The Hollywood studio system began in the 1910s and controlled most of the motion picture business until the 1960s. This period, commonly referred to as the “Golden Age of Hollywood,” was dominated by the “big five” studios: Loew’s Incorporated (parent company to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), Fox Film Corporation (later 20th Century Fox), Paramount Pictures, RKO Radio Pictures, and Warner Brothers. These film studios were large conglomerates who managed all aspects of the movie business, from start to finish. Films were made in-house by these studios, using creative talent, on both sides of the camera, under long-term contracts. Rather than open casting calls, the studio could dictate which of its own stars would play roles. The same system applied to directors, producers, costume designers, etc. Furthermore, this system meant that studios not only controlled the production of films, but also the marketing and promotion for films. The “big five” studios also owned the film distribution and exhibition channels, including large networks of motion picture theaters.
Ava Gardner’s studio “mug shot” for her MGM employment questionnaire, 1941
When eighteen-year-old Ava Gardner traveled by train from North Carolina to begin her film career, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the number one studio in the world, a title it held for eleven consecutive years in a row (1931-1941). In her autobiography, Ava: My Story, Ava spoke frankly about her feelings and experiences with her home studio of MGM over the course of her contracted years (1941-1958). When she first visited the studio after arriving in Hollywood, she was still an awe-struck teenager, unaware of the ways her life would change or where her career would take her.
“The day began with a tour of the MGM lot in Culver City, a site that was definitely worth seeing. Twenty-three modern sound stages, great caverns of darkness as big as aircraft hangers, were spread out over a huge expanse of real estate that eventually grew to a hundred and eighty-seven acres. MGM had the world’s largest film lab; MGM had four thousand employees; ready and waiting for a director who might fancy it. But most of all, MGM had stars. ‘More Stars Than There Are in Heaven’, one studio ad claimed, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to argue. Other studios might have [had] better directors, or better writers, but MGM had the stars. …You name it, MGM had it [and] Louis B. Mayer, the man in charge, liked to think of the studio as one big family. … MGM films were always the glossiest, with the biggest budgets, best technicians and glamour so thick you could spread it on a plate. … If I was going to be anywhere in Hollywood, this sure seemed like the place to be.”
Ava’s first five years in Hollywood consisted mostly of bit parts or uncredited roles and an endless set of publicity photoshoots. Ava recalled in her autobiography, “I got fifty dollars a week, and, courtesy of a little firecracker embedded in my contract, the studio had the right to impose an annual twelve-week layout period during which my pay dropped to thirty-five dollars.”
In the book Living with Miss G, Ava’s personal assistant and life-long friend Mearene (Rene) Jordan recounted a conversation she shared with Ava about the early days of being under contract to MGM. “Don’t think you sat around just looking pretty at MGM; they worked you hard eight until five,” Ava said to Rene. “Mainly they used me for publicity stills which were distributed all over the country, you know, ‘girlie’ bathing suit stuff to help the war effort or at least give the boys a bathing suit treat. … I was wallpaper, Rene, wallpaper! A face in a crowd of teenagers, a dancer swirling on a crowded floor, someone walking down a street. MGM had scores of ‘starlets’ like me … [but] it was a constant turn-over. It was cheap labor; okay, it was a job. They trained you and nobody twisted your arm to sign the contract.”
Ava Gardner’s completed employment questionnaire at MGM, 1941.
During her MGM contract years, many of Ava’s best and favorite films were made through loan-out arrangements with other studios, a practice that greatly angered Ava. She said of her home studio: “Frankly, MGM was never the right studio for me. When I’d done The Bribe, it was my first starring role in [several] years there. The studio never bothered to package me. They never bought a property for me. In fact, they had so little interest in me they never wanted me around. The idea was, ‘Toss her out, lend her out, and give her away!’” She added, “But it was those loan-outs to other studios that infuriated me the most about my position at MGM. Even as my salary was rising (I was getting around fifty thousand dollars a year at this time, and it was to creep up higher) they lent me to other companies at salaries five and six times better than I was getting – and a percentage of the gross on top of that. They got well paid for giving me to those other studios, but I wasn’t allowed to share in the wealth.”
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