In the 1980s, I had the privilege of working at MGM and its legendary Culver City studio. I started as a reader (story analyst) and rose in the ranks, leaving as a Vice President of Production. When it came to management and ownership, it was a tumultuous decade, especially in 1985-1986 when owner Kirk Kerkorian sold the company to wannabe media mogul Ted Turner only to buy back the production company (but not the library or studio lot) when Turner realized he had bitten off more than he could chew. I wrote this soon after us MGM staffers were moved off the studio lot into a new office building across the street.
I first started at MGM in 1980. As a reader, I had worked at a number of studios, but I knew I was someplace special the first time I walked down the hall to the men’s room and spotted the large black and white still from THE WIZARD OF OZ. You could almost smell the history in the Irving Thalberg building. My first office was tucked in a weird little corner next to the first-floor door of Louis B. Mayer’s private elevator. Stepping into the Story Department research room was like stepping into the past, three crowded desks surrounded by a towering assemblage of army green card file cabinets housing records that detailed author and title for submissions dating back to 1919. My first piece of “previous coverage” (synopsis and comment done by an earlier reader) was dated 1938. We were still expected to make a carbon copy of our coverage, a holdover from the days when “Xerox” was not yet a household word. As there wasn’t enough space for all of the files, across from my office there were wooden library card catalogue cabinets piled almost to the ceiling, the cards cross-referencing submissions by subject. When we readers got bored, we would look up everything from cows to war and marvel at the variety of scripts written about each, and the hours put in by clerks to keep track of them.
The MGM history, however, was evidenced in other ways. Studio heads and their administrations came and went — Begelman, Fields, Yablans, Ladd — yet somehow the place always stayed the same. The sense of history — and, more important, the tradition — remained intact. They could remodel the Commissary, exchanging the old walnut walls of the executive dining room with sleek blue formica and vinyl, but it didn’t really change.
It didn’t take me long to realize the reason for this were the people who worked there – waitresses, busboys, cooks, janitors, security guards. Many of them had been working on the lot twenty to thirty years, doing their jobs with a long-developed sense of duty and loyalty. There was Millie, the sun-glassed custodian of the Thalberg first floor, whose shift started at 5:30 every evening and who always had a “Good Night” for me, even after I got promoted and left her floor for the executive offices on the third. Millie remembered the occupants of offices from years back and would talk of them with fondness. And there was Benny, the short order cook in the Cub Room, who sang while he served up the day’s specials and threw burgers on the grill with the grace of Astaire. A few feet away from him was Mary, the Irish cashier, who would ask: “And how are you today, darling” with her Gaelic lilt and bring a smile to your face no matter how overworked or harried you might be. Yes, studio heads and their staffs came and went, but the Millies, the Bennys and the Marys remained, and with them the MGM tradition.
Only now things have changed.
Having purchased it as part of the chaotic Turner acquisition, Lorimar Telepictures took possession of the studio lot. The MGM film posters on the Thalberg third floor were removed, leaving only empty frames. The commissary and janitorial staffs were laid off, replaced by less expensive employees of maintenance and food service contractors. In the Commissary, strange, young faces were now taking orders and delivering iced teas. And in the Thalberg building, Millie was no longer there to say “good night” as I left in the evening. Meanwhile, we MGM employees packed up for our move to the new Filmcorp building across the street. As boxes piled up in offices, people wandered the halls with cameras, snapping pictures in a futile attempt to preserve what once was and could never be again.
My office is now across the street in a modern tribute to glass and granite. The carpet wreaks of newness and a thin film of construction dust will linger for months. The Story Department files have made the journey with us, but they look lost in a modern room of wall-to-wall glass. We are happy to be here. The novelty of the building helps us to look towards the future. After a year of corporate turmoil, we are making movies again; excitement and enthusiasm is in the air.
Alive on our stationary, Leo the MGM lion will continue to roar at the beginning of our movies, letting it be known that a tradition is being kept alive. But if you look closely, you’ll see a hint of sadness in his eyes, sadness at the passing of an era…
Fall 1986