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Daniel Inouye

Daniel Ken Inouye (September 7, 1924 – December 17, 2012) was an American attorney, soldier, and politician who served as a United States senator from Hawaii from 1963 until his death in 2012. Beginning in 1959, Inouye was the first U.S. Representative for the State of Hawaii, and a Medal of Honor recipient. A member of the Democratic Party, he also served as the president pro tempore of the United States Senate from 2010 until his death. Inouye was the highest-ranking Asian-American politician in U.S. history until Kamala Harris became vice president in 2021. Inouye also chaired various senate committees, including those on Intelligence, Indian Affairs, Commerce, and Appropriations.

Inouye fought in World War II as part of the 442nd Infantry Regiment. He lost his right arm to a grenade wound and received several military decorations, including the Medal of Honor (the nation's highest military award). Inouye later earned a J.D. degree from George Washington University Law School. Returning to Hawaii, Inouye was elected to Hawaii's territorial House of Representatives in 1953, and was elected to the territorial Senate in 1957. When Hawaii achieved statehood in 1959, Inouye was elected as its first member of the House of Representatives. He was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1962. He never lost an election in 58 years as an elected official, and he exercised an exceptionally large influence on Hawaii politics.

Inouye was the second Asian American senator, following Hawaii Republican Hiram Fong. Inouye was the first Japanese American to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, and the first to serve in the U.S. Senate. Because of his seniority, Inouye became president pro tempore of the Senate following the death of Robert Byrd on June 28, 2010, making him third in the presidential line of succession after the Vice President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Inouye was a posthumous recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Order of the Paulownia Flowers. Among other public structures, Honolulu International Airport has since been renamed Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in his memory.

Early life (1924–1942)
Daniel Ken Inouye was born in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii on September 7, 1924. His father, Hyotaro Inouye, was a jeweler who had immigrated to Hawaii from Japan as a child. His mother, Kame (née Imanaga) Inouye, was a homemaker born on Maui to Japanese immigrants. Her parents died young and she was adopted and raised by a family in Honolulu. Both of Daniel's parents were Christian, and met at the River Street Methodist Church in Honolulu. They got married in 1923. This heritage makes Daniel a Nisei (second-generation Japanese-American) through his father and a Sansei (third-generation) through his mother. Daniel was named after Kame's adoptive father.

Inouye grew up in Bingham Tract, a Chinese-American enclave in Honolulu. He was raised Christian, and was the oldest of four children. As a child, Inouye collected homing pigeons, which were hatched from eggs given to him at an army base in Schofield Barracks in return for Inouye cleaning the coops. As a teenager, he worked on the local beaches teaching tourists how to surf. Inouye's parents raised him and his siblings with a mix of American and Japanese customs. His parents spoke English at home, but had their children attend a private Japanese language school in addition to public school. Inouye dropped out of the Japanese school in 1939 because he disagreed with his instructor's anti-American rhetoric, and focused on his studies at President William McKinley High School. Inouye intended to go to college and medical school after his planned 1942 graduation.

Inouye witnessed the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, while still a high school senior. The Japanese surprise attack brought the United States into World War II. Being a volunteer first aid instructor with the Red Cross, he was called on by his supervisor to report to a Red Cross station set up at Lunalilo Elementary School. There, Inouye tended to civilians injured by antiaircraft shells that had fallen into the city. After the United States declared war on Japan the next day, Inouye took up a paid job from his Red Cross supervisor to work there as a medical aide. For the rest of his senior year, Inouye attended school during the day, and worked at the Red Cross station at night. He graduated from McKinley High School in 1942. Although Inouye wanted to join the armed forces after graduating, he did not possess that right as a Japanese-American. The United States Department of War had declared all Japanese-Americans as "enemy aliens", which stipulated they could not volunteer or be drafted for military service. Inouye enrolled at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in September 1942 as a premedical student with the goal of becoming a surgeon.

Army service (1943–1947)
In March 1943, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, an all-Nisei combat unit. Inouye applied and was initially turned down because his work at the Red Cross was deemed critical, but was inducted later that month. The unit was composed of over 2,500 Nisei from Hawaii, and 800 from the mainland. Inouye went with his unit in April to Camp Shelby in Mississippi for a 10-month training period, postponing his medical studies. While in Mississippi, the unit visited the Rohwer War Relocation Center in Arkansas, where Inouye witnessed the internment of Japanese Americans first hand.

The 442nd shipped off to Italy in May 1944 after the conclusion of their training, shortly before the liberation of Rome. Inouye was promoted to sergeant within the first three months of fighting in the Italian countryside north of Rome. The 442nd was then sent to eastern France, where they seized the towns of Bruyères, Belmont, and Biffontaine from the Germans. In late October, the regiment was transferred to the Vosges Mountains region of France, where they rescued 211 members of the 1st Battalion of the 141st Infantry Regiment, otherwise known as the "Lost Battalion". Inouye received a battlefield commission to second lieutenant for his actions there, becoming the youngest officer in his regiment. During the battle, a shot struck him in the chest directly above his heart, but the bullet was stopped by the two silver dollars he happened to have stacked in his shirt pocket. He continued to carry the coins throughout the war in his shirt pocket as good luck charms, but lost them later, shortly before the battle in which he lost his arm. The 442nd spent the next several months near Nice, guarding the French-Italian border until early 1945, when they were called to Northern Italy to assist with an assault on German strongholds in the Apennine Mountains.

Arm injury
On April 21, 1945, Inouye was grievously wounded while leading an assault on the heavily defended Colle Musatello ridge near San Terenzo, Italy. The ridge served as a strongpoint of the German fortifications known as the Gothic Line, the last and most unyielding line of German defensive works in Italy. During a flanking maneuver against German machine gun nests, Inouye was shot in the stomach from 40 yards away. Ignoring his wound, Inouye proceeded with the attack and together with the unit, destroyed the first two machine gun nests. As his squad distracted the third machine gunner, the injured Inouye crawled toward the final bunker and came within 10 yards. As he prepared to toss a grenade within, a German soldier fired out a 30 mm Schiessbecher antipersonnel rifle grenade at Inouye, striking Inouye in the right elbow. Although it failed to detonate, the blunt force of the grenade amputated most of his right arm at the elbow. The nature of the injury caused Inouye’s arm muscles to involuntarily squeeze the grenade tightly via a reflex arc, preventing his arm from going limp and dropping a live grenade at his feet. This injury left Inouye disabled, in terrible pain, under fire with minimal cover and staring at a live grenade "clenched in a fist that suddenly didn't belong to me anymore."

Inouye's platoon moved to his aid, but Inouye shouted for them to keep back out of fear his severed fist would involuntarily relax and drop the grenade. As the German inside the bunker began reloading his rifle with regular full metal jacket ammunition to finish off Inouye, Inouye pried the live hand grenade from his useless right hand with his left, and tossed it into the bunker, killing the German. Stumbling to his feet, Inouye continued forward, killing at least one more German before sustaining his fifth and final wound of the day in his left leg. Inouye fell unconscious, and awoke to see the worried men of his platoon hovering over him. His only comment before being carried away was to gruffly order them back to their positions, saying "Nobody called off the war!" By the end of the day, the ridge had fallen to American control, without the loss of any soldiers in Inouye's platoon. The remainder of Inouye's mutilated right arm was later amputated at a field hospital without proper anesthesia, as he had been given too much morphine at an aid station and it was feared any more would lower his blood pressure enough to kill him. The war in Europe ended on May 8, less than three weeks later.

Rehabilitation and discharge
Shortly before the Japanese surrender and end of World War II in August 1945, Inouye was shipped back to the United States to recover for eleven months at a rehabilitation center for wounded soldiers in Atlantic City, New Jersey. In mid-1946, Inouye was transferred to the Percy Jones Army Hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan, to continue his rehabilitation for nine more months. While recovering there, Inouye met future Republican senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole, then a fellow patient. The two became friends and would often play bridge together. Dole shared with Inouye his long-term plans to attend law school and become an attorney, and later run for state legislature and eventually the United States Congress. With Inouye's plans to become a surgeon dashed due to his injury, Dole's plans for a career in public service inspired Inouye to consider entering politics. Inouye ultimately beat Dole to congress. The two remained lifelong friends. In 2003, the hospital was renamed the Hart–Dole–Inouye Federal Center in honor of the two World War II veterans, as well as Democratic senator Philip Hart, who had been a patient at the hospital after sustaining injuries on D-Day.

Inouye was honorably discharged with the rank of captain in May 1947 after 20 months of rehabilitation. At the time, he was a recipient of the Bronze Star Medal, Distinguished Service Cross, and three Purple Hearts. Many in his regiment believed that, were he not Japanese-American, he would have been awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest military award. Inouye eventually received the Medal of Honor on June 21, 2000, from President Bill Clinton, along with 19 other Japanese American servicemen in the 442nd.

Entry into politics
Inouye decided to study law hoping it would lead him into a political career. He enrolled at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in late 1947 as a prelaw student, majoring in government and economics. Inouye relied on the financial benefits of the G.I. Bill to fund his education. When not in class, he volunteered for the Democratic Party at the Honolulu County Democratic Committee. Inouye had been talked into joining the party by John A. Burns, a former police captain and future governor, who had ties to the Japanese American community. Though the territory of Hawaii had been politically dominated by the Republican Party, Burns convinced Inouye that the Democratic Party could help Japanese Hawaiians achieve social and economic reform. During these years, Inouye met speech instructor Margaret Awamura at the university, whom he married in 1948.

After graduating in 1950, Inouye moved with his wife to Washington D.C. so he could continue his studies at George Washington University Law School. While there, Inouye volunteered at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters to gain more experience to bring back with him to Hawaii. Inouye earned his J.D. degree in two years, and moved back with his wife to Hawaii in late 1952. Inouye spent the next year studying for the Hawaii bar exam and volunteering with the Democratic Party. After passing the bar exam in August 1953, Inouye was appointed assistant public prosecutor for the city and county of Honolulu by the city mayor and fellow Democrat John Wilson.

At the urging of Burns, Inouye successfully ran for the Hawaii Territorial House of Representatives in the November 1954 election, representing the Fourth District. The election came to be known as the Hawaii Democratic Revolution of 1954, as the long-entrenched Republican control of the Hawaii Territorial Legislature abruptly ended with a wave of Democratic candidates taking their seats. The election also filled the legislature with Japanese-American politicians, who previously held few seats. Inouye was immediately elected majority leader. He served two terms there, and was elected to the Hawaii territorial senate in 1957. Midway through Inouye's first term, Hawaii achieved statehood. He won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives as Hawaii's first full member, and took office August 21, 1959, the same date Hawaii became a state. Inouye was re-elected in 1960.

United States Senate (1963–2012)
In 1962, Inouye was elected to the U.S. Senate, succeeding retiring fellow Democrat Oren E. Long.

Inouye was the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee between 1976 and 1979 and the chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee between 1987 and 1995. He introduced the National Museum of the American Indian Act in 1984 which led to the inauguration of the National Museum of the American Indian in 2004. Inouye was chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee between 2001 and 2003, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee between 2007 and 2009, and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee between 2009 and 2012.

Inouye was reelected eight times, usually without serious difficulty. His closest race was in 1992, when state senator Rick Reed held Inouye to 57 percent of the vote; this was the only time he received less than 69 percent of the vote. Inouye delivered the keynote address at the turbulent 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago and gained national attention for his service on the Senate Watergate Committee.

Inouye was also involved in the Iran-Contra investigations of the 1980s, chairing a special committee (Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition) from 1987 until 1989. During the hearings, Inouye referred to the operations that had been revealed as a "secret government", saying:

"[There exists] a shadowy Government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of the national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself."

Criticizing the logic of Marine Lt. Colonel Oliver North's justifications for his actions in the affair, Inouye made reference to the Nuremberg trials, provoking a heated interruption from North's attorney Brendan Sullivan, an exchange that was widely repeated in the media at the time. He was also seen as a pro-Taiwan senator and helped in forming the Taiwan Relations Act.

On May 1, 1977, Inouye stated that President Carter had telephoned him to express his objections to a sentence in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the Central Intelligence Agency.

On November 20, 1993, Inouye voted against the North American Free Trade Agreement. The trade agreement linked the United States, Canada, and Mexico into a single free trade zone and was signed into law on December 8 by President Bill Clinton.

In 2009, Inouye assumed leadership of the powerful Senate Committee on Appropriations after longtime chairman Robert Byrd stepped down. Following the latter's death on June 28, 2010, Inouye was elected President pro tempore, the officer third in the presidential line of succession.

In 2010, Inouye announced his decision to run for a ninth term. He easily won the Democratic primary—the real contest in heavily Democratic Hawaii — and then won against Republican state representative Campbell Cavasso with 74 percent of the vote.

Inouye ran for Senate Majority Leader several times without success.

Prior to his death, Inouye announced that he planned to run for a record tenth term in 2016 when he would have been 92 years old. Inouye also said,

"I have told my staff and I have told my family that when the time comes, when you question my sanity or question my ability to do things physically or mentally, I don't want you to hesitate, do everything to get me out of here, because I want to make certain the people of Hawaii get the best representation possible."

1980s
In 1986, West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd opted to run for Senate Majority Leader, believing that his two opponents to claiming the position would be Inouye and Louisiana Senator J. Bennett Johnston. Cutting a deal with Inouye, Byrd pledged that he would step aside from the position in 1989 if Inouye supported him for Senate Majority Leader of the 100th United States Congress. Inouye accepted the offer and was given the chance to select the new Senate sergeant-at-arms.

Foreign policy
In early 1981, Inouye called for tighter restrictions on what Americans can ship overseas, citing his belief that American international stature would be harmed along with the country's foreign policy interests in the event of the shipments causing environmental damage.

In March 1981, Inouye was one of 24 elected officials to issue a joint statement calling on the Reagan administration to compose a method of finding a peaceful solution that would end The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

In July 1981, a Federal commission began hearings to decide on rewarding compensations to Japanese-Americans placed in internment camps during World War II, Inouye and fellow Hawaii Senator Spark M. Matsunaga delivering opening statements. In November, during an appearance at the opening of a 10-day public forum at Tufts University on Japanese internment, Inouye stated his opposition to distributing reparation fees for Japanese-Americans previously incarcerated during World War II, adding that it "would be insulting even to try to do so." In August 1988, Inouye attended President Reagan's signing of legislation apologizing for the internment camps and establishing a $1.25 billion trust fund to pay reparations to both those who were placed in camps and to their families. In September 1989, during the Senate's debate over bestowing reparations to Japanese-Americans interned during World War II, Inouye delivered his first public speech on the issue and noted $22,000 were bestowed to each captive American in the Iran hostage crisis.

In October 2002, Inouye was one of 23 senators who voted against authorization of the use of military force in Iraq.

Domestic policy
In March 1982, amid controversy surrounding Democratic Senator Harrison A. Williams' taking bribes in the Abscam sting operation, Inouye delivered a closing defense argument stating the possibility of the Senate looking foolish in the event the conviction was reversed on appeal. Inouye confirmed that he had received telephone calls regarding Williams critiquing his remarks during his defense of himself the previous week and questioned if the Senate was going to punish him "because his presentation was rambling, not in the tradition of Daniel Webster" and for his wife believing in him.

In October 1982, after President Reagan appointed two new members to the board of the Legal Services Corporation, Inouye was one of 32 Senators to sign a letter expressing grave concerns over the appointments.

On December 23, Inouye voted against a 5 cent a gallon increase in gasoline taxes across the U.S. imposed to aid the financing of highway repairs and mass transit. The bill passed on the last day of the 97th United States Congress.

In March 1984, Inouye voted against a constitutional amendment authorizing periods in public schools for silent prayer and against President Reagan's unsuccessful proposal for a constitutional amendment permitting organized school prayer in public schools. In August, Inouye secured the acceptance of the Senate's defense appropriations subcommittee for an amendment meant to cure mainland milk arriving at Hawaiian and Alaskan military bases sour, arguing thousands of gallons of milk coming from the mainland must be dumped due to their souring and said shipments were arriving eight days after pasteurization.

In February 1989, after Oliver North went on trial in Federal District Court amid accusations that he illegally diverted profits from the secret sale of arms to Iran to the Nicaraguan rebels, Jack Brooks, then-chair of the House Oversight Committee, questioned North's role in composing a "contingency plan in the event of an emergency that would suspend the American Constitution." Inouye replied that the inquiry touched on a classified and sensitive matter that would only be discussed in a closed session.

Alleged sexual misconduct
In 1992, Inouye's hairdresser made allegations of sexual misconduct initiating with a 1975 incident wherein she was placed on an errand to his apartment, which he denied. Although reaching press nationally, consensus was that Hawaii's culture of silence towards indiscretions of those in power, prevailed. A Senate ethics committee review was dropped in 1993 over lack of participation or refusal to be publicly identified by accusers.

In 2014, two years after Inouye's death, senator Kirsten Gillibrand from New York wrote in her autobiography about a male colleague who squeezed her waist and commented: "Don't lose too much weight now. I like my girls chubby!" Although not named in the autobiography, The New York Times identified Inouye as the perpetrator, setting off national discussion of Inouye's past. In 2017, discussion resurfaced in local Hawaii media about the power of Inouye, and hence deference given to him politically and publicly, with the #MeToo movement providing impetus for just one more of the nine accusers coming forward publicly. The former staffer told about how Inouye initiated with asking her to rub his shoulders in his office, continuing with him later trying to put his hand on her leg once when in an automobile. When she tried to stop him, he grabbed her hand. During a trip to the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta, after a late-night simulcast to Hawaii, he asked her if she was hungry, and offered her a ride, inviting her to a late dinner in his room. Upon arriving in the room, he requested she sit next to him on the bed. She complied but immediately stood away, and called a fellow female staffer to join her there. Shortly thereafter, Inouye tried to bring his hand under her skirt while the two were riding together in an automobile; the staffer thwarted Inouye's advances with her hand. The corroborator of her story requested to remain anonymous.

A state lawmaker, who learned about the 1992 accusations through a PBS television program, questioned the 2016 renaming of the Honolulu International Airport after Inouye. They declined seeking the re-naming while receiving criticism from within and outside the Hawaii Democratic party for labeling Inouye as "an accused serial rapist."

Gang of 14
On May 23, 2005, Inouye was a member of a bipartisan group of 14 moderate senators, known as the Gang of 14, to forge a compromise on the Democrats' use of the judicial filibuster, thus blocking the Republican leadership's attempt to implement the "nuclear option", a means of forcibly ending a filibuster. Under the agreement, the Democrats would retain the power to filibuster a Bush judicial nominee only in an "extraordinary circumstance", and the three most conservative Bush appellate court nominees (Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen, and William H. Pryor Jr.) would receive a vote by the full U.S. Senate.

Electoral history
Inouye never lost an election.

In August 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson placed a phone call to vice president and Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey, urging him to select Inouye as his running mate. Johnson went as far as to request a background check on Inouye from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Johnson told Humphrey that Inouye's World War II injuries would silence Humphrey's critics on the Vietnam War: "He answers Vietnam with that empty sleeve. He answers your problems with (Republican presumptive presidential nominee and former vice president Richard) Nixon with that empty sleeve", Johnson said. Humphrey eventually chose Edmund Muskie as his running mate, and lost the election. According to his chief of staff, Jennifer Sabas, Inouye knew that he was being considered as a vice presidential pick, but was uninterested in the possibility, apparently content with his current position.

Family
Inouye's first wife was Margaret "Maggie" Shinobu Awamura, who was working as a speech instructor at the University of Hawaiʻi when Inouye was attending as a prelaw student after the war. The two married on June 12, 1948, at the Harris Memorial Methodist Church in Honolulu. She died of cancer on March 13, 2006. On May 24, 2008, Inouye married Irene Hirano in a private ceremony in Beverly Hills, California. Hirano was president and founding chief executive officer of the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, California. She resigned the position at the time of her marriage, in order to be closer to her husband. According to the Honolulu Advertiser, Inouye was 24 years older than Hirano. On May 27, 2010, Hirano was elected chair of the nation's second largest non-profit organization, The Ford Foundation. Hirano outlived him by more than seven years; she died on April 7, 2020.

Inouye's son, Kenny, was the guitarist for the hardcore punk band Marginal Man.

Honors

 * Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1968.
 * Grand Cross of the Philippine Legion of Honor in 1993.
 * On June 21, 2000, Inouye was presented the Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton for his service during World War II.
 * In 2000, Inouye was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun by the Emperor of Japan in recognition of his long and distinguished career in public service.
 * In 2006, the U.S. Navy Memorial awarded Inouye its Naval Heritage award for his support of the U.S. Navy and the military during his terms in the Senate.
 * Grand Cross (Bayani) of the Order of Lakandula on August 14, 2006.
 * In 2007, Inouye was personally inducted as a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by President of France Nicolas Sarkozy.
 * In February 2009, a bill was introduced in the Philippine House of Representatives by Rep. Antonio Diaz seeking to confer honorary Filipino citizenship on Inouye, Senators Ted Stevens and Daniel Akaka, and Representative Bob Filner for their role in securing the passage of benefits for Filipino World War II veterans.
 * In June 2011, Inouye was appointed a Grand Cordon of the Order of the Paulownia Flowers, the highest Japanese honor which may be conferred upon a foreigner who is not a head of state. Only the seventh American to be so honored, he is also the first American of Japanese descent to receive it. The conferment of the order was "to recognize his continued significant and unprecedented contributions to the enhancement of goodwill and understanding between Japan and the United States."
 * In 2011, Philippine president Benigno Aquino III conferred Order of Sikatuna upon Inouye. He had previously been awarded Order of Lakandula and a Philippine Republic Presidential Unit Citation.
 * Inouye was inducted as an honorary member of the Navajo Nation and titled "The Leader Who Has Returned With a Plan".
 * On August 8, 2013, Inouye was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. The citation in the press release reads as follows:
 * Daniel Inouye was a lifelong public servant. As a young man, he fought in World War II with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, for which he received the Medal of Honor. He was later elected to the Hawaii Territorial House of Representatives, the United States House of Representatives, and the United States Senate. Senator Inouye was the first Japanese American to serve in Congress, representing the people of Hawaii from the moment they joined the Union.

Awards and decorations
On May 27, 1947, Inouye was honorably discharged and returned home as a Captain with a Distinguished Service Cross, Bronze Star Medal, two Purple Hearts, and 12 other medals and citations. In 2000, his Distinguished Service Cross was upgraded to the Medal of Honor.

Death

In 2012, Inouye began using a wheelchair in the Senate to preserve his knees, and received an oxygen concentrator to aid his breathing. In November 2012, Inouye sustained a minor cut after falling in his apartment and was treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. On December 6, he was again hospitalized at George Washington University Hospital so doctors could further regulate his oxygen intake, and was transferred to Walter Reed Medical Center four days later. Inouye died there of respiratory complications on December 17, 2012. According to the senator's Congressional website, his last word was "Aloha." Prior to his death, Inouye left a letter encouraging Governor Neil Abercrombie to appoint Colleen Hanabusa to succeed Inouye should he become incapacitated; instead Abercrombie appointed Lieutenant Governor Brian Schatz until a November 2014 special election, which Schatz won.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Inouye's death on the floor of the Senate, referring to Inouye as "certainly one of the giants of the Senate." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell referred to Inouye as one of the finest Senators in United States history. President Barack Obama referred to him as a "true American hero".

Inouye's body lay in state at the United States Capitol rotunda on December 20, 2012. President Obama, former president Bill Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, House speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid spoke at a funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral the following day. Inouye's body was then flown to Hawaii where it lay in state at the Hawaii State Capitol on December 22. A second funeral service was held at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu the following day.

Legacy
The Daniel K. Inouye Graduate School of Nursing, founded in 1993, is part of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

Inouye made a cameo appearance as himself in the 1994 film The Next Karate Kid, giving the opening speech at Arlington National Cemetery for a commendation for Japanese-Americans who fought in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team during World War II.

In 2001, the Forest Glen Annex at Fort Detrick in Silver Spring, Maryland dedicated building 503 as the Daniel K. Inouye Building, built to house the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) and the Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC).

In 2007, The Citadel dedicated Inouye Hall at the Citadel/South Carolina Army National Guard Marksmanship Center to Senator Inouye, who helped make the Center possible.

In May 2013, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus announced the next Arleigh Burke-class destroyer would be named USS Daniel Inouye (DDG-118). The destroyer was officially christened at Bath Iron Works on June 22, 2019.

In November 2013, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association renamed its Trailblazer Award in honor of Inouye, posthumously honoring him with the Senator Daniel K. Inouye NAPABA Trailblazer Award.

In December 2013, the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope at Haleakala Observatory on Maui was renamed the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope.

Numerous federal properties at Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam and around Hawai'i have been dedicated to Senator Inouye, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Daniel K. Inouye Regional Center (2013), the Hawaii Air National Guard Daniel K. Inouye Fighter Squadron Operations & Aircraft Maintenance Facility (2014), the Senator Daniel K. Inouye Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency building (2015), the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies at Fort Derussy (2015), and the Pacific Missile Range Facility Daniel K. Inouye Range and Operations Center on Kauai (2016).

In 2014, Israel named the simulator room of the Arrow anti-missile defense system in his honor, the first time that a military facility has been named after a foreign national.

A Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, tail number 5147, of the 535th Airlift Squadron, was dedicated Spirit of Daniel Inouye on August 20, 2014.

The Parade Field at Fort Benning, Georgia, now Fort Moore since 2023, was rededicated to honor Senator Inouye on September 12, 2014.

On April 27, 2017, Honolulu's airport was renamed Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in his honor.

In 2018, Honolulu-based Matson, Inc. named its newest container ship, the largest built in the United States, the Daniel K. Inouye.

The University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo dedicated its pharmacy college the Daniel K. Inouye College of Pharmacy (DKICP) on December 4, 2019.

In August 2021, while visiting Japan for the Tokyo Olympics, First Lady Jill Biden dedicated a room in the U.S. ambassador's residence to Inouye and his wife, Irene.

title: Daniel Inouye


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Ataxx

Ataxx (アタックス) is a strategy video game published in arcades by Leland Corporation in 1990. Two players compete on a seven-by-seven square grid. The object of the game is for a player to have a majority of the pieces on the board at the end of the game, by converting as many of their opponent's pieces as possible. In a single-player game, the opponents are "bio-invaders from a different dimension."

The concept was invented earlier by Dave Crummack and Craig Galley for the unreleased 1988 video game Infection. Virgin Mastertronic licensed it to Leland as well as using the design in its own Spot: The Video Game released the same year as Ataxx. There are numerous independently developed clones. Although Ataxx was sold as a video game and not with a physical game board, it can be played with a Reversi set.

Gameplay

Each player begins with two pieces, red and blue, for the first player and second player respectively. The game starts with the four pieces on the four corners of the board, with red in the top left and bottom right and blue on the other two. Red moves first.

During their turn, players move one of their pieces either one or two spaces in any direction. Diagonal distances are equivalent to orthogonal distances, i.e. it is legal to move to a square whose relative position is two squares away both vertically and horizontally. If the destination is adjacent to the source, a new piece is created on the empty departure square. Otherwise the piece on the source moves to the destination. After the move, all of the opponent player's pieces adjacent to the destination square are converted to the color of the moving player. Players must move unless no legal move is possible, in which case they must pass.

The game ends when all squares have been filled or one of the players has no remaining pieces. The player with the most pieces wins. A draw may occur when the number of squares is even, either from non-playable squares or nonstandard sizes having an even number of squares. Some versions also implement the threefold repetition rule from chess.

The game is timed, similarly to blitz chess. Each player's timer counts down while it is their turn to move; they lose if it reaches zero, but may buy more time (100 seconds per quarter) while the game is in progress. After completing a game (whether they won or lost), a player may choose whether or not to play another game with the time remaining.

Development
Originally called Infection, the game was invented by Dave Crummack and Craig Galley in 1988 for Wise Owl Software, which then sold the rights to Virgin Mastertronic UK. Although versions of Infection were programmed for Amiga, Commodore 64, and Atari ST, none saw a commercial release. Eventually, the game was picked up by Virgin Mastertronic US, which licensed it to the Leland corporation, who then released it as the arcade game Ataxx in 1990. Around the same time, Virgin released its own version of the game, Spot: The Video Game for the Nintendo Entertainment System, IBM PC compatibles, Game Boy, and Commodore 64, based on Cool Spot, a character from a 7 Up marketing campaign of the time.

Legacy
In 1993, Virgin released the Trilobyte-produced game The 7th Guest, which contains a version of Ataxx as its Microscope Puzzle. Graeme Devine of Trilobyte, co-creator of The 7th Guest, had overseen the production of Spot: The Video Game while working at Virgin. In April 2011, an updated version of the Microscope Puzzle was released as a stand-alone app for iPad under the title The 7th Guest: Infection.

Hexxagōn, an IBM PC compatible game created by Argo Games and published by Software Creations in 1993, uses a hexagonal board, as does the 1995 sequel to The 7th Guest, The 11th Hour. Hexxagōn would later be adapted into a Flash-based game programmed by Paul Neave for the Neave Interactive website.

Boogers is an online 4-player variation hosted by the ImagiNation Network, a pre-internet dial-up game network. Two to four players fight on a 9x9 board.

The Sierra educational game Mega Math includes a clone of Ataxx where the player must answer math questions in order to move.

Many independently developed games have borrowed the Ataxx concept.

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

title: Ataxx


text:
Louis B. Mayer

Louis Burt Mayer (born Lazar Meir; July 12, 1884 – October 29, 1957) was a Canadian-American film producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios (MGM) in 1924. Under Mayer's management, MGM became the film industry's most prestigious movie studio, accumulating the largest concentration of leading writers, directors, and stars in Hollywood.

Mayer was born in the Russian Empire and grew up poor in Saint John, New Brunswick. He quit school at 12 to support his family and later moved to Boston and purchased and renovated a small vaudeville theatre in Haverhill, Massachusetts. He renovated and expanded several other theatres in the Boston area catering to audiences of higher social classes. After expanding and moving to Los Angeles, he teamed with film producer Irving Thalberg and they developed hundreds of films. Mayer handled the business of running the studio, such as setting budgets and approving new productions, while Thalberg, still in his twenties, supervised all MGM productions.

Mayer claimed to believe in "wholesome entertainment" and went to great lengths to discover new actors and develop them into major stars. During his long reign at MGM, Mayer acquired many critics and supporters. Some stars did not appreciate his attempts to control their private lives, while others saw him as a concerned father figure. He was controversial for his treatment of the actors under his management, demanding compliance from female stars by threatening their livelihoods, such as in the case of Judy Garland, whom he forced to go on diets, take drugs, and work punishing schedules.

Mayer was forced to resign as MGM's vice president in 1951, when the studio's parent company, Loew's, Inc., wanted to improve declining profits. A staunch conservative, Mayer at one time was the chairman of the California Republican Party. In 1927 he was one of the founders of AMPAS, famous for its annual Academy Awards.

Early life
Mayer preferred to say that he was born in Minsk. Bosley Crowther, in an early biography, gave his birthplace as "a little town near Minsk". Other sources cite such places as Demre and Dmra, "a village between Minsk and Vilnius". Charles Higham and Scott Eyman  state that Mayer was born in Dymer  near Kyiv  in Ukraine; this accords with what Mayer himself stated in his naturalization filing in 1912, where he gave his birthplace as Dumier, Russia. Andrzej Krakowski has suggested that the birthplace has been misinterpreted and Mayer was in fact from the town of Mińsk Mazowiecki in eastern Poland, which at the time was subjugated by the Russian Empire.

According to his personal details in the U.S. immigration documents, the date was July 4, 1885. In addition he gave his birth year as 1882 in his marriage certificate while the April 1910 census states his age as 26 (b.1883). His parents were Jacob and Sarah (née Meltzer) Meir (both Jewish) and he had two sisters — Yetta, born ca. 1878 and Ida, born ca. 1883. Mayer first moved with his family to Long Island, where they lived from 1887 to 1892 and where his two brothers were born—Rubin, in April 1888 and Jeremiah, in April 1891. Then, they moved to Saint John, New Brunswick, where Mayer attended school.

His father started a scrap metal business, J. Mayer & Son. An immigrant unskilled in any trade, he struggled to earn a living. Young Louis quit school at age twelve to work with his father and help support his family. He roamed the streets with a cart that said "Junk Dealer" and collected any scrap metal he came across. When the owner of a tin business, John Wilson, saw him with his cart, he began giving him copper trimmings which were of no use and Mayer considered Wilson to be his first partner and his best friend. Wilson remembered that he was impressed with the boy's good manners and bright personality. Whenever Mayer visited Saint John in later years, he placed flowers on Wilson's grave, just as he did on his mother's.

"It was a crappy childhood", said Mayer's nephew Gerald. His family was poor and Mayer's father spoke little English and had no valuable skills. It thus became young Mayer's ambition and drive that supported the family. With his family speaking mostly Yiddish at home, his goal of self-education when he quit school was made more difficult.

In his spare time, he hung around the York Theatre, sometimes paying to watch the live vaudeville shows. He became enamored of the entertainment business. Then in 1904 the 20-year-old Mayer left Saint John for Boston, where he continued for a time in the scrap metal business, got married and took a variety of odd jobs to support his new family when his junk business lagged.

Early career
Mayer renovated the Gem Theater, a rundown, 600 seat burlesque house in Haverhill, Massachusetts, which he reopened on November 28, 1907, as the Orpheum, his first movie theater. To overcome an unfavorable reputation that the building had, Mayer opened with a religious film at his new Orpheum, From the Manger to the Cross, in 1912. Within a few years, he owned all five of Haverhill's theaters, and, with Nathan H. Gordon, created the Gordon-Mayer partnership that controlled the largest theater chain in New England. During his years in Haverhill, Mayer lived at 16 Middlesex St. in the city's Bradford section, closer to city center at Temple Street and at 2 1/2 Merrimac St. Mayer also lived in a house he built at 27 Hamilton Ave.

In 1914, the partners organized their own film distribution agency in Boston. Mayer paid D.W. Griffith $25,000 for the exclusive rights to show The Birth of a Nation (1915) in New England. Mayer made the bid on a film that one of his scouts had seen, but he had not, although he was well aware of the plot surrounding the Ku Klux Klan; his decision netted him over $100,000. Using earnings from the popularity of The Birth of a Nation, Mayer partnered with Richard A. Rowland in 1916 to create Metro Pictures Corporation, a talent booking agency, in New York City.

Two years later, Mayer moved to Los Angeles and formed his own production company, Louis B. Mayer Pictures Corporation. The first production was 1918's Virtuous Wives. A partnership was set up with B. P. Schulberg to make the Mayer-Schulberg Studio

In late 1922, Mayer was introduced to Irving Thalberg, then working for Universal Pictures. Mayer was searching for someone to help him manage his small, but dynamic and fast-growing studio. At that first meeting, Thalberg made an immediate positive impression on Mayer, writes biographer Roland Flamini. Later that evening, after Thalberg had left, Mayer told the studio's attorney, Edwin Loeb, to let Thalberg know that if he wanted to work for Mayer, he would be treated like a 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, found it hard to believe that anyone "so boyish could be so important". According to Flamini, Thalberg was hired because, although Mayer was an astute businessman, he lacked Thalberg's strong ability to combine making films of quality with gaining commercial success.

Heading new Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studios
Mayer's big breakthrough was in April 1924 when his company subsequently merged with two others to become Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). The 24-year-old Thalberg was made part-owner and accorded the same position as vice president in charge of production.

Marcus Loew, owner of the Loew's chain, merged Metro Pictures, Samuel Goldwyn's Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, and Mayer Pictures into Metro-Goldwyn. Loew had bought Metro and Goldwyn some months before, but could not find anyone to oversee his new holdings on the West Coast. Mayer, with his proven success as a producer, was an obvious choice. He was named head of studio operations and a Loew's vice president, based in Los Angeles, reporting to Loew's longtime right-hand man Nicholas Schenck. He would hold this post for the next 27 years. Before the year was out, Mayer added his name to the studio with Loew's blessing, renaming it Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Three years after the merger, MGM became the most successful studio in Hollywood.

Loew died in 1927, and Schenck became president of Loew's. Mayer and Schenck hated each other intensely; Mayer reportedly referred to his boss, whose name was pronounced "Skenk", as "Mr. Skunk" in private. Two years later, Schenck agreed to sell Loew's – and MGM – to William Fox, which angered Mayer. But despite his important role in MGM, Mayer was not a shareholder, and had no standing to challenge the sale. So he instead used his Washington connections to persuade the Justice Department to delay the merger on antitrust grounds. During the summer of 1929, Fox was severely injured in an auto accident. By the time he recovered, the stock market crash had wiped out his fortune, destroying any chance of the deal going through even if the Justice Department had lifted its objections. Nonetheless, Schenck believed Mayer had cost him a fortune and never forgave him, causing an already frigid relationship to become even worse.

Working with Irving Thalberg
Mayer and Thalberg were a brilliant team that worked well together. They relied on each other, and neither operated unilaterally. Mayer took charge of the business part of running the studio, such as setting budgets and approving new productions. Thalberg, eventually called the "boy wonder", took charge of all MGM productions. Director Joseph M. Newman said that their skills complemented each other well, with Thalberg having a great story mind, and Mayer having superior business acumen.

They shared a guiding philosophy, to make the best motion pictures they could at any cost, even if it meant reshooting the entire picture. More important than showing a consistent profit with their films was, for them, to see MGM become a high-quality studio. That goal began with their early silent films, when stars such as Greta Garbo, Mayer's discovery, acted in lush settings with spectacular camera work.

Although they initially got along well, their relationship frayed over philosophical differences. Thalberg preferred literary works over the crowd-pleasers Mayer wanted. He ousted Thalberg as production chief in 1932, while Thalberg was recovering from a heart attack, and replaced him with producer David O. Selznick.

But MGM received a serious blow when Thalberg died suddenly on September 14, 1936, at age 37. His death came as a shock to Mayer and everyone at MGM and the other studios. Mayer issued statements to the press, calling Thalberg "the finest friend a man could ever have ... the guiding inspiration behind the artistic progress on the screen." His funeral was a major news event in Los Angeles. All the studios observed five minutes of silence, while MGM closed its studio for the entire day.

Mayer dedicated MGM's front office building and christened it the Thalberg Building. He had the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences establish the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, given to producers to recognize their exceptional careers, now considered one of the most prestigious awards in the Hollywood film industry.

Continued success after Thalberg's death
After Thalberg died, many in Hollywood expected Mayer to "stumble and fall". Director Joseph M. Newman saw the studio start to change for the worse. Some actors were affected, such as Luise Rainer, winner of Hollywood's first back-to-back Oscars, who felt that the death of Thalberg marked the death of her career: "Had it not been that he died, I think I may have stayed much longer in films." Joan Crawford was also concerned, feeling that with Thalberg gone, the concept of the quality "big" picture "pretty much went out the window".

However, MGM under Mayer's leadership continued to produce successful movies. Mayer made himself head of production as well as studio chief. For the next ten years, MGM grew and thrived. 1939 was an especially "golden" year: besides distributing Gone with the Wind, MGM released The Wizard of Oz, Babes in Arms, At the Circus, and The Women. Garbo laughed in Ninotchka; Goodbye, Mr. Chips won an Oscar (it was nominated for seven); and Hedy Lamarr, another of Mayer's personal discoveries, made her film debut.

Mayer became the first person in American history to earn a million-dollar salary. For nine years from 1937, when he earned $1,300,000 (equivalent to $0 today) Mayer was the highest-paid man in the United States.

Management style
In his overall management skills, Mayer was considered a great executive, someone who could have run General Motors equally as well as a large studio like MGM, said producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz. He worked at the studio all the time, and decisively, without any fixed schedule, but disliked paperwork. Some said Mayer had a lot in common with newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. Hearst had financed multiple MGM pictures, while MGM benefited by having film reviews included nationwide in the Hearst newspapers.

Hearst, 20 years Mayer's senior, affectionately referred to Mayer as "son" and they became good friends. Mayer took Hearst's suggestion to build himself an office bungalow on the MGM lot, something Hearst said was appropriate for a studio head: "Everybody of distinction from all over the world comes to Los Angeles and everybody who comes wants to see your studio and they all want to meet you and do meet you, so put on a few airs son, and provide the atmosphere." Director Clarence Brown pointed out that overall, Mayer's skill was similar to Hearst's in that they both learned by doing. What Mayer couldn't do on his own, he hired the best talent he could find to do for him. "Like Hearst and Henry Ford," said Brown, "he was an executive genius".

Mayer's temper was widely known, but most people knew that his sudden bursts of anger faded quickly. With those working underneath him, he was usually patient and preferred to leave department heads alone, and would fire executives if they failed to produce successful films over a long period.

Growth of the studio
At its peak in the 1940s, MGM employed six thousand people, had three entrances, and covered 185 acres in Culver City, California, outside of Los Angeles. It had forty cameras and sixty sound machines, used on its six separate lots, and connected with its own rail line. About 2,700 people ate in the commissary every day. Power was supplied by an in-house electrical plant which could light a town of 25,000. In addition, MGM maintained a police force of fifty officers—larger than that of Culver City itself. "Anywhere from sixteen to eighteen pictures were being shot at one time", remembers actress Ann Rutherford. "They were either shooting or preparing to shoot on every sound stage."

Creating a "star system"
Mayer helped create what is termed the "star system". At one point he explained the process he went through in creating a star: "The idea of a star being born is bush-wah. A star is made, created; carefully and cold-bloodedly built up from nothing, from nobody. All I ever looked for was a face. If someone looked good to me, I'd have him tested. If a person looked good on film, if he photographed well, we could do the rest. ... We hired geniuses at make-up, hair dressing, surgeons to slice away a bulge here and there, rubbers to rub away the blubber, clothes designers, lighting experts, coaches for everything—fencing, dancing, walking, talking, sitting and spitting."

Hiring actors and staff
During MGM's growth period, Mayer traveled often, and among his personal discoveries were Greta Garbo, Hedy Lamarr, Norma Shearer and Greer Garson. He also signed up dancing team Marge and Gower Champion and discovered Mario Lanza, then a young tenor from Philadelphia, who Mayer hoped to turn into a "singing Clark Gable".

When hiring new actors, he typically wanted them to agree to stay with the studio for either three or seven years, during which time they would become one of the MGM "family". The studio usually succeeded in hiring those it wanted since they offered the highest salaries. With executives, Mayer took more time before taking them, wanting to know them first on a personal level. He respected intelligence and talent overall, said manager Joe Cohn: "One time he said to me, 'Never be afraid of hiring a fellow smarter than you are. You'll only learn from them.'"

Mayer took pride in his ability to hire good people, and once hired, he left them alone to do their job without interference. That policy held true whether the person was a producer, a department head or simply a janitor. As a result, while other studios went through continuous upheavals or reorganizations, Mayer's hands-off policy kept MGM stable and sound, where employees felt their jobs were secure."

When meeting a new employee, he always told them to come to him personally for help with any problems. Some, like Barbara Stanwyck, considered this attitude to be "pompous" however, since he used his position to meddle in people's lives. Others, such as actor Edward G. Robinson, after his first meeting Mayer, said "I found him to be a man of truth ... Behind his gutta-percha face and roly-poly figure, it was evident there was a man of steel—but well-mannered steel." British director Victor Saville remembered him as being "the best listener. He wanted to know. He was the devil's advocate. He would prod you and question you and suck you dry of any knowledge."

Working with studio people
His attitude and conversational style were both professional and animated, sometimes "theatrical", observed June Caldwell, secretary to Eddie Mannix, Mayer's assistant. "Bombastic and colorful, but I never heard him use nasty language ... he had a great loyalty to everybody, and everybody respected him. And he would listen ... You could work with him." His manners were considered "impeccable".

With MGM's film output as high as one film each week, he never panicked over a bad picture. If somebody suggested canceling a movie and cutting the studio's losses, when a film had consistent production problems, Mayer would typically refuse. He relied on his instinct and intuition, said actress Esther Williams. Although he did not read full scripts, if he was given the framework of a story, he could assemble the pieces needed to see if it could be a successful film.

Occasionally, when producers, directors, writers or actors were deadlocked over how to handle a problem in a film, he would mediate. On Rosalie, for instance, when Nelson Eddy refused to sing a song he thought was too melodramatic, its songwriter, Cole Porter, went to Mayer and played it for him. Mayer was moved to tears by the song, and told Eddy to sing it. "Imagine making Louis B. Mayer cry," Porter later told friends.

Response to technical innovations
With regard to any technical issues with productions, Mayer left the details and solutions to MGM's engineers. He, though, like other top film executives and Hollywood stars in the 1920s and early 1930s, was often too quick to dismiss news of inventions and major innovations on the horizon that might profoundly change the movie industry or possibly challenge in the future the growing dominance of films in the realm of American entertainment. Beyond the well-entrenched aspect of sound by 1932, other technologies being discussed at that time in newspapers and on studio lots included color features, widescreen formatting, and even early television. In August 1932, after an "exclusive" interview with Mayer in New York, The Film Daily reported the movie mogul's assertions that such potential developments would never impact motion pictures in substantial, meaningful ways: "Peering into the industry's future, Louis B. Mayer ... sees no great production development or invention which will again revolutionize the business, as in the instance of sound. Television, color, and wide film he dismissed as promising no important influence on motion pictures. Television, according to the M-G-M chieftain, is impractical from the standpoint of any association with motion pictures. In taking this attitude he stressed the rapidity at which images must be transmitted in television and pointed out that satisfactory results cannot be obtained with this requirement.

Except in some short subjects, such as educationals, travelogues, and novelties, color has no place on the screen, Mayer asserted. It has the effect of detracting interest from the story being told. In addition the cost must be considered. Examining the possibility of the wide screen, Mayer said that it eliminates the intimacy allowed by the standard-sized screen. It might be effectively used in mob scenes, he observed, but pointed out the impracticability of switching back and forth between projectors capable of projecting both sizes of pictures."

Being a father figure
With many of his actors, Mayer was like an overprotective father. In some cases, especially with child actors, he could become closely involved in managing their everyday lives, telling them where to shop, where to dine, or what doctor to visit. He liked giving suggestions about how they could take better care of themselves. He sometimes arranged marriages, and coping with occupational hazards such as alcoholism, suicide, and eccentric sexual habits were as much a part of his job as negotiating contracts with stars and directors. When he learned that June Allyson was dating David Rose, for instance, he told her to stop seeing him: "If you care about your reputation, you cannot be seen with a married man." Stories about his sobbing or rages have often been repeated in books, but few employees ever saw that part of him. "Mr. Mayer was to me like a father", said Ricardo Montalbán. "He really thought of the people under contract as his boys and girls." Mayer's paternalism could extend to productions; for example, he revised the Dr. Kildare stories in order to keep an ailing Lionel Barrymore, who required the use of a wheelchair due to arthritis, on the job.

Some, such as young starlet Elizabeth Taylor, disliked Mayer overseeing their lives; Taylor called him a "monster", while Mickey Rooney, another young actor who co-starred with Taylor when she was 12, formed the opposite impression: "He was the daddy of everybody and vitally interested in everybody. They always talk badly about Mayer, but he was really a wonderful guy ... he listened and you listened." Rooney spoke from experience, as he himself had some confrontations with Mayer, observed film historian Jane Ellen Wayne: "Mayer naturally tried to keep all his child actors in line, like any father figure. After one such episode, Mickey Rooney replied, 'I won't do it. You're asking the impossible.' Mayer then grabbed young Rooney by his lapels and said, 'Listen to me! I don't care what you do in private. Just don't do it in public. In public, behave. Your fans expect it. You're Andy Hardy! You're the United States! You're the Stars and Stripes. Behave yourself! You're a symbol!' Mickey nodded. 'I'll be good, Mr. Mayer. I promise you that.' Mayer let go of his lapels. 'All right', he said."

One of Rooney's repeat costars in Andy Hardy and other films was Judy Garland, with whom he made nine films. Garland stated in her unfinished autobiography that Mayer molested her. In the late 1940s, she began having personal problems, which affected her acting, and Mayer tried his best to protect her star reputation while keeping her overworked and making money for MGM. She suffered from addictions to prescription drugs, severe eating disorders and domestic strains, as well as a multitude of issues with her mental health. This was largely the result of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, her mother, and the era's ignorance of diet and drugs. When her absences caused the production of Summer Stock to go far over budget, producer Joe Pasternak suggested that Mayer cut his losses and cancel the picture. Mayer refused, telling him, "Judy Garland has made this studio a fortune in the good days, and the least we can do is to give her one more chance. If you stop production now, it'll finish her", in what some consider to be his last attempt at holding on to her fame for the benefit of the studio. She completed the film, but during her next picture, Annie Get Your Gun, the studio finally ran out of patience. Costar Howard Keel recalls that "she began to fall apart". After the studio fired her, she attempted suicide.

Developing child stars
Mayer wanted the studio to nurture child stars for MGM's family-oriented productions. The studio provided all the essential services, such as formal education and medical care. They were given acting or dancing tutors. Mayer loved children, wrote biographer Kitty Kelley: "They provided the magic that brought millions of people stampeding into theaters every week ... They were the good, clean, wholesome elements of the folksy entertainment that was MGM's specialty."

Jackie Coogan, then 11, marked the studio's debut using child stars with his role in The Rag Man in 1925. During Hollywood's golden age, MGM had more child actors than any other studio, including Jackie Cooper, Mickey Rooney, Judy Garland, Freddie Bartholomew, Margaret O'Brien, Elizabeth Taylor, and Roddy McDowall.

Themes, musicals and formula
While MGM's films during the 1920s and 1930s were often known for containing adult themes and strong female stars, such as Greta Garbo, after Thalberg's early death in 1936, Mayer promoted a change in emphasis to more male leads, family themes, and child stars. And unusual for a movie mogul, he took moral positions in his movies, especially when it came to portraying family values—as in the Andy Hardy series. One of Mayer's proudest moments came when Mickey Rooney, who starred as Andy Hardy, was given a special award by the Academy in 1942 for "furthering the American way of life."

Mayer tried to express an idealized vision of men, women, and families in the real world they lived in. He also believed in beauty, glamour, and the "star system". In MGM films, "marriage was sacrosanct and mothers were objects of veneration". Author Peter Hay states that Mayer "cherished the Puritan values of family and hard work." When he hired writers, he made those objectives clear at the outset, once telling screenwriter Frances Marion that he never wanted his own daughters or his wife to be embarrassed when watching an MGM movie. "I worship good women, honorable men, and saintly mothers", he told her. Mayer was serious about that, once coming from behind his desk and knocking director Erich von Stroheim to the floor when he said that all women were whores.

Mayer knew that formula in his themes and stories usually works. He felt that the general public, especially Americans, like to see stars, spectacle, and optimism on screen, and if possible, with a little sentiment attached. They don't like to be challenged or instructed, but comforted and entertained.

Therefore, having messages was less important to Mayer than giving his audience pure entertainment and escapism. In his screen dramas, he wanted them to be melodramatic, whereas in comedies, he often laced them with strong doses of sentimentality. "He loved swaggering, charismatic hams like Lionel Barrymore and Marie Dressler", wrote Eyman.

Musicals were high on his list of preferred genres. Anxious to make more of them, on a hunch, he asked songwriter Arthur Freed to be associate producer for The Wizard of Oz. As Mayer hoped, Freed's unit at MGM produced many films considered among the best musicals ever made: For Me and My Gal, Girl Crazy, Meet Me in St. Louis, The Harvey Girls, The Pirate, Easter Parade, The Barkleys of Broadway, On the Town, An American in Paris, Singin' in the Rain, The Band Wagon, and Gigi. Mayer's greatest contributions to posterity are said to be his musicals. Both An American in Paris and Gigi won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

World War II issues
Unlike Charlie Chaplin, who produced The Great Dictator, the other, much larger Hollywood studios lacked the freedom to make such independent films. Mayer understood that the Germans could ban or boycott Hollywood films throughout much of Europe, with serious economic implications, since 30 to 40 percent of Hollywood's income came from European audiences. Nevertheless, MGM produced Three Comrades in 1938, despite movie censor Joseph Breen warning Mayer that the film was "a serious indictment of the German nation and people and is certain to be violently resented by the present government in that country."

After the Second World War began in Europe in September 1939, Mayer authorized the production of two anti-Nazi films, The Mortal Storm and Escape. At the same time, Warner Brothers produced Confessions of a Nazi Spy. The German government informed the studios that "those films would be remembered by Germany when — not if — they won the war", writes Eyman. Warners had to post guards to protect the family of actor Edward G. Robinson, and the Germans threatened Mayer with a boycott of all MGM films.

From September 1939 until January 1940, all films that could be considered anti-Nazi were banned by the Hays Office. The U.S. ambassador to England, Joseph Kennedy, told the studios to stop making pro-British and anti-German films. Kennedy felt that "British defeat was imminent and there was no point in America holding out alone: 'With England licked, the party's over,' said Kennedy."

Defying those pleadings, MGM produced Mrs. Miniver, a simple story about a family in rural England trying to get by during the early years of the war. Eddie Mannix agreed that "someone should salute England. And even if we lose $100,000, that'll be okay."

Mayer wanted British actress Greer Garson, his personal discovery, to star, but she refused to play a matronly role. Mayer implored her "to have the same faith in me" that he had in her. He read from the script, having her visualize the image she would present to the world, "a woman who survives and endures. She was London. No, more than that, she was ... England!" Garson accepted the role, winning the Academy Award for Best Actress. Mrs. Miniver won six Academy Awards and became the top box office hit of 1942.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill both loved the film, said historian Emily Yellin, and Roosevelt wanted prints rushed to theaters nationwide. The Voice of America radio network broadcast the minister's speech from the film, magazines reprinted it, and it was copied onto leaflets and dropped over German-occupied countries. Churchill sent Mayer a telegram claiming that "Mrs. Miniver is propaganda worth 100 battleships." Bosley Crowther (1960 biographer of Mayer, below), wrote in his New York Times review that Mrs. Miniver was the finest film yet made about the war, "and a most exalting tribute to the British."

The following year, 1943, saw the release of another Oscar-winning film, this one aimed at supporting the home front, titled The Human Comedy. It was Mayer's personal favorite and the favorite of its director, Clarence Brown. Mayer assisted the U.S. government by producing a number of short films related to the war, and helped produce pro-American films such as Joe Smith, American, in 1942.

Declining years at MGM
The post-war years saw a gradual decline in profits for MGM and the other studios. The number of high-grossing films in 1947 dwindled to six, compared to twenty-two a year earlier. MGM had to let go many of its top producers and other executives. Mayer was pressured to tighten expenses by the studio's parent company, although Mayer's reputation as a "big-picture man" would make that difficult. They began looking for someone, another Thalberg, to redo the studio system.

In the interim, Mayer kept making "big pictures". When RKO turned down financing of Frank Capra's State of the Union in 1948 because of its expensive budget, Mayer took on the project. He filled the cast with MGM stars including Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Van Johnson, Adolphe Menjou and Angela Lansbury, but the film only broke even. Nicholas Schenck called Mayer and insisted that he "cut, cut", recalls director George Sidney. Mayer replied, "A studio isn't salami, Nick." "L.B. would ask only one question: 'Can you make it better?' It was all he cared about", said Sidney.

As pressure built to find a new Thalberg-style manager to handle production, Dore Schary was brought in from RKO, and began work on July 14, 1948, as vice president in charge of production, working under Mayer's direction.

Some long-time studio executives saw this change as a sign of the eventual downfall of MGM. When she heard the news, Lillian Burns Sidney, George Sidney's wife, marched into Mayer's office and announced, "Now you've done it. You've ruined everything." She told Mayer that she was afraid Schary would eliminate all future musicals, comedies and adventure movies, and replace them with the "message" movies that he preferred. She expressed her fear: "They won't have need for anybody around here. Even you! You'll see."

By mutual consent with Loew's, Mayer resigned from MGM in August 1951. On his final day, as he walked down a red carpet laid out in front of the Thalberg Building, executives, actors and staff lined the path and applauded him for his contributions. "He was so respected," said June Caldwell, Eddie Mannix's secretary. Many assumed that his leaving meant the end of an era. Actor Turhan Bey said, "In every meaningful way, it was the end of Hollywood."

Mayer, for a period after he left MGM, tried to finance and assemble a new group of film stars and directors to produce his own films as an independent. He told the press that his films would carry on in the tradition of MGM's previous style of film subjects. In 1952, he became chairman of the board and the single largest shareholder in Cinerama, and had hoped to produce a property he owned, Paint Your Wagon, in the widescreen process, but without success. He left Cinerama in 1954 when the company was sold.

Accusations of sexual abuse
Louis B. Mayer has been accused of sexual abuse, including having groped a then-teenage Judy Garland. According to Gerald Clarke's book Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland, Mayer "held meetings with the young woman seated on his lap, his hands on her chest". In an interview with Larry King, Shirley Temple claimed that Mayer "came on to" her mother while at the same time, Temple was in the adjacent office of Arthur Freed, who, she claimed, disrobed before her; she proceeded to laugh until he threw her out. At the time Temple was 12 years old.

Mayer reportedly pursued Jean Howard in hopes of establishing a sexual relationship, but without success. Cari Beauchamp, author of Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood, observed: "Mayer chased actress Jean Howard around the room. When she said, 'No way', and went off and married Charles K. Feldman, the agent, Mayer banned Charlie from the lot. For a long time after, he wouldn't allow any of Feldman's clients to work at MGM." In her autobiography, Esther Ralston recorded that her career was sabotaged by Mayer when she refused to sleep with him.

Family
Mayer had two daughters from his first marriage to Margaret Shenberg (1883–1955), which ended in divorce in 1947. The elder of these, Edith (Edie) Mayer (1905–1988), whom he would later become estranged from and disinherit, married producer William Goetz (who served as vice president for Twentieth-Century Fox and later became president of Universal-International). The younger, Irene (1907–1990), was the first wife of producer David O. Selznick and became a successful theatrical producer. In 1948, Mayer married former actress Lorena Layson Danker (1907–1985).

At home, Mayer was boss. "In our family, all the basic decisions were made by him", remembers his nephew, Gerald Mayer. "He was a giant. ... Were we afraid of him? Jesus Christ, yes!" And although he never spoke Yiddish at the office, he sometimes spoke Yiddish with "some of the relatives", said his daughter Irene.

Mayer's activities for the Jewish Home for the Aged led to a strong friendship with Edgar Magnin, the rabbi at the Wilshire Temple in Los Angeles. "Edgar and Louis B. virtually built that temple", said Herbert Brin.

Entertainment and leisure
At his home on Saint Cloud Road in the East Gate Bel Air neighborhood, Sundays were reserved for brunches in what was an open house, which often included visiting statesmen or former U.S. presidents, along with various producers, directors or stars. There would be a buffet supper, drinks, and later a movie. Mayer drank almost no alcohol, cared nothing for fine cuisine, and did not gamble, but might play penny-ante card games for fun.

For leisure activities, he liked going to the Hollywood Bowl, especially the annual John Philip Sousa concert. Sousa's patriotic-style music built up his pride in America, and he "would be stoked with extra exuberance for days afterward", states Eyman. Mayer also enjoyed ballet and opera, and concerts where violinist Jascha Heifetz or pianist Arthur Rubinstein performed.

While Mayer seldom discussed his early life, his partiality towards Canada would sometimes be revealed, especially after Canada entered World War II in September 1939 and the United States followed more than two years later in December 1941. On one occasion in 1943, Mary Pickford called to tell him she met a movie-struck Royal Canadian Air Force pilot from New Brunswick, where Mayer grew up. Mayer asked her to have him drop by the studio. The pilot, Charles Foster, recalled his visit: "Mary's driver took me through the gates, and I saw this little man come running down the steps of the Thalberg Building. I thought, 'Oh, he's sent a man to greet me.' And I got out of the car, and this man threw his arms around me and said, 'Welcome to my studio.' "

Mayer took him on a personal tour of the studio, and Foster remembers that "everybody waved to him and he waved back. He spoke to people and knew them by name. I was shocked." Mayer invited him back for lunch the next day. But before Foster arrived, Mayer had invited every Canadian in Hollywood to meet the flier, including Fay Wray, Walter Pidgeon, Raymond Massey, Jack Carson, Rod Cameron, Deanna Durbin, Walter Huston, Ann Rutherford, and even his main competitor, Jack Warner. Mayer told him, "When this war is over, if you want to come back here, I'll find a job for you." Foster said "It was like he was the father I never knew."

Politics
Active in Republican Party politics, Mayer served as the vice chairman of the California Republican Party in 1931 and 1932, and as its state chairman in 1932 and 1933. As a delegate to the 1928 Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Mayer supported Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover of California. Mayer became friends with California Governor James Rolph Jr., Oakland Tribune publisher Joseph R. Knowland, and Marshall Hale. Joseph M. Schenck was an alternate delegate at the convention. Mayer was a delegate to the 1932 Republican National Convention with fellow Californians Knowland, Rolph, and Earl Warren. Mayer endorsed President Herbert Hoover's failed reelection bid.

During the 1934 California gubernatorial election Mayer was strongly opposed to the Democratic candidate Upton Sinclair, instead preferring the Republican Frank Merriam. Mayer's MGM and other film studios deducted a days pay from their employees to raise an anti-Sinclair fund that amounted to $500,000. Irving 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.

Mayer was a Freemason.

Horse racing hobby
Mayer owned or bred a number of successful thoroughbred racehorses at his ranch in Perris, California, near Los Angeles. It was considered one of the finest racing stables in the United States and raised the standards of the California racing business. Among his horses were Your Host, sire of Kelso; the 1945 U.S. Horse of the Year, Busher; and the 1959 Preakness Stakes winner, Royal Orbit. Eventually Mayer sold off the stable, partly to finance his divorce in 1947. His 248 horses brought more than $4.4 million. In 1976, Thoroughbred of California magazine named him "California Breeder of the Century".

Death
Mayer died of leukemia on October 29, 1957. He was buried in the Home of Peace Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California. His sister, Ida Mayer Cummings, and brothers Jerry and Rubin also are buried there.

Legacy
Mayer and his lieutenants built a company that was regarded by the public and his peers alike as the pinnacle of the movie industry. "Louis B. Mayer defined MGM, just as MGM defined Hollywood, and Hollywood defined America", writes biographer Scott Eyman.

In 1951, he was given an honorary Oscar for heading MGM for over 25 years. At the event, screenwriter Charles Brackett presented the award and thanked him for guiding MGM's "production policy with foresight, aggressiveness and with a real desire for taste and quality". Mayer was also thanked for founding and developing new personalities and for bringing the Hollywood "star system into full flower".

Although Mayer was often disliked and even feared by many in the studio, editor Sam Marx explains that "his reputation is far worse than it should be. He had to be strong to do his job, and he couldn't do that without making enemies." Director Clarence Brown compared him to newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst: "Louis B. Mayer ... made more stars than all the rest of the producers in Hollywood put together. ... He knew how to handle talent; he knew that to be successful, he had to have the most successful people in the business working for him. He was like Hearst in the newspaper business. ... He made an empire out of the thing."

Mayer never wrote or directed movies, and never pretended to tell writers what to write or art directors what to design. But he understood movies and their audience. According to Eyman, "Mayer's view of America became America's view of itself." Because of the stars, the stories, the glamour, the music, and the way they were presented, audiences the world over would often applaud the moment they saw the MGM lion. Mayer was the constant at MGM who set the tone. At Mayer's funeral in 1957, Spencer Tracy expressed Mayer's ambitions: "The story he wanted to tell was the story of America, the land for which he had an almost furious love, born of gratitude—and of contrast with the hatred in the dark land of his boyhood across the seas. It was this love of America that made him an authority on America."

Honors and recognition

 * Revered in his home country, Mayer has a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.
 * A street in the Canadian city of Laval, Quebec a suburb of Montreal, is named Rue Louis-B-Mayer.
 * The primary screening facility for Loyola Marymount University's School of Film and Television—the Mayer Theatre—is named after him. Mayer permitted the university's sports teams to use the MGM lion as their mascot.
 * The main theatre at Santa Clara University bears his name.
 * Mayer was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1990.
 * The Louis B. Mayer Research Laboratories building at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute in Boston opened in 1988.
 * Mayer is enshrined in the Citizens Hall of Fame in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

Portrayals in popular culture
Mayer has been portrayed numerous times in film and television including:
 * Harlow (1965) (by Jack Kruschen)
 * Gable and Lombard (1976) (by Allen Garfield)
 * Rainbow (1978) (by Martin Balsam)
 * The Scarlett O'Hara War (1980) (by Harold Gould)
 * Mommie Dearest (1981) (by Howard Da Silva)
 * Malice in Wonderland (1985) (by Richard Dysart)
 * RKO 281 (1999) (by David Suchet)
 * The Three Stooges (2000) (by David Baldwin)
 * Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows (2001) (by Al Waxman)
 * De-Lovely (2004) (by Peter Polycarpou)
 * The Aviator (2004) (by Stanley DeSantis)
 * Trumbo (2015) (by Richard Portnow)
 * The Last Tycoon (2016) (by Saul Rubinek)
 * Feud (2017) (by Kerry Stein)
 * Judy (2019) (by Richard Cordery)
 * Mank (2020) (by Arliss Howard)

William Saroyan wrote a short story about L. B. Mayer in his 1971 book, Letters from 74 rue Taitbout or Don't Go But If You Must Say Hello To Everybody.

Characters based on Mayer

 * Pat Brady in the 1941 F. Scott Fitzgerald novel The Last Tycoon. He was played by Robert Mitchum in the 1976 film adaptation, and Kelsey Grammer in the 2016 TV series.
 * Stanley Shriner Hoff in The Big Knife (1955) (by Rod Steiger) was based in part on Mayer.
 * Cyril H. Bean, referred to by his employees as "The Head", in the 1966 Jacqueline Susann novel Valley of the Dolls
 * Jack Lipnick in Barton Fink (1991) (by Michael Lerner, who earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor)
 * L.B. Mammoth in the animated film Cats Don't Dance (1997) (voice-acted by George Kennedy)

title: Louis B. Mayer