64: MGM Stories Part 9: Spencer Tracy
When Spencer Tracy signed with MGM, he was a character actor better known for his problem drinking (and very public extramarital affair with Loretta Young) than for his movie hits. But the studio made...
10 Nov 201540min
63: MGM Stories Part 8: Eddie Mannix
In the new Hollywood satire from the Coen Brothers, Josh Brolin plays a studio "fixer" named Eddie Mannix. The real Eddie Mannix was a New Jersey-born reputed gangster who rose through the ranks at MG...
3 Nov 201540min
62: MGM Stories Part 7: MGM's children: Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland
After Irving Thalberg’s death in 1936, Louis B. Mayer doubled down on "family entertainment" at MGM. To support this new wave of content, Mayer started signing younger and younger performers to groom ...
27 Okt 201540min
61: MGM Stories Part 6: Jean Harlow
As part of the publicity campaign for his film Hell’s Angels, Howard Hughes made Jean Harlow a star, branding her “The Platinum Blonde.” But after Hell’s Angels, Hughes couldn’t figure out what to do ...
20 Okt 201541min
60: MGM Stories Part 5: William Haines and Hollywood’s First Openly Gay Marriage
The rare silent star who made a relatively smooth transition to sound films, William “Billy” Haines was one of the top box office stars of the late 1920s-early 1930s. Beginning in 1926, Haines started...
13 Okt 201537min
59: MGM Stories Part 4: John Gilbert and Greta Garbo
Rising romantic lead John Gilbert signed with MGM in 1924 and the next year he starred in King Vidor’s The Big Parade, the studio’s biggest hit of the silent era. That same year, Louis B. Mayer brough...
6 Okt 201535min
58: MGM Stories Part 3: Buster Keaton’s Biggest Mistake
In 1928, silent comedy star Buster Keaton made what he would later call “the worst mistake of my career”: against the advice of fellow silent comedy auteurs like Charlie Chaplin, he gave up his indepe...
29 Sep 201542min
57: MGM Stories Part 2: Marion Davies, William Randolph Hearst, and Citizen Kane
Marion Davies is enshrined in memory as the gorgeous but questionably talented mistress of publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst -- thanks in part to the depiction of a Davies-esque character in ...
22 Sep 201536min
