One of the most influential figures of Hollywood's golden era who, from 1924 to 1951, guided MGM through its reign as America's greatest studio, with "more stars than there are in the heavens."

Immigrating to Canada, and then the US, Mayer set up a successful chain of movie theaters in New England before moving into distribution, scoring a huge profit with "The Birth of a Nation" (1915). He then turned to production with the Alco company, which later changed its name to Metro. Mayer went independent in 1917, forming Louis B. Mayer Productions, but seven years later merged once again with Metro, as well as with Samuel Goldwyn. Mayer was named vice-president and general manager of the freshly-formed MGM, and with "boy genius" Irving Thalberg as his production chief he ran the studio like a family household, dishing out punishments or rewards according to his whimsy. Relying more on intuition than intellect, Mayer steered the company to its greatest successes with the directing skills of DeMille, the face of Garbo and the finest creative and technical personnel in filmdom.

Mayer won a Special Academy Award "for distinguished service to the motion picture industry" in 1950 but was ousted from MGM the following year by his former assistant, Dore Schary. His eldest daughter Edie was married to producer William Goetz. Mayer's youngest daughter, Irene, was married to David O Selznick and was a theatrical producer in the 1940s and 50s whose shows included Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" and Enid Bagnold's "The Chalk Garden".