Wednesday, May 1, 2024

Academy Founders 21

N.B. The member numbers follow The Internet Movie Database's list order announcing the Academy in January 1927. 


21. Irving Thalberg (1899-1936) of the Producers Branch with his wife (Edith) Norma Shearer (1902-1983).


A romantic figure who knew he was fated to die young, Thalberg went to work for Carl Laemmle's Universal Pictures at the age of 21. He moved on to work for the (then) minor Louis B. Mayer Productions, which put him in good stead when Mayer merged his company with Metro-Goldwyn to form MGM. 


Thalberg has 89 credits as an (uncredited) producer. Only his last film, THE GOOD EARTH (1937), boasts one, and it was released after his death; in life Thalberg eschewed all screen credit. Some of the films he produced: FLESH AND THE DEVIL (1926), THE CROWD (1928), ANNA CHRISTIE (1930), THE SIN OF MADELON CLAUDET (1931), GRAND HOTEL (1932), A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1935), CAMILLE (1936), and A DAY AT THE RACES (1937).


After his death, the Academy created the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, for "Creative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production." 

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