Reborn on the Fourth of July

Every Independence Day, L.B. Mayer (1884 – 1957) would shut down production at MGM and celebrate twin holidays: America’s birth, and the birthday of L.B. Mayer.

Flags and bunting graced every building and sound stage. There was band music and rows of picnic tables groaning under the weight of food.

L.B. Mayer, a man without a birth date

Every MGM star was expected to attend and pay homage to America-and to L.B. Mayer. For in Mayer’s mind, the two were inseparable. All complied, except Greta Garbo, a woman far too narcissistic to lavish attention on any country or person other than her own mirrored island.

Though Yiddish was his first language, L.B. Mayer delivered a rousing Fourth of July speech. Mayer could be a forceful English speaker, mixing deeply personal anecdotes—usually about his beloved mother—and soaring rhetoric about his adopted home, America.

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