Hollywood rajah : the life and times of Louis B. Mayer (1960)

316 Hollywood Rajah Meyer voluntarily told Nizer that he deeply regretted what he and Tomlinson had done, and specifically acknowledged that Mayer was behind the campaign to obstruct management. He denied that he any longer had ambitions to be president of the company and said he felt he could be of aid as head of the television department or as an assistant to Mayer, if the latter should ever return to the studio. Meyer's purpose, according to Vogel, who swore to the facts here disclosed in an affidavit later presented to the Delaware Court of Chancery, was to avoid being named as a defendant in a possible conspiracy suit which might have been filed against the Tomlinson directors. "He was attempting to buy his peace by confession," Vogel said. But since no suit was instituted and the alleged "conspiracy" was not revealed to the stockholders at the time, Meyer realized that his fears were unfounded and continued as a partisan of the Tomlinson group. Meanwhile, the circumstances of the internecine strife became more or less common knowledge among top men in Hollywood, and old friends of Mayer wondered gravely at his sanction of an obstructionist campaign. The feeling throughout the industry was that Vogel should be given a chance, that nothing but harm could come from upsetting and perhaps fatally disrupting Loew's, Inc. What could be the rational reason for this determined assault by Mayer? He had had his revenge. He did not need money. And he was certainly not starting a career. Perhaps the most kindly explanation was made, in retrospect, by David Selznick, who had come to be one of Mayer's stanchest partisans. "Mayer, without a company to run," said Selznick, "was like Knute Rockne without a football team to coach. Maybe he felt he could not associate with the big men of other industries without a big position of his own." Less kindly persons put it bluntly: Mayer had a psychopathic need for power.