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Irving Thalberg

Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and ability to select scripts, choose actors, gather production staff, and make profitable films, including Grand Hotel, China Seas, A Night at the Opera, Mutiny on the Bounty, Camille and The Good Earth. His films carved out an international market, "projecting a seductive image of American life brimming with vitality and rooted in democracy and personal freedom", states biographer Roland Flamini.

He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and as a child was afflicted with a congenital heart disease that doctors said would kill him before he reached the age of thirty. After graduating from high school he worked as a store clerk during the day and to gain some job skills took a night class in typing. He then found work as a secretary with Universal Studios' New York office, and was later made studio manager for its Los Angeles facility. There, he oversaw production of a hundred films during his three years with the company. Among the films he produced was The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923).

In Los Angeles, he partnered with Louis B. Mayer's new studio and, after it merged with two other studios, helped create Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). He was made head of production of MGM in 1925, at the age of twenty-six, helping MGM become the most successful studio in Hollywood. During his twelve years with MGM, until his premature death at the age of 37, he produced four hundred films, most of which bore his imprint and innovations, including story conferences with writers, sneak previews to gain early feedback, and extensive re-shooting of scenes to improve the film. In addition, he introduced horror films to audiences and coauthored the "Production Code", guidelines for morality followed by all studios. During the 1920s and 1930s, he synthesized and merged the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.

Thalberg created numerous new stars and groomed their screen images. Among them were Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lionel Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Spencer Tracy, Luise Rainer, and Norma Shearer, who became his wife. He had the ability to combine quality with commercial success, and was credited with bringing his artistic aspirations in line with the demands of audiences. After his death, Hollywood's producers said he had been the world's "foremost figure in motion-picture history". President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces." The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, given out periodically by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since 1937, has been awarded to producers whose body of work reflected consistently high-quality films.

Early years
Thalberg was born in Brooklyn, to German Jewish immigrant parents, William and Henrietta (Haymann). Shortly after birth, he was diagnosed with "blue baby syndrome", caused by a congenital disease that limited the oxygen supply to his heart. The prognosis from the family's doctor and specialists was that he might live to the age of twenty, or at most, to thirty.

During his high school years in Brooklyn, he began having attacks of chest pains, dizziness and fatigue. This affected his ability to study, though until that time he was a good student. When he was 17 he contracted rheumatic fever, and was confined to bed for a year. His mother, in order to prevent him falling too far behind other students, brought him homework from school, books, and tutors to teach him at home. She also hoped that the schoolwork and reading would distract him from the "tantalizing sounds" of children playing outside his window.

With little to entertain him, he read books as a main activity. He devoured popular novels, classics, plays, and biographies. His books, of necessity, replaced the streets of New York, and led to his interest in classical philosophy and philosophers, such as William James.

When Thalberg returned to school, he finished high school but lacked the stamina for college, which he felt would have required constant late-night studying and cramming for exams. Instead, he took part-time jobs as a store clerk, and in the evenings, to gain some job skills, taught himself typing, shorthand and Spanish at a night vocational school. When he turned 18, he placed an advertisement in the local newspaper hoping to find better work:

"Situation Wanted: Secretary, stenographer, Spanish, English, high school education, no experience; $15."

Universal Studios
He found work as an office secretary at Universal Pictures' New York office, and later became personal secretary to the studio's founder and president, Carl Laemmle. Among Thalberg's duties were transcribing and editing notes that Laemmle had written during screenings of his films. He earned $25 weekly, becoming adept at making insightful observations, which impressed Laemmle.

Laemmle took Thalberg to see his Los Angeles production facility, where he spent a month watching how movie production worked. Before returning to New York, Laemmle told Thalberg to remain and "keep an eye on things for me." Two months later, Laemmle returned to California, partly to see how well Thalberg was able to handle the responsibilities he had been given. Thalberg gave him suggestions, and thus impressed Laemmle by his ability to understand and explain problems.

Thalberg suggested, "The first thing you should do is establish a new job of studio manager and give him the responsibility of watching day-to-day operations." Laemmle immediately agreed: "All right. You're it." In shock, Thalberg replied, "I'm what?" Laemmle told him to take charge of the Los Angeles studio, which he did in early 1919. When aged 20, Thalberg became responsible for immediately overseeing the nine ongoing film productions and nearly thirty scenarios then under development.

In describing the rationale for this early appointment as studio manager, film historian David Thomson writes that his new job "owed nothing to nepotism, private wealth, or experience in the film industry." He reasons that despite "Thalberg's youth, modest education, and frail appearance ... it is clear that he had the charm, insight, and ability, or the appearance of it, to captivate the film world."

Thalberg was one among the majority of Hollywood film industry workers who migrated from the East Coast, primarily from New York. Some film actors, such as Conrad Nagel, did not like the five-day train trip or the sudden warmth of the California climate. Neither did Marion Davies, who was not used to such "big wide spaces". Samuel Marx, a close friend of Thalberg's from New York, recalled how easily Thalberg adapted to Southern California, often standing outside his doorway during moments of contemplation to enjoy the scenery. "We were all young", said comedian Buster Keaton. "The air in California was like wine. Our business was also young—and growing like nothing ever seen before."

Confrontation with Erich von Stroheim
He quickly established his tenacity as he battled with well-known director Erich von Stroheim over the length of Foolish Wives (1922). Biographer Roland Flamini notes that the film was Universal's most expensive "jewel" ever in production, and its director and star, von Stroheim, was taking the film far over budget. Thalberg, now Universal's general manager, was forced to have the director quickly finalize production before the studio's working capital was used up. Flamini describes the situation:

"The cost of that set alone had staggered Thalberg when he learned of it, but it was von Stroheim's obsessive spending on unnecessary detail that finally led to Thalberg's confrontation with the formidable director."

Thalberg had von Stroheim come to his office, which he did still wearing his film costume as a Russian Imperial Guard and escorted by members of his production team. Thalberg calmly told him, "I have seen all the film and you have all you need for the picture. I want you to stop shooting", to which von Stroheim replied, "But I have not finished as yet." "Yes, you have", said Thalberg. "You have spent all the money this company can afford. I cannot allow you to spend any more."

Thalberg quietly explained that the director worked under the producer, and it was his responsibility to control costs. Von Stroheim, surrounded by his assistants, then confronted Thalberg: "If you were not my superior, I would smash you in the face." Thalberg, unflinching, said "Don't let that stop you." The result was that Thalberg soon afterward removed the cameras from von Stroheim's studio and took over editing. The uncut footage was pared down from five-and-a-half hours to three hours, to von Stroheim's deep dissatisfaction.

A similar problem developed with von Stroheim's next film, Merry-Go-Round (1923). Although he had promised Thalberg to remain within budget this time, he continued production until it went to twice the agreed length and was not yet near completion. Flamini speculates why this happened:

"Given his earlier problems with Thalberg, the director's behavior seemed suicidal. It's possible, however, that the idea of dismissal was simply unthinkable to him or that that he felt he could go over Thalberg's head to Laemmle, and the studio boss would surely want to keep his most prestigious director happy."

Thalberg again called von Stroheim to his office, handed him a long letter written and signed by himself, describing the problems, and summarily fired von Stroheim as of that moment. Thalberg's letter stated among the reasons,

"totally inexcusable and repeated acts of insubordination ... extravagant ideas which you have been unwilling to sacrifice ... unnecessary delays ... and your apparent idea that you are greater and more powerful than the organization that employs you."

His dismissal of von Stroheim was considered an "earthquake in movie circles", notes Flamini. Producer David O. Selznick said that "it was the first time a director had been fired. It took great guts and courage ... Von Stroheim was utterly indifferent over money and could have gone on and spent millions, with nobody to stop him". The opinion was shared by director Rouben Mamoulian, who said that the "little fellow at Universal", in one bold stroke, had "asserted the primacy of the studio over the director" and forever altered the balance of power in the movie industry.

Effects of his young age
According to Flamini, his youth was a subject of conversation within the movie community. Executives from other studios, actors, and film crew, often mistook him to be a junior employee. Movie columnist Louella Parsons, upon first being introduced to him, asked, "What's the joke? Where's the new general manager?" After five minutes of talking to Thalberg, however, she later wrote about "Universal's Boy Wonder": "He might be a boy in looks and age, but it was no child's mind that was being asked to cope with the intricate politics of Universal City." Novelist Edna Ferber responded the same way, writing that "I had fancied motion-picture producers as large gentlemen smoking oversized cigars. But this young man whose word seemed so final at Universal City ... impressed me deeply."

The male actors in the studio had a similar reaction. Lionel Barrymore, who was nearly twice his age, recalled their meetings: "I used to go into his office with the feeling I was addressing a boy. In a moment, I would be the one who felt young and inexperienced. I would feel he was not one, but all the forty disciples."

Thalberg likewise gained the respect of leading playwrights, some of whom also looked down on him due to his youth. George S. Kaufman, co-author of Dinner at Eight, several Marx Brothers films, and two George Gershwin plays, came from New York to meet with Thalberg. Afterward he confided to his friend, Groucho Marx: "That man has never written a word, yet he can tell me exactly what to do with a story. I didn't know you had people like that out here."

Actress Norma Shearer, whom he later married, was surprised after he greeted her at the door, then walked her to his office for her first job interview: "Then you're not the office boy?" she asked. He smiled, as he sat himself behind his desk: "No, Miss Shearer, I'm Irving Thalberg, vice-president of the Mayer Company. I'm the man who sent for you."

His younger-than-normal age for a studio executive was usually mentioned even after he left Universal to help start up MGM. Screenwriter Agnes Christine Johnson, who worked with Thalberg for years, described his contribution during meetings: "He's so marvelous that no one who doesn't know him can believe it. Seeing him sitting in with all the important people, looking such a boy, and deferred to by everybody, you'd think that either they were crazy or you were. But if you stayed and listened, you'd understand. He has a mind like a whip. Snap! He has an idea—the right idea—the only idea!"

The same quality was observed by director and screenwriter Hobart Henley: "If something that read well in conference turns out not so good on the screen, I go to him and, like that—Henley snaps his fingers—he has a remedy. He's brilliant." Another assistant producer to Thalberg explains: "Irving had a sixth sense about a manuscript. He was a film doctor. You could go out [to a preview] with a film, and if there was something that didn't quite come off, he could put his finger on it. Some of the great films that came out of Metro were remade at his suggestion. He had that uncanny ability."

His youth also contributed to his open-mindedness to the ideas of others. Conrad Nagel, who starred in numerous Thalberg films, reported that Thalberg was generally empathetic to those he worked alongside: "Thalberg never raised his voice. He just looked into your eyes, spoke softly, and after a few minutes he cast a spell on you." Studio attorney Edwin Loeb, who also worked to create AMPAS, explained that "the real foundation of Irving's success was his ability to look at life through the eyes of any given person. He had a gift of empathy, and almost complete perspective." Those opinions were also shared by producer Walter Wanger: "You thought that you were talking to an Indian savant. He could cast a spell on anybody."

His talent as a producer was enhanced by his "near-miraculous" powers of concentration, notes film critic J. Hoberman. As a result, he was never bored or tired, and supplemented his spare time with reading for his own amusement, recalls screenwriter Bayard Veiller, with some of his favorite authors being Francis Bacon, Epictetus, and Immanuel Kant.

Film projects at Universal
Biographer Bob Thomas writes that after three years at the studio, Thalberg continually proved his value. Universal's pictures improved noticeably, primarily due to Thalberg's "uncanny sense of story." He took tight control over many key aspects of production, including his requirement that from then on scripts were tightly constructed before filming began, rather than during production. Thomas adds that he also "showed a remarkable capacity for working with actors, casting them aptly and advising them on their careers."

After producing two films that were in production when he began work at Universal, he presented Laemmle with his idea for a film based on one of his favorite classic stories, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Rather than just a horror picture, Thalberg suggested turning it into a spectacle which would include a replica of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. He had Lon Chaney play the hunchback. The film became Universal's most profitable silent film and established Chaney's career as a top-flight star.

After nearly three years with Universal, Thalberg had supervised over a hundred movies, reorganized the studio to give more control to the managers, and had "stopped the defection" of many of their leading stars by offering them better, higher-paying contracts. He also produced a number of Universal's prestige films, which made the company profitable. However, he decided it was time to find a studio in Los Angeles more suitable to his skills, and spread word that he was available.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Cecil B. DeMille was the first who wanted to hire him, telling his partner Jesse Lasky, "The boy is a genius. I can see it. I know it." Lasky opposed the hire, stating, "Geniuses we have all we need." Thalberg then received an offer from Hal Roach, but the offer was withdrawn because Thalberg lacked experience with slapstick comedy films. In late 1922, Thalberg was introduced to Louis B. Mayer, president of a small but dynamic and fast-growing studio. At that first meeting, Thalberg "made a deep, immediate impression on Mayer", writes Flamini. After Thalberg had left, Mayer said to studio attorney Edwin Loeb: "Tell him if he comes to work for me, I'll look after him as though he were my son."

Although their personalities were in many ways opposite, Mayer being more outspoken and nearly twice the younger man's age, Thalberg was hired as vice president in charge of production at Louis B. Mayer Productions. Years later, Mayer's daughter Irene Mayer Selznick recalled that "it was hard to believe anyone that boyish could be so important." According to Flamini, Thalberg was hired because, although Mayer was an astute businessman, "what he lacked was Thalberg's almost unerring ability to combine quality with commercial success, to bring artistic aspiration in line with the demands of the box office." Mayer's company subsequently merged with two others to become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), with the 24-year-old Thalberg made part-owner and accorded the same position as vice president in charge of production. Three years after the merger, MGM became the most successful studio in Hollywood.

During his twelve years at MGM, Thalberg supervised the production of over four hundred films. Although Thalberg and his colleagues at MGM knew he was "doomed" to not live much past the age of 30 due to heart disease, he loved producing films. He continued developing innovative ideas and overseeing most of MGM's pictures. Under Thalberg's management, MGM released over 40% more films yearly than Warner Brothers, and more than double Paramount's releases. From 1924 until 1936, when Thalberg died at the age of 37, "almost every film bore Thalberg's imprint", wrote Mark Vieira.

In the 1934 California gubernatorial election Democratic Upton Sinclair ran against Republican Frank Merriam, the latter of whom MGM supported. Thalberg was to lead MGM's anti-Sinclair campaign and the studio recruited Carey Wilson to create a series of anti-Sinclair propaganda films. These films, directed by Felix E. Feist, included fake newsreels of Sinclair supporters who were portrayed as bums and criminals. They were shown in Californian movie theaters, with one episode featuring hired actors as Sinclair supporters speaking with foreign accents. Supposedly when one actor objected to the films Thalberg replied "Nothing is unfair in politics".

Production innovations
Thalberg's production techniques "broke new ground in filmmaking", adds Vieira. Among his contributions at MGM was his innovation of story conferences, sneak previews and scene retakes. He introduced the first horror films and coauthored the Production Code, the set of moral guidelines that all film studios agreed to follow. Thalberg helped synthesize and merge the world of stage drama and literary classics with Hollywood films.

MGM thereby became the only movie studio to consistently show a profit during the Great Depression. Flamini explains that the equation for MGM's success depended on combining stars, a Broadway hit or popular classic, and high standards of production. This combination at the time was considered a "revolutionary approach" in the film industry, which until then assumed a star was all that was needed for success, regardless of the story or production quality. The other studios began following MGM's lead with that same formula.

Production techniques
Thalberg generally followed a system in managing his productions. According to one of his assistants, Lawrence Weingarten, who later became a producer, "Thalberg directed the film on paper, and then the director directed the film on film."

Thalberg was generally opposed to location shooting overseas where he could not oversee production and control costs, as happened with Ben Hur. Thus, he kept hundreds of back-lot carpenters at work creating realistic sets, as he did for fifteenth-century Romeo and Juliet (1936), or with China Seas (1935), to replicate the harbors of Hong Kong.

Vieira points out that Thalberg's "fascination with Broadway plays" often had him create and present stories visually. For China Seas, for instance, he described for the screenwriters, director and others, exactly how he wanted the film to appear on screen: "I'd like to open this sequence on a roaring gale at sea. ... I think it might be better to open just prior to the storm—that awful calm before the storm ... and the typhoon hits and they go through all that hell, and the terrific tiredness after the fight is over—the weariness of Gaskell [Clark Gable], and from behind him this China woman comes and their affair [begins]."

To be certain of achieving the desired effects, Thalberg made sure his cinematographers were careful in their use of light and shadow. Vieira observes that "more than any other producer or any other studio, Thalberg and MGM manipulated lenses, filters, and lighting instruments to affect the viewer." As a result, he notes, "most of Thalberg's films contain moments such as these, in which cinematic technique transcends mere exposition and gives the viewer something to treasure."

Thalberg was supported by most of the studio in these kinds of creative decisions. "It was a big family," notes Weingarten. "If we had a success, everybody—and I mean every cutter, every painter, every plasterer—was excited about it, was abuzz, was in a tizzy about the whole idea of picture making."

Taking risks with new subjects and stars
In 1929, MGM released fifty films, and all but five showed a profit. Of those that failed, Hallelujah was also a gamble by Thalberg. When King Vidor, the film's producer and director, proposed the idea to Thalberg of a major film cast, for the first time, exclusively with African Americans, he told Thalberg directly, "I doubt that it will make a dollar at the box office." Thalberg replied, "Don't worry about that. I've told you that MGM can afford an occasional experiment."

By the early 1930s, a number of stars began failing at the box office, partly due to the Great Depression that was now undermining the economy, along with the public's ability to spend on entertainment. Thalberg began using two stars in a film, rather than one, as had been the tradition at all the studios, such as pairing Greta Garbo with John Gilbert, Clark Gable with Jean Harlow, and William Powell with Myrna Loy. After experimenting with a few such films, including Mata Hari (1931), which were profitable, he decided on a multi-star production of another Broadway play, Grand Hotel (1932). It had five major stars, including Garbo, Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, and Wallace Beery. "Before Thalberg," writes Vieira, "there was no Grand Hotel in the American consciousness." The film won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1932.

Thalberg went against consensus and took another risk with The Great Ziegfeld (1936), costarring Luise Rainer. Although Louis B. Mayer did not want her in the role, which he felt was too minor for a new star, Thalberg felt that "only she could play the part", wrote biographer Charles Higham. Shortly after shooting began in late 1935, doubts of Rainer's acting ability emerged in the press. However, despite her limited appearances in the film, Rainer "so impressed audiences with one highly emotional scene" that she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

After her winning role in The Great Ziegfeld, Thalberg wanted her to play a role that was the opposite of her previous character, for The Good Earth (1937). For the part as a Chinese peasant, she was required to act totally subservient to her husband, being perpetually huddled in submission, and barely spoke a word of dialogue during the entire film. Rainer recalls that Mayer did not approve of the film being produced or her part in it: "He was horrified at Irving Thalberg's insistence for me to play O-lan, the poor uncomely little Chinese peasant." However, she again won the Oscar for Best Actress, becoming the first actress to win two consecutive Oscars, a feat not matched until Katharine Hepburn's two Oscar wins thirty years later.

Grooming new stars
Besides bringing a distinctive high quality "look" to MGM films and often recreating well-known stories or plays, Thalberg's actors themselves took on a characteristic quality. Thalberg wanted his female actors to appear "cool, classy and beautiful," notes Flamini. And he strove to make the male actors appear "worldly and in control." In general, Thalberg movies and actors came to be "luxurious," "glossy," and "technically flawless." By doing so, he made stars or boosted the careers of actors such as Lon Chaney, Ramon Novarro, John Gilbert, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Helen Hayes, Jean Harlow, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Luise Rainer.

In 1925, a young Greta Garbo, then twenty, and unable to speak any English, was brought over from Sweden at Mayer's request, as he saw how she looked in still photos. A Swedish friend thought he would help her by contacting Thalberg, who then agreed to give her a screen test. According to author Frederick Sands, "the result of the test was electrifying." Thalberg was impressed and began grooming the new starlet the following day: "the studio arranged to fix her teeth, made sure she lost weight, and gave her an English tutor." Joan Crawford's first role was a Thalberg production at MGM and she became one of their leading stars for the next thirty years. Crawford was somewhat jealous of Norma Shearer as she thought she was given the better material by her husband Thalberg out of nepotism. Nevertheless, she felt that his contribution to MGM was vital to the film industry. Not long after his early death, she recalls her concerns: "Thalberg was dead and the concept of the quality 'big' picture pretty much went out the window." Thalberg also realized that old stars few had heard of could be made into new ones. Marie Dressler, a fifty-nine-year-old early vaudeville and movie star, who had played the top-billed lead, above Charles Chaplin and Mabel Normand), in the first feature-length comedy, Tillie's Punctured Romance (1914), was unable to get any roles in films after leaving show business for some years, finally working as a maid. MGM screenwriter Frances Marion suggested to Thalberg that she might fit well in a starring role for a new film, and was surprised that he knew of her prior successes. Thalberg approved of using her without a screen test and offered his rationale: "My theory is that anybody who once hits the bull's-eye—it doesn't matter in what profession—has the brains and stamina to stage a comeback. So I figure that a woman who held the spotlight for so many years has been the victim of bad writing—and probably a lot of bad advice."
 * Greta Garbo
 * Joan Crawford
 * Marie Dressler

By 1932, shortly before she died, Dressler was the country's number one box office star. Marie Dressler was paired twice, in Min and Bill (1930) and Tugboat Annie (1933), with Wallace Beery, another major silent star who had been struggling to get work in sound pictures until Thalberg cast him. Beery had enjoyed a hugely successful silent film career dating back to 1913, but had been fired by Paramount shortly after sound pictures appeared. Thalberg cast him in the role of "Machine Gun Butch," which had been meant for recently deceased Lon Chaney, in The Big House (1930), an energetic prison picture that became a huge hit. Beery was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance, and his burgeoning career at MGM had transformed him into the studio's highest paid actor within two more years, during which time he won the Oscar for The Champ and had become a phenomenal box office draw as a result of Thalberg's foresight.
 * Wallace Beery

Getting audience feedback and reshooting
According to Vieira, MGM had few failures during this period, and numerous blockbusters. Among the reasons was Thalberg's unique system of developing a script during story conferences with writers before filming began, and later giving "sneak previews" followed by audience feedback through written questionnaires. Often, where he felt improvement was needed, he arranged for scenes to be reshot. As Thalberg once stated, "The difference between something good and something superior is often very small."

Bad decisions and missed opportunities
Thalberg felt he had his "finger on the pulse of America. I know what people will do and what they won't do," he said. His judgment was not always accurate, however. Thalberg's bringing Broadway productions to the screen to develop higher picture standards sometimes resulted in "studied" acting or "stagey" sets, notes Flamini. In 1927, after the successful release of the first full-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), he nevertheless felt that talking pictures were a fad. Thalberg likewise did not think that color would replace black-and-white in movies.

When an assistant protested against a script that envisioned a love scene in Paris with an ocean background, Thalberg refused to make changes, saying "We can't cater to a handful of people who know Paris." A more serious distraction to Thalberg's efforts was his obsession with making his wife Norma Shearer a prominent star, efforts which sometimes led to "overblown and overglamorous" productions. Thalberg himself admitted to his obsession years later when he told a fellow producer: "You're behaving like I did with Norma. I knew positively that she could play anything. It's a kind of romantic astigmatism that attacks producers when they fall for an actress."

Ben Hur (1925)
One of the first pictures he took charge of, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, was inherited and already in production by another studio when MGM was formed. The film was turning into a disastrous expense with cost overruns already in the millions due to its lavish sets and location shooting in Rome. Most studio executives chose to terminate the film to cut their losses. Thalberg, however, felt differently, and thought the film would affect movie audiences, due to its classic literary source, and would highlight MGM as a major new studio.

He therefore discarded much of the original footage shot in Italy and recreated the set on MGM's back lots in Culver City, which added more millions to the production, yet gave him more control over production. The new set also included a replica of Circus Maximus for the dramatic chariot race scenes. Flamini notes that Thalberg's "gamble paid off," drawing international attention to MGM, and to Thalberg within the movie industry for his bold action.

Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty was the studio's next most expensive film after Ben Hur, with some now calling it "Thalberg's masterpiece." He initially had difficulty convincing Mayer that he could make the film without making heroes of the mutineers. He achieved that by instead making a hero of the British Royal Navy, whereby the officers and shipmates would from then on display their mutual respect. Thalberg also had to convince Clark Gable to accept the role against his will. He pleaded with Gable, eventually promising him that "If it isn't one of your greatest successes, I'll never ask you again to play a part you don't want." The film's other main stars were Charles Laughton and Franchot Tone. The film was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Actor, and winning it for Best Picture. Thalberg accepted the award as producer from Frank Capra.

Thalberg and Mayer partnership
At first, Thalberg and studio chief Louis B. Mayer got along splendidly; however, they had different production philosophies. Thalberg preferred literary works, while Mayer preferred glitzy crowd-pleasing films. A clash was inevitable, and their relationship grew decidedly frosty. When Thalberg fell ill in the final weeks of 1932, Mayer took advantage of the situation and replaced him with David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger. Thalberg's reputation by that time for working long hours was widely known, and rumors about the related strain on his fragile health had become front-page news in entertainment trade publications. The Hollywood Reporter in January 1933 updated its readership about his condition and addressed growing concerns that he might be forced, despite his young age, to quit the business: "In an effort to quiet rumors zooming throughout the industry, indicating that Irving Thalberg would be compelled to retire permanently as production head of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and take a long rest, a reporter from this publication got in touch with his physician yesterday for a statement as to the real condition of Mr. Thalberg. Dr. Philip Newmark stated: 'Mr. Thalberg had a heavy attack of influenza that lasted several days and, although he was quite ill, he recovered nicely. However, he is far from being in good condition, he is all tired out and needs rest. I want him to take a rest for several weeks. I do not consider it necessary, at this time, to send him away, as he is quite comfortable at home.' Asked about the report that Thalberg had suffered a violent heart attack, Dr. Newmark replied: 'Mr. Thalberg's heart has not been any too strong and that is another reason why I have insisted that he take a long rest."

Once Thalberg recovered sufficiently from his bout with the "flu" and was able to return to work later in 1933, it was as one of MGM's unit producers, albeit one who had first choice on projects as well as preferential access to all the studio's resources, including over casting its stars. Thalberg's good relationship with Nicholas Schenck, then president of Loew's Incorporated, proved to be an ongoing advantage for him. Loew's was the corporate parent of MGM, so Schenck was the true power and ultimate arbiter at the studio; and he usually supported Thalberg's decisions and continued to do so whenever disagreements about projects or production needs arose. As a result, Thalberg also continued to produce or coproduce some of MGM's most prestigious and critically acclaimed ventures in this period, such as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) starring his wife Norma Shearer, China Seas (1935), A Night at the Opera (1935), San Francisco (1936), and Romeo and Juliet (1936).

Personal life
During his few years with Universal while living in New York, Thalberg had become romantically involved with Carl Laemmle's daughter, Rosabelle. Still in his early twenties and later spending most of his time in Los Angeles, his feelings toward her were no longer as strong. Flamini suspects that this may have affected his position at Universal and partly caused his decision to leave the company. "The Laemmles prayed that Irving would marry Rosabelle", notes Flamini. "They wanted their sons to be educated and their daughters to marry nice Jewish boys."

Less than a year after he and Mayer took charge of the newly created MGM studios, and still only twenty-five years old, Thalberg suffered a serious heart attack due to overwork. Mayer also became aware of Thalberg's congenital heart problems and now worried about the prospect of running MGM without him. Mayer also became concerned that one of his daughters might become romantically involved, and told them so:

"He's attractive. I don't want you girls getting any ideas in your heads, ever. ... I don't want to have a young widow on my hands."

Thalberg, aware of Mayer's feelings, made it a point of never giving too much attention to his daughters at social events.

One of Thalberg's traits was his ability to work long hours into the night with little sign of fatigue. According to Vieira, Thalberg believed that as long as his mind was active in his work and he was not bored, he would not feel tired. Thalberg, who often got by with only five hours of sleep, felt that most people could get by with less than they realized. To keep his mental faculties at peak, he would read philosophical books by Bacon, Epictetus, or Kant. "They stimulate me. I'd drop out of sight in no time if I didn't read and keep up with current thought—and the philosophers are brain sharpeners."

During the early 1930s, Thalberg was ambivalent about political events in Europe. While he feared Nazism and the rise of Hitler, he also feared Communism. At the time, notes Vieira, "given a choice between communism and fascism, many Americans—including Thalberg—would prefer the latter." Thalberg stated his opinion:

"When a dictator dies, his system dies, too. But if communism is allowed to spread, it will be harder to root out. What is at stake is our whole way of life, our freedom. They will have vanished forever."

When others suggested that many Jews could die in Germany as a result of Nazi anti-Semitism, he replied that in his opinion "Hitler and Hitlerism will pass." On one occasion, Catholic Prince Löwenstein of Germany, who himself had almost been captured before fleeing Germany, told him: "Mr. Thalberg, your own people are being systematically hunted down and rooted out of Germany." Thalberg suggested that world Jewry should nevertheless not interfere, that the Jewish race would survive Hitler. Within a few years, American film distribution was "choked off" in Germany. Led by Warner Brothers, all American studios eventually closed their German offices.

Thalberg began dating actress Norma Shearer a few years after he joined MGM. Following her conversion to Judaism, they married on Thursday, September 29, 1927, in a private ceremony in the garden of his rented house in Beverly Hills. Rabbi Edgar F. Magnin officiated at the event, with Shearer's brother Douglas Shearer giving the bride away, and Louis B. Mayer serving as best man. The couple drove to Monterey for their honeymoon and then moved into their newly constructed home in Beverly Hills.

After their second child was born, Shearer considered retiring from films, but Thalberg convinced her to continue acting, saying he could find her good roles. She went on to be one of MGM's biggest stars of the 1930s. Their two children were Irving Jr. (1930–1987) and Katharine (1935–2006).

Death
Thalberg and Shearer took a much-needed Labor Day weekend vacation in Monterey, California, in 1936 (Labor Day fell on September 7 that year), staying at the same beachfront hotel where they spent their honeymoon. A few weeks earlier, Thalberg's leading screenwriter, Albert Lewin, had proposed doing a film based on a soon-to-be published book, Gone with the Wind. Although Thalberg said it would be a "sensational" role for Gable, and a "terrific picture," he decided not to do it:

"Look, I have just made Mutiny on the Bounty and The Good Earth. And now you're asking me to burn Atlanta? No! Absolutely not! No more epics for me now. Just give me a little drawing-room drama. I'm tired. I'm just too tired."

Besides, Thalberg told Mayer, "[n]o Civil War picture ever made a nickel". Shortly after returning from Monterey, Thalberg was diagnosed with pneumonia while on the set of A Day at the Races. His condition worsened steadily, and he eventually required an oxygen tent at home. He died on September 14, at the age of 37.

Sam Wood, while directing A Day at the Races, was given the news by phone. He returned to the set with tears in his eyes and told the others. As the news spread, "the studio was paralyzed with shock", notes Thomas. "Work stopped and hundreds of people wept", with stars, writers, directors, and studio employees "all sharing a sense of loss at the death of a man who had been a part of their working lives", states Flamini.

His funeral took place two days later, and when the services began the other studios throughout Hollywood observed five minutes of silence. Producer Sam Goldwyn "wept uncontrollably for two days" and was unable to regain his composure enough to attend. The MGM studio closed for that day.

Services were held at the Wilshire Boulevard Temple that Thalberg had occasionally attended. The funeral attracted thousands of spectators who came to view the arrival of countless stars from MGM and other studios, including Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, the Marx Brothers, Charlie Chaplin, Walt Disney, Howard Hughes, Al Jolson, Gary Cooper, Carole Lombard, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, among the screen luminaries. The ushers who led them to their seats included Clark Gable, Fredric March, and playwright Moss Hart. Erich von Stroheim, who had been fired by Thalberg, came to pay his respects. Producers Louis B. Mayer, the Warner brothers, Adolph Zukor, and Nicholas Schenck sat together solemnly as Rabbi Magnin gave the eulogy.

Thalberg is buried in a private marble tomb in the Great Mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, lying at rest beside his wife, Norma Shearer Thalberg Arrouge (Thalberg's crypt was engraved "My Sweetheart Forever" by Shearer).

Over the following days, tributes were published by the national press. Louis B. Mayer, his co-founding partner at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, said he had lost "the finest friend a man could ever have", while MGM president Nicholas Schenck stated that "Thalberg was the most important man in the production end of the motion-picture industry." Leading producers from the other studios also expressed their feelings in published tributes to Thalberg:

David O. Selznick described him as "beyond any question the greatest individual force for fine pictures." Samuel Goldwyn called him "the foremost figure in the motion-picture industry ... and an inspiration." M. H. Aylesworth, Chairman of RKO, wrote that "his integrity, vision and ability made him the spearhead of all motion-picture production throughout the world." Harry Warner, president of Warner Bros., described him as "gifted with one of the finest minds ever placed at the service of motion-picture production." Sidney R. Kent, president of Twentieth Century Fox, said that "he made the whole world richer by giving it the highest type of entertainment. He was a true genius." Columbia president Harry Cohn said the "motion picture industry has suffered a loss from which it will not soon recover...". Darryl F. Zanuck noted, "More than any other man he raised the industry to its present world prestige." Adolph Zukor, chairman of Paramount, stated, "Irving Thalberg was the most brilliant young man in the motion picture business." Jesse Lasky said, "It will be utterly impossible to replace him."

Among the condolences that came from world political leaders, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, "The world of art is poorer with the passing of Irving Thalberg. His high ideals, insight and imagination went into the production of his masterpieces."

Among the pictures that were unfinished or not yet released at the time of his death were A Day at the Races, The Good Earth, Camille, Maytime, and Romeo and Juliet. Groucho Marx, star of A Day at the Races, wrote, "After Thalberg's death, my interest in the movies waned. I continued to appear in them, but ... The fun had gone out of picture making." Thalberg's widow, Norma Shearer, recalled, "Grief does very strange things to you. I didn't seem to feel the shock for two weeks afterwards. ... then, at the end of those two weeks, I collapsed."

Legacy in the movie industry
Thalberg's legacy to the movie industry is "incalculable", states biographer Bob Thomas. He notes that with his numerous production innovations and grand stories, often turning classic literature and Broadway stage productions into big-screen pictures, he managed to keep "American movies supreme throughout the world for a generation". Darryl F. Zanuck, founder of 20th Century-Fox said that during Thalberg's brief career, he had become the "most creative producer in the history of films". Thomas describes some of his contributions:

"The touchstone of his genius was quality, the unceasing pursuit of quality. He ventured into uncharted land in his search for improved film entertainment, and his attainments became the goals of his competitors. He was ever seeking refinement in visual images, in sound and music, in acting style and directorial technique. Most of all, in writing. ... He recognized when words sang, when characters lost their cardboard effect and acquired dimension, when events could be so devised to stir the emotions and raise the spirit. Thalberg's films performed those feats to an amazing degree, and no filmmaker has since achieved his measure."

Most of MGM's major films in the 1930s were, according to Flamini, "in a very real sense", made by Thalberg. He closely supervised the making of "more pictures than any other producer in Hollywood's history", and was considered the "archetype of the creative producer", adds Flamini. Upon his early death, aged 37, an editorial in The New York Times called him "the most important force" in the motion picture industry. The paper added that for the film industry, he "set the pace and others followed ... because his way combined style, glamour, and profit." He is described by Flamini as having been "a revolutionary in a gray flannel suit".

Thalberg refused to take credit as producer, and as a result, his name never appeared on the screen while he was alive. Thalberg claimed that "credit you give yourself is not worth having". He also said "If a picture is good, they'll know who produced it. If it's bad, nobody cares." His final film, released after he died, was The Good Earth (1937), which won numerous Academy Awards. Its opening screen credit was dedicated to Thalberg:

"To the Memory of Irving Grant Thalberg – we dedicate this picture – his last great achievement."

In 1938, the new multimillion-dollar MGM administration building in Culver City was named for Thalberg. The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, also named for him, awards producers for consistently high production achievements.

The Last Tycoon
In October 1939, American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald began writing The Last Tycoon, a fictionalized biography of Thalberg, naming the protagonist Monroe Stahr to represent Thalberg. "Thalberg has always fascinated me", he wrote to an editor. "His peculiar charm, his extraordinary good looks, his bountiful success, the tragic end of his great adventure. The events I have built around him are fiction, but all of them are things which might very well have happened. ... I've long chosen him for a hero (this has been in my mind for three years) because he is one of the half-dozen men I have known who were built on a grand scale."

Thomas notes that among the reasons Fitzgerald chose to write a book about a Thalberg-like character, was that "throughout his literary career, Fitzgerald borrowed his heroes from friends he admired, and inevitably a bit of Fitzgerald entered the characterizations." Fitzgerald himself writes that "When I like men, I want to be like them ..." Fitzgerald and Thalberg had real-life similarities: both were prodigies, both had heart ailments, and they both died at early ages.

According to biographer Matthew J. Bruccoli, Fitzgerald believed that Thalberg, with his "taste and courage, represented the best of Hollywood. ... [and] saw Thalberg as a model for what could be done in the movies." Fitzgerald died before the novel was completed, however. Bruccoli writes of Fitzgerald's book:

"Nurturing a heroic sense of American character, he found his essential American figure in his last novel. ... So thorough was Fitzgerald's identification with his hero that Stahr stands among the most compelling Jewish characters in American fiction."

Although parallels between Monroe Stahr in the novel and Thalberg were evident, many who knew Thalberg intimately stated that they did not see similarities in their personalities. Norma Shearer said that the Stahr character was not at all like her late husband.

In the 1976 film version, directed by Elia Kazan, Monroe Stahr was played by Robert De Niro. Kazan, in his pre-production notes, described the Stahr character as he saw him:

"Stahr is special, unique, monastic, a relic. He walks alone. Occasionally men follow him waiting for orders. He is in a daze of work and thought. He carries the whole studio operation in his head."

In the 2016 television series based on the novel, Monroe Stahr is played by Matt Bomer.

Others
Fitzgerald also based his short story "Crazy Sunday", originally published in the October 1932 issue of American Mercury, on an incident at a party thrown by Thalberg and Shearer. The story is included in Fitzgerald's collection Taps at Reveille (1935).

Thalberg was portrayed in the movie Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) by Robert Evans, who went on to become a studio head himself.

Thalberg was portrayed by Bill Cusack in Young Indiana Jones and the Hollywood Follies (1994), a TV film based on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, in which Indiana Jones is depicted as taking part in Thalberg's conflict with Erich von Stroheim over Foolish Wives.

In 2020, Thalberg is played by Ferdinand Kingsley in the David Fincher film Mank. Max Minghella portrays him in Damien Chazelle's 2022 film Babylon.

Producer

 * Reputation (1921)
 * The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
 * Merry-Go-Round (1923)
 * His Hour (1924)
 * He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
 * The Unholy Three (1925)
 * The Merry Widow (1925)
 * The Tower of Lies (1925)
 * The Big Parade (1925)
 * Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925)
 * Torrent (1926)
 * La Bohème (1926)
 * Brown of Harvard (1926)
 * The Road to Mandalay (1926)
 * The Temptress (1926)
 * Valencia (1926)
 * Flesh and the Devil (1926)
 * Twelve Miles Out (1927)
 * The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927)
 * London After Midnight (1927)
 * The Crowd (1928)
 * Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928)
 * White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)
 * Show People (1928)
 * West of Zanzibar (1928)
 * The Broadway Melody (1929)
 * The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929)
 * Voice of the City (1929)
 * Where East Is East (1929)
 * The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929)
 * The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929)
 * Hallelujah (1929)
 * His Glorious Night (1929)
 * The Kiss (1929)
 * Anna Christie (1930)
 * Redemption (1930)
 * The Divorcee (1930)
 * The Rogue Song (1930)
 * The Big House (1930)
 * The Unholy Three (1930)
 * Let Us Be Gay (1930)
 * Billy the Kid (1930)
 * Way for a Sailor (1930)
 * A Lady's Morals (1930)
 * Inspiration (1931)
 * Trader Horn (1931)
 * The Secret Six (1931)
 * A Free Soul (1931)
 * Just a Gigolo (1931)
 * Menschen hinter Gittern (1931), German-language version of The Big House (1930)
 * The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931)
 * The Guardsman (1931)
 * The Champ (1931)
 * Possessed (1931)
 * Private Lives (1931)
 * Mata Hari (1931)
 * Freaks (1932)
 * Tarzan the Ape Man (1932)
 * Grand Hotel (1932)
 * Letty Lynton (1932)
 * As You Desire Me (1932)
 * Red-Headed Woman (1932)
 * Smilin' Through (1932)
 * Red Dust (1932)
 * Rasputin and the Empress (1932)
 * Strange Interlude (1932)
 * Tugboat Annie (1933)
 * Bombshell (1933)
 * Eskimo (1933)
 * La Veuve Joyeuse (1934) French-language version of The Merry Widow
 * Riptide (1934)
 * The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934)
 * The Merry Widow (1934)
 * What Every Woman Knows (1934)
 * Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935)
 * No More Ladies (1935)
 * China Seas (1935)
 * Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
 * A Night at the Opera (1935)
 * Riffraff (1936)
 * Romeo and Juliet (1936)
 * Camille (1936)
 * Maytime (1937)
 * A Day at the Races (1937)
 * Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937)
 * The Good Earth (1937)
 * Marie Antoinette (1938)

Writer

 * The Trap (1922)
 * The Dangerous Little Demon (1922)

Books

 * Flamini, Roland. Thalberg: The Last Tycoon and the World of M-G-M (1994)
 * Marx, Samuel. Mayer and Thalberg: The Make-believe Saints (1975)
 * Thomas, Bob. Thalberg: Life and Legend (1969)
 * Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg's M-G-M. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2008.
 * Vieira, Mark A. Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.

Articles

 * Starman, Ray. "Irving Thalberg", Films In Review, June/July 1987, p. 347–353

title: Irving Thalberg


text:
Talk:Slick Rick

Untitled
What's his birth name? Where was he born? -- Zoe

what about his 1999 album "the art of story telling"?

How did he lose his eye?

He's listed as an African American musician. But he's British-born. Anyone have a comment on this? --130.245.212.202 16:09, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Why is there a see also for Macy Gray?

He was pretty American, and I think if they made a new "African-British" musician category he would be the only one in it.

Can someone fix the fact that everyone is using Walters and Slick Rick interchangably? --Casezilla (talk) 21:50, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

His parents were borin in the Bronk, USA. They went to England to get work, while there he was born. They returned to the USA when he was 10-11. All this information and much more is avaialbe at the Allmusic website. Why doesnt anyone here do any research?

there are some albums missing from the list

This Page is Complete Garbage
On the biography section, you have "Walters makes a guest appearance in Y.O.U on Asher Roth's Asleep in the Bread Isle" why the hell is this there? Rick is a legend, and you have this up to define him ... are you trying to make him look bad??? You'll mention this, but you'll leave out endless accomplishments that he's achieved throughout his career. I've tried to professionally add in more facts about him (with references) and every time I do they instantly get removed ... who ever runs this page should really let others contribute - you're doing a half-assed job at this, and the poor quality of this page proves it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.17.200.34 (talk) 03:19, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

one eye
Blinded: say if one eye or two.

"Children's Story" was also used as the template for Eminems "Canabitch"

nationality
why does this describe the guy as English if he moved to the US when he was ten? I'm sticking a contradiction tag on this page, not to mention an unverified one. I'm guessing his parents weren't originally English either, so the guy's probably got about three nationalities and the article should reflect this. mg e kelly 04:34, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

English is an indication of having some sort of English cultural heritage - and is not applicable to all British people (for example those with Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Carribean or Asian heritage). I feel the term, 'British-born' would be more appropriate since he's spent much of his life in the USA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Erdles (talk • contribs) 2006-06-08

He is considered a Brit even more now since charges brought up against him threated to deport him back to England. From my understanding his parents are originally Jamaican. I'm removing the contradiction tag.

--64.12.116.74 18:15, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Announced Unitled Project (2006)
IS he really releasing a new album this year? Where did u get ur info from... cuz i aint heard anything yet. Source please! —Preceding unsigned comment added by JoeMK (talk • contribs) 2006-07-14

cant find anything on an upcoming cd--TommyZ 02:24, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Man Slick Rick is definitely one of the best rappers in existence. He blows all these current wannabes COUGH COUGH Kanye West 50 Cent COUGH COUGH out of the water. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.173.158.195 (talk) 04:06, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Artstoryrick.jpg
Image:Artstoryrick.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 22:49, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Behindbars.jpg
Image:Behindbars.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in Wikipedia articles constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 02:10, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

?Question?
Is Slick Rick going to make a new album my buddy and I loved that guy and we listened to "Children's Story" countless times. All we got to love now from that guy now is Kill Niggaz, will he ever bring his storytelling rap to another album or is he done and retired?

~Ya Boi Krakerz~ (talk)

Doug E. Fresh
Seems kind of ridiculous that a biography of Slick Rick would include zero mentions of Doug E. Fresh. This article mentions "La-Di-Da-Di" more than once as if it were a Slick Rick single when in fact it was a Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew release. What's the deal? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Boris Tripod (talk • contribs) 19:11, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Only built for Cuban Linx 2
Ricky D is featured on track 19 "We Will Rob You" on Raekwon's new album OB4CL2. Please also change Ricky's picture, it just doesn't do justice to him, The pioneer and innovator of rocking mass gold chains (along side Mr.T). Peace

NEED INFO ON LAWYERS FOR SLICK RICK
Hi, I'm currently in a similar legal dilemma that slick rick was in. I need a pardon from my record and need to know who the lawyers for slick rick were. I believe they can help me get a pardon that they got for slick rick. It's very important that I get this info. If you happen to know, please email me this vital info. Thank you. My email addrss is: taurusxz@yahoo.com. Again, thank you!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.65.122.58 (talk) 00:05, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Slick Rick discography
 Support split - Discography section is long and should be split to a new article entitled Slick Rick discography. --Jax 0677 (talk) 18:37, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Revisions on April 8, 11, 12, and 13
Significant additions were made to the article on April 8 by User:Newtwelve. Despite some additions adding a good amount of detail to musical work, etc, many of the sources used were unfortunately unreliable. Some of the text likely did not meet NPOV and style guidelines. The edits were reverted by me and User:Davey2010. After a discussion, the user stopped editing. However, on April 13, the reversions were undid by User:Mclopezpr without an explanation. I've since done a bit of copyediting and revisions diffing to make a version that stands now. Here is a "final" revision I refer to that consolidates the additions. Another reversion is likely ungrounded and again violates NPOV and style guidelines.

Just an FYI to anyone who may be watching this page or chances on the diffs these past few days. Thanks. — Andy W. (talk · contrib) 17:39, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Slick Rick


text:
Glen Campbell

Glen Travis Campbell (April 22, 1936 – August 8, 2017) was an American country singer, guitarist, songwriter, and actor. He was best known for a series of hit songs in the 1960s and 1970s, and for hosting The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television from 1969 until 1972. He released 64 albums in a career that spanned five decades, selling over 45 million records worldwide, including twelve gold albums, four platinum albums, and one double-platinum album.

Born in Billstown, Arkansas, Campbell began his professional career as a studio musician in Los Angeles, spending several years playing with the group of instrumentalists later known as "The Wrecking Crew". After becoming a solo artist, he placed a total of 80 different songs on either the Billboard Country Chart, Billboard Hot 100, or Adult Contemporary Chart, of which 29 made the top 10 and of which nine reached number one on at least one of those charts. Among Campbell's hits are "Universal Soldier", his first hit from 1965, along with "Gentle on My Mind" (1967), "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" (1967), "Dreams of the Everyday Housewife" (1968), "Wichita Lineman" (1968), "Galveston" (1969), "Rhinestone Cowboy" (1975), and "Southern Nights" (1977).

In 1967, Campbell won four Grammys in the country and pop categories. For "Gentle on My Mind", he received two awards in country and western; "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" did the same in pop. Three of his early hits later won Grammy Hall of Fame Awards (2000, 2004, 2008), while Campbell himself won the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. He owned trophies for Male Vocalist of the Year from both the Country Music Association (CMA) and the Academy of Country Music (ACM), and took the CMA's top award as 1968 Entertainer of the Year. Campbell played a supporting role in the film True Grit (1969), which earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Most Promising Newcomer. He also sang the title song, which was nominated for an Academy Award.

Early life
Glen Travis Campbell was born on April 22, 1936, in Billstown, a tiny community near Delight in Pike County, Arkansas, to John Wesley Campbell (a sharecropper) and Carrie Dell (née Stone) Campbell. Campbell was of Scottish descent and was the seventh son of 12 children. As a child he almost died from drowning. His family went to the Church of Christ, and Campbell's brother Lindell became a Church of Christ minister. In 2011, Campbell said his mother was Irish; although his mother was born in the United States, her family had emigrated from County Tipperary. The family lived on a farm, where they barely managed, by growing cotton, corn, watermelons and potatoes. "We had no electricity," he said, and money was scarce. "A dollar in those days looked as big as a saddle blanket." To supplement income the family picked cotton for other farmers. "I picked cotton for $1.25 a hundred pounds," Campbell said. "If you worked your tail off, you could pick 80 or 90 pounds a day."

Campbell started playing guitar at age 4 after his father gave him a Sears-bought five-dollar guitar as a gift, with his uncle Boo teaching him the basics of how to play. Most of his family was musical, he said. "Back home, everybody plays and sings." By the time he was 6 he was performing on local radio stations.

Campbell continued playing guitar in his youth, with no formal training, and practiced when he was not working in the cotton fields. He developed his talent by listening to radio and records and considered Django Reinhardt among his most admired guitarists, later calling him "the most awesome player I ever heard." He dropped out of school in the 10th grade at 14 to work in Houston alongside his brothers, installing insulation and later working at a gas station.

Not satisfied with that kind of work, Campbell started playing music at fairs and church picnics and singing gospel hymns in the church choir. He was able to find spots performing on local radio stations, and after his parents moved to Houston, he made some appearances at a local nightclub.

In 1954, at age 17, Campbell moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to join his uncle's band, known as Dick Bills and the Sandia Mountain Boys. He also appeared there on his uncle's radio show and on K Circle B Time, the local children's program on KOB television. It was there that he met his first wife, whom he married when he was 18 and she was 16.

In 1958, Campbell formed his own band, the Western Wranglers. "We worked hard," he said. "Six, sometimes seven nights a week. I didn't have my eye set on any specific goals or big dreams."

1960–1966: Early career
In 1960, Campbell moved to Los Angeles to become a session musician. That October, he joined the Champs. By January 1961, Campbell had found a daytime job at publishing company American Music, writing songs and recording demos. Because of these demos Campbell soon was in demand as a session musician and became part of a group of studio musicians later known as the Wrecking Crew.

Campbell played on recordings by the Beach Boys, Bobby Darin, Frank Sinatra, Ricky Nelson, Dean Martin, Nat King Cole, the Monkees, Nancy Sinatra, Merle Haggard, Jan and Dean, Bing Crosby, Phil Spector, Sammy Davis Jr., Doris Day, Bobby Vee, The Everly Brothers, Shelley Fabares, The Cascades, Paul Revere & the Raiders, Wayne Newton, The First Edition, The Kingston Trio, Roger Miller, Gene Clark, Lou Rawls, Claude King, Lorne Greene, Ronnie Dove, and Elvis Presley. He befriended Presley when he helped record the soundtrack for Viva Las Vegas in 1964. He later said, "Elvis and I were brought up the same humble way – picking cotton and looking at the south end of a north-bound mule."

In May 1961, he left the Champs and was subsequently signed by Crest Records, a subsidiary of American Music. His first solo release, "Turn Around, Look at Me", a moderate success, peaked at number 62 on the Hot 100 in 1961 but reached number 7 on the Hot 100 in a 1968 Vogues cover. Campbell also formed the Gee Cees with former bandmembers from the Champs, performing at the Crossbow Inn in Van Nuys. The Gee Cees, too, released a single on Crest, the instrumental "Buzz Saw", which did not chart.

In 1962, Campbell signed with Capitol Records. After minor initial success with "Too Late to Worry, Too Blue to Cry", his first single for the label, and "Kentucky Means Paradise", released by the Green River Boys featuring Glen Campbell, a string of unsuccessful singles and albums followed. By 1963 his playing and singing were heard on 586 recorded songs. He never learned to read music, but besides guitar, he could play the banjo, mandolin and bass. Fellow Wrecking Crew member Leon Russell said Campbell "was the best guitar player I'd heard before or since. Occasionally  we'd play with 50- or 60-piece orchestras. His deal was he didn't read [music], so they would play it one time for him, and he had it".

From 1964 on, Campbell began to appear on television as a regular on Star Route, a syndicated series hosted by Rod Cameron, ABC's Shindig! and Hollywood Jamboree.

From December 1964 to early March 1965, Campbell was a touring member of the Beach Boys, filling in for Brian Wilson, playing bass guitar and singing falsetto harmonies. He was then replaced on the Beach Boys' tours by new member Bruce Johnston. Brian Wilson produced and co-wrote a single for Campbell, "Guess I'm Dumb", which failed to chart despite what writer David Howard called "a surging, elegant Burt Bacharach-inspired string and horn arrangement and Campbell's forlorn Roy Orbison-like vocal.".

In 1965, he had his biggest solo hit yet, reaching number 45 on the Hot 100 with a version of Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Universal Soldier". Asked about the pacifist message of the song, he said that "people who are advocating burning draft cards should be hung".

Campbell continued as a session musician, playing guitar on the Beach Boys' 1966 album Pet Sounds, among other recordings. In April of that year, he joined Rick Nelson on a tour through the Far East, again playing bass.

1967–1972: Burning Bridges to The Goodtime Hour
When follow-up singles did not do well, and Capitol was considering dropping Campbell from the label in 1966, he was teamed with producer Al De Lory. Together, they first collaborated on "Burning Bridges" which became a top 20 country hit in early 1967, and the album of the same name.

Campbell and De Lory collaborated again on 1967's "Gentle on My Mind", written by John Hartford, which was an overnight success. The song was followed by the bigger hit "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" later in 1967, and "I Wanna Live" and "Wichita Lineman" in 1968, remaining on Billboard's Top 100 charts for 15 weeks. He won four Grammy Awards for "Gentle on My Mind" and "By the Time I Get to Phoenix".

In 1967, Campbell was also the uncredited lead vocalist on "My World Fell Down" by Sagittarius, a studio group. The song reached number 70 on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 1968, Campbell released "Wichita Lineman", a song written by Jimmy Webb. It was recorded with backing from members of the Wrecking Crew and appeared on his 1968 album of the same name. It reached number 3 on the US pop chart, remaining in the Top 100 for 15 weeks. In addition, the song also topped the American country music chart for two weeks, and the adult contemporary chart for six weeks.

The 1969 song "True Grit" by composer Elmer Bernstein and lyricist Don Black, and sung by Campbell, who co-starred in the movie, received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Song and the Golden Globe for Best Original Song.

After he hosted a 1968 summer replacement for television's The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour variety show, Campbell was given his own weekly variety show, The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, which ran from January 1969 through June 1972. The show's comedy writers included Steve Martin and Rob Reiner. At the height of his popularity, a 1970 biography by Freda Kramer, The Glen Campbell Story, was published.

With Campbell's session-work connections, he hosted major names in music on his show, including the Beatles (on film), David Gates, Bread, the Monkees, Neil Diamond, Linda Ronstadt, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Roger Miller, and Mel Tillis. Campbell helped launch the careers of Anne Murray and Jerry Reed, who were regulars on his Goodtime Hour program.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Campbell released a long series of singles and appeared in the movies True Grit (1969) with John Wayne and Kim Darby and Norwood (1970) with Kim Darby and Joe Namath.

1973–1979: "Rhinestone Cowboy" and "Southern Nights"
After the cancellation of his CBS series in 1972, Campbell remained a regular on network television. He co-starred in a made-for-television movie, Strange Homecoming (1974), with Robert Culp and up-and-coming teen idol Leif Garrett. He hosted a number of television specials, including 1976's Down Home, Down Under with Olivia Newton-John. He co-hosted the American Music Awards from 1976 to 1978 and headlined the 1979 NBC special Glen Campbell: Back to Basics with guest-stars Seals and Crofts and Brenda Lee. He was a guest on many network talk and variety shows, including Donny & Marie and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, where he performed "Rhinestone Cowboy". He also appeared on Cher, the Redd Foxx Comedy Hour, The Merv Griffin Show, The Midnight Special, DINAH!, Evening at Pops with Arthur Fiedler and The Mike Douglas Show.

In the mid-1970s, he had more hits with "Rhinestone Cowboy", "Southern Nights" (both U.S. number one hits), "Sunflower" (U.S. number 39) (written by Neil Diamond), and "Country Boy (You Got Your Feet in L.A.)" (U.S. number 11).

"Rhinestone Cowboy" was Campbell's largest-selling single and one of his best-known recordings, initially with over 2 million copies sold. Campbell had heard songwriter Larry Weiss' version while on tour of Australia in 1974. Both songs were in the October 4, 1975, Hot 100 top 10. "Rhinestone Cowboy" continues to be used in TV shows and films, including Desperate Housewives, Daddy Day Care, and High School High. It was the inspiration for the 1984 Dolly Parton/Sylvester Stallone movie Rhinestone. The main phrase of Campbell's recording was included in Dickie Goodman's Jaws movie parody song "Mr. Jaws". Campbell also made a techno/pop version of the song in 2002 with UK artists Rikki & Daz and went to the top 10 in the UK with the dance version and related music video.

In January 1975, Campbell was awarded 4 gold records along with a platinum award for wholesale sales in excess of $1,000,000 in Australia.

"Southern Nights", by Allen Toussaint, his other number one pop-rock-country crossover hit, was generated with the help of Jimmy Webb and Jerry Reed, who inspired the famous guitar lick introduction to the song, which was the most-played jukebox number of 1977.

From 1971 to 1983, Campbell was the celebrity host of the Los Angeles Open, an annual professional golf tournament on the PGA Tour.

1980–2011: Later career
Campbell made a cameo appearance in the 1980 Clint Eastwood movie Any Which Way You Can, for which he recorded the title song.

From 1982 to 1983, he hosted a 30-minute syndicated music show, The Glen Campbell Music Show.

Campbell gave up smoking in March 1992 and believed it improved his singing voice. In 1991, Campbell voiced Chanticleer the rooster in Don Bluth's live action/animated film Rock-a-Doodle.

In 1999 he was featured on VH1's Behind the Music and on A&E Network's Biography and a PBS "in concert" special in 2001. He also appeared on a number of CMT programs, where he ranked among their Greatest Men of Country Music.

He is credited with giving Alan Jackson his first big break after Jackson recorded with Campbell's music publishing business in the early 1990s. Campbell also served as an inspiration to Keith Urban, who cites Campbell as a strong influence on his performing career.

In 2005, Campbell was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Glen was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in the first group of inductees along side other members of the Wrecking Crew in 2007. It was announced in April 2008 that Campbell was returning to his signature label, Capitol, to release his new album, Meet Glen Campbell. The album was released on August 19. With this album, he branched off in a different musical direction, covering tracks from artists such as Travis, U2, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Jackson Browne, and Foo Fighters. It was Campbell's first release on Capitol in over 15 years. Musicians from Cheap Trick and Jellyfish contributed to the album as well. The first single, a cover of Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)", was released to radio in July 2008.

2011–2013: Illness and retirement
In March 2010, a then-farewell album titled Ghost on the Canvas was announced, which served as a companion to Meet Glen Campbell (2008).

Following his late-2010 Alzheimer's diagnosis, Campbell embarked on a final "Goodbye Tour", with three of his children joining him in his backup band. He was too ill to travel to Australia and New Zealand in the summer of 2012. His final show was on November 30, 2012, in Napa, California. After the end of the tour, Campbell entered the studio in Nashville to record what would be his final album, Adiós, which would not be revealed until five years later. According to his wife Kim, he wanted to preserve "what magic was left" in what would be his final recordings. In January 2013, Campbell recorded his final song, "I'm Not Gonna Miss You", during what would be his last recording sessions. The song, which is featured in the 2014 documentary Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me, was released on September 30, 2014, with the documentary following on October 24. On January 15, 2015, Campbell and fellow songwriter Julian Raymond were nominated for Best Original Song at the 87th Academy Awards.

In March 2016, it was confirmed that Campbell was in the final stages of Alzheimer's disease.

On August 30, 2016, during the 10th Annual ACM Honors, Keith Urban, Blake Shelton and others performed a medley of Glen Campbell's songs in tribute to him. His wife Kim accepted the Career Achievement Award on his behalf. Alice Cooper described him as being one of the five best guitar players in the music industry.

Campbell's final album, Adiós, featuring twelve songs from his final 2012–13 sessions, was announced in April 2017. It was released on June 9, 2017. Adiós was named by the UK's Official Charts Company as the best-selling country/Americana album of 2017 in Britain.

Relationships and children
Campbell was married four times and fathered six sons and three daughters:
 * In 1955, Campbell married Diane Marie Kirk (born January 3, 1939; died July 16, 2015) at the Bernalillo County, New Mexico courthouse. They had two children — Glen Travis Campbell Jr., who was born two months prematurely on July 25, 1955, and died a few days later; and Deborah Kay "Debby" (born September 21, 1956). After a mandatory 12-month separation, they divorced in 1959.
 * On September 20, 1959, Campbell married Billie Jean Nunley (1939–1993), an Albuquerque beautician, who gave birth to Kelli Glen, William Travis, and Wesley Kane. Billie Campbell filed for divorce in 1975, and their divorce was final in 1976.
 * On September 2, 1976, Campbell married singer Mac Davis's second wife, Sarah Jan Davis (née Barg) in Carson City, Nevada. They had one child named Dillon and divorced in 1980.

After his divorce from Sarah Barg Davis, Campbell began a relationship with fellow country artist Tanya Tucker. The relationship was marked by frequent tabloid gossip and articles. The couple recorded a number of songs together, including the single "Dream Lover", and they performed the national anthem together at the 1980 Republican National Convention.
 * Campbell married Kimberly "Kim" Woollen (born June 18, 1958) in 1982. The couple met on a blind date in 1981 when Woollen was a Radio City Music Hall "Rockette". Together they had three children: Cal, Shannon, and Ashley. All three joined Campbell onstage starting in 2010 as part of his touring band.

Religion
Campbell was raised in the Church of Christ. In the 1980s, he joined a Baptist church in Phoenix along with his wife Kim. In a 2008 interview, Campbell said that they had been adherents of Messianic Judaism for two decades.

Alcoholism and drug addiction
Campbell began having problems with alcoholism and cocaine addiction in the 1970s. He credited his fourth wife Kim with helping him turn his life around. Campbell eventually stopped drinking alcohol and taking drugs in 1987. However, it was evident that he had relapsed in 2003 when he pleaded guilty in Arizona to drunk driving and leaving the scene of an accident and spent 10 days in jail.

Politics
On The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour television show, Campbell avoided political topics. Around this time, in interviews he described himself as "a registered Democrat", but also said he "voted Republican a few times",  and he performed in support of both Republican and Democratic politicians. Campbell performed the National Anthem at the 1980 Republican National Convention and continued to make a number of campaign appearances for Republican candidates during the 1980s and 1990s.

Death, legacy and tributes
In June 2011, Campbell announced he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease six months earlier. After his diagnosis was revealed, he withdrew from a scheduled Australian concert tour with Kenny Rogers. He became a patient at an Alzheimer's long-term care and treatment facility in 2014. That same year, Campbell was the subject of the documentary Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me, directed by longtime friend James Keach, that examined Campbell's Alzheimer's diagnosis and how it affected his musical performances during his final tour across the United States with his family. The documentary received critical acclaim, earning a rare 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Campbell died in Nashville, Tennessee, on August 8, 2017, at the age of 81. He was buried in the Campbell family cemetery in Billstown, Arkansas.

In June 2020, Campbell's wife of 34 years, Kim Campbell, published Gentle on My Mind: In Sickness and in Health with Glen Campbell, a memoir of their life together.

Tributes and acclaim
Following the announcement of Campbell's death, fellow musicians, friends and fans expressed their condolences and noted his music legacy. Recording Academy president Neil Portnow praised him for having been "an American treasure" whose songs, guitar work, and "dazzling showmanship shot him to superstardom in the 1960s" to make him one of the most successful music artists in history.

Tributes poured in from countless others in the industry, including Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, comedy writer and actor Steve Martin, Sheryl Crow, Dolly Parton, Lenny Kravitz, and Anne Murray. Campbell's former partner Tanya Tucker wrote and released a song in his honor, "Forever Loving You".

Jimmy Webb, who wrote many of Campbell's hits and worked with him throughout his life, said that Campbell could play with "any guitar player in the world, from George Benson to Eric Clapton", adding that Paul McCartney considered him among the best guitar players. "People will realize what an extraordinary genius Glen really was", Webb told ABC News.

The Country Music Television Channel (CMT) aired a special about his career a few days after his death. Other networks were also "lining up to honor his life and brilliant legacy", including interviews with Keith Urban, Reba McEntire and Blake Shelton, among others.

Campbell's daughter Ashley was invited to perform at The O2 Arena in London as part of the C2C: Country to Country festival. Her set was billed as a special tribute to her father and included a medley of his hits alongside "Remembering", a song she wrote about Campbell's battle with Alzheimer's.

Discography and videography
Campbell recorded and released 60 studio albums and six live albums between 1962 and 2017. He also lent his vocals to four soundtracks for motion pictures: True Grit (1969), Norwood (1970), Rock-a-Doodle (1992), and the 2014 documentary film Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me. He placed a total of 82 singles (one of which was a re-release) on either the Billboard Country Chart, the Billboard Hot 100, or the Adult Contemporary Chart, nine of which peaked at number one on at least one of those charts. He released 15 video albums and featured in 21 music videos. His first two music videos, "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" and "Wichita Lineman", were directed by Gene Weed in 1967 and 1968, respectively. Campbell released his final music video, "I'm Not Gonna Miss You", in 2014 to coincide with the release of the documentary Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me. His final studio album, Adiós, was released on June 9, 2017.

In May 2019, it was announced that Glen Campbell's 'Legacy' Box Set was to be expanded and reissued.

American Music Awards

 * 1976: Favorite Pop/Rock Single – "Rhinestone Cowboy"
 * 1976: Favorite Country Single – "Rhinestone Cowboy"
 * 1977: Favorite Country Album – Rhinestone Cowboy

Country Music Association Awards

 * 1968: Entertainer of the Year
 * 1968: Male Vocalist of the Year
 * 2017: Musical Event of the Year – "Funny How Time Slips Away" with Willie Nelson

GMA Dove Awards

 * 1986: Album by a Secular Artist – No More Night
 * 1992: Southern Gospel Recorded Song of the Year – "Where Shadows Never Fall"
 * 2000: Country Album of the Year – A Glen Campbell Christmas

Other honors

 * 1968: Music Operators of America (MOA) Awards – Artist of the Year
 * 1970: Golden Globe Award nomination for Best New Star of the Year - Actor in the movie "True Grit"
 * 1974: Country Music Association of Great Britain's Entertainer of the Year
 * 2005: Country Music Hall of Fame induction
 * 2008: Q Legend Award
 * 2012: Country Radio Broadcasters, Inc. Career Achievement Award
 * 2014: Hollywood Music in Media Awards Lifetime Achievement Award
 * 2014: Academy Award nomination for "I'm Not Gonna Miss You" (co-writer)
 * 2018: Arkansas Country Music Awards – Lifetime Achievement Award

title: Glen Campbell