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Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg
The Whole Equation
Series: Jewish Lives
Brief Description
Kenneth Turan brings to life the extraordinary partnership of Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg and their role in creating the film industry as we know it. "Sharply observant." - Farran Smith Nehme, Wall Street Journal A New Yorker Best Book of the Year One was...
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Description
Kenneth Turan brings to life the extraordinary partnership of Louis B. Mayer and Irving Thalberg and their role in creating the film industry as we know it.
"Sharply observant." - Farran Smith Nehme, Wall Street Journal
A New Yorker Best Book of the Year
One was a tough junkman's son, the other a cosseted mama's boy, but they dreamed the same mighty dream: that the right movies could make a profit and change both the culture and individual lives. Sharing a religion and an evangelical zeal for film, Louis B. Mayer (1884-1957) and Irving Thalberg (1899-1936) were unlikely partners in one of the most significant collaborations in movie history. Over the course of their decade-long relationship, as key players at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and major players in Hollywood, they joined forces in redefining and mastering the template for the film industry.
Mayer, older by more than a dozen years, was the business-minded face of the studio, while Thalberg worked closely with the creative corps, especially writers; together they rarely set a foot wrong. And while Mayer initially viewed Thalberg as the son he never had, the two would go from passionate friends to near enemies before Thalberg's shocking death at the age of thirty-seven.
In the first joint biography of the two men in fifty years, film critic Kenneth Turan traces their fraught relationship while examining the complicated history of Jewish identity in Hollywood.
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Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780300292367
Publisher: Yale University Press
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 25 August 2026
Country: United States
Imprint: Yale University Press
Illustration: 13 b-w illus.
Audience: Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Width: 140.0mm
Height: 210.0mm
Weight: 0g
Pages: 392
About the Author
Kenneth Turan was the film critic of the Los Angeles Times for nearly thirty years and was also a film critic for National Public Radio. He is the author of Not to Be Missed: Fifty-Four Favorites from a Lifetime of Film, among other books. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.
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