starred in over 100 films, including the classic Tarzan films starring Johnny Weissmuller (“Down, Simba!”). Jackie got the nickname “Leo the Lucky” after surviving truck and train crashes. Another lion named Tanner sporadically appeared on the logo from 1934 to 1956. Tanner was the first lion to appear in Technicolor. George the lion briefly held the job from 1956 to 1958.

Since 1957, the MGM lion has been Leo, a lion born at the Burgers Zoo in Arnhem, Netherlands. Leo appears in various poses with different roars. As Jupiter moves past the star Regulus, the lion's heart of the Leo constellation, I hope you've enjoyed this tribute to the historic Lions of Hollywood!