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." 

Academy Founders 19b

Continuing with the identifications in this photo, Mrs. Nicholas M. Schenck (Pansy Wilcox) is in the center. Louis B. Mayer is to her left, followed by Edgar Joseph “Eddie” Mannix (1891-1963) and finally Hunt Stromberg (1894-1968), with Harry Rapf, Irving Thalberg, and Mayer one of the “Big Four” at MGM and a nominee for the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1939.

Academy Founders 19a

19. Harry Rapf (1882-1949) of the Producers Branch, second from left next to Buster Keaton (and with Louis B. Mayer third from right), at a house party at William Randolph Hearst’s “El Cuesta Encantada” in San Simeon, California, ca. 1927. 

Harry Rapf has 81 producer credits at IMDb, among them BROWN OF HARVARD (1926), THE BROADWAY MELODY (1929), MIN AND BILL (1930), and Robert Benchley’s short HOW TO SLEEP (1935). His last film was SCENE OF THE CRIME (1949).

In the photo, left to right: Buster Keaton (Joseph Frank Keaton Jr., 1895-1966); Harry Rapf; Irving Thalberg (# 21); and Nicholas M. Schenck (1881-1969). There are so many names in this post that I will have to continue in a second part.