Irving Thalberg - Legacy

Legacy

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.

Writers from the foreign press had also attempted to explain the essence of his career as producer. C. A. Lejeune, film critic of the London Observer, described her impressions of Thalberg:

A temperate man in all his ways of living, in this one respect he was an inveterate gambler. If he believed in a man, or a project, or a story, he would stake everything on his conviction. . . . Everyone who worked for Thalberg loved him. He had the quality, rare among showmen, and precious among men, of standing back after an achievement and letting the other fellow take the credit. . . he never wanted to be known as the big promoter. He just saw a little farther than most of the others, and trusted his vision, and worked like a laborer until it came true. . . . What he also had was a great kindliness, a love for his work, workers, friends and audiences.

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 at age 37, a New York Times editorial 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". 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 – his last greatest achievement – we dedicate this picture

In 1938, the multi-million dollar administration building built on the old MGM Studios in Culver City – now Sony Pictures Studios – 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.