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From under my Hat
Louis's assistant was the young, enterprising Irving Thalberg, who had started as an office boy at Universal for old Papa Carl Laemmle.
Irving Thalberg was the only genius, except D. W. Griffith and Walt Disney, I ever met in the motion-picture industry. Louis was always the clever politician— still is— but Irving was the little creative giant. He could carry ten productions on his back at the same time and never mix the plots or the scenes in his brain.
After taking a cut of seven hundred and fifty dollars a week to come to Hollywood, I was thrown a curve on my first picture. I was to have played the leading part in a film being directed by Reginald Barker, whom I'd met.
At our first meeting I felt a chill blow off some icy mountaintop of his mind, but I didn't expect it to bring an avalanche down on my head.
"I can't photograph this woman!" Barker announced suddenly.
Producers shuddered at the thought of going against a director's judgment. In those days directors were almost more important than producers. If a film turned out bad, the director could gloat— and don't think he wouldn't!— "Well, I told you so!"
So Mr. Mayer hired Winifred Bryson in my place. Subsequently she married the star of the picture, Warner Baxter.
The news that Reginald Barker couldn't photograph this New York actress ran around like wildfire. It all but ruined my Hollywood picture career before it even got going. I'd banked heavily on security in Hollywood, and the rug was pulled out from under me.
That is, until John Stahl, Mr. Mayer's ace director, heard about it. John said, "That's nonsense! When I make my next picture I'll put her in it." He kept his word. It was the first film I made with Norma Shearer.
Norma met Irving Thalberg at the Selig Zoo. Many stars had no time for Irving. Let it be said that he had little time for girls. He hadn't yet struck it rich, and some actresses never could see beyond their own noses. But, if you only could see it, Irving was climbing up the golden ladder and Norma had her foot on the first rung of success.
Irving and Mayer moved out of the zoo and across town to the
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