Mgm Quotes & Sayings

I kind of go for the MGM version of every musical style. — Nellie McKay

Fact is, awards shows were never really about recognizing achievement. They were a publicity ploy cooked up in the late 1920s by MGM topper Louie Mayer and his newly formed Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which was itself, back in the day, nothing but a front organization to discourage unionizing. — John Ridley

The reason that MGM hired Bobby for Our Gang was that they could look at him and say, cry, and he'd cry, and not many kids can do that unless they really want to cry. — Tommy Bond

All the Warner actors were real actors. They started in theater and led very straightforward lives - you never saw entourages around. The MGM girls were the glamour girls, and they always had the makeup and hair people with them and all that. — Lauren Bacall

We're talking to New Line. They've got a couple projects they're interested in me doing and I'm having meetings at MGM. There's a lot of available projects. — David R. Ellis

I'm from Chicago, my family started a chain of movie theaters in Chicago that were around for 70 years and then one of them became the head of Paramount and the other was the head of production at MGM and we all came out of Chicago. — Bob Balaban

When Clark Gable, MGM's most popular and famous leading man asked for a percentage of the profits from his films, he was flatly refused. A top executive was reported to have said, He's nobody. We took him from nobody. We lavished him with lessons and publicity and now he's the most desired man in the world. Who taught him how to walk? We straightened his teeth and capped them into that smile. We taught this dumb cluck how to depict great emotions, and now he wants a piece of the action? Never! — Jeanine Basinger

My Writers Guild of America card is one of my proudest possessions. I was given it after being invited to write the script for a film of my last novel, 'Me Before You,' which is being made by MGM. Whenever I look at it, I think, 'I'm a Hollywood writer!' — Jojo Moyes

I gave my eardrums to MGM. And it's true: I really did. — Esther Williams

services as a tree trimmer.92 In the fall of 1975, while still promoting Cuckoo's Nest, Nicholson played a very small part in his pal Sam Spiegel's production of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon, based on the life of MGM wonder boy Irving Thalberg, who made Metro the dominant — Edward Douglas

What really got my goat at MGM were comedians like The Marx Brothers who never wrote their own jokes. — Buster Keaton

I had a really good time at MGM. And we had no quarrels much, except once in a while, I'd go up to the front office and say I thought I should be doing something big, like washing elephants ... All my life I wanted to have talent ... Finally I had to admit there was nothing there. — Marion Davies

Crikey means gee whiz, wow! Crikey, mate. You're far safer dealing with crocodiles and western diamondback rattlesnakes than the executives and the producers and all those sharks in the big MGM building. — Steve Irwin

The big one I missed out on was 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.' MGM wanted me for it, and Warner Bros. wouldn't give me permission to do it. — Carroll Baker

I had an opportunity to meet Elvis, only once. It was at the MGM Grand. It was certainly not at the height of his career. No, it wasn't at the height of his career, but it was still a thrill to see him and meet him anyway. You know? — Lesley Gore

From the time I was thirteen, there was a constant struggle between MGM and me - whether or not to eat, how much to eat, what to eat. I remember this more vividly than anything else about my childhood. — Judy Garland

Anything I've asked of MGM Grand, they've done for me in a heartbeat. They're all about making entertainers and athletes happy. — Floyd Mayweather Jr.

I was signed to MGM. I was in Vegas for sixteen weeks at the Sands Hotel. — Solomon Burke

I like to think that I gave Jack Warner Brothers inking and Joe Sinnott gave him MGM inking. If you're not as in love with old movies as I am you might not make that connection, but I can see that connection. — Mike Royer

I very comprehensively studied Irving Thalberg and his biographies. He's who [Scott]Fitzgerald roughly modeled the character after. He worked for him, as a writer, when he was at MGM. And, of course, I revisited the novel and the politics of MGM and the studio system at the time and familiarized myself with the world. There was a great deal of physical and literary work that went into it. — Matt Bomer

So vast is the shadow cast by the MGM production of 'The Wizard of Oz,' so indelible are its characterizations, so perfect its music, and so assured is its cinematic immortality, that most people think of it as 'The Original.' In fact, it isn't. — Kage Baker

(On her work in Keep Your Powder Dry) I didn't want to do it, but they said if I did it they would give me Undercurrent with Robert Taylor. Then they gave Undercurrent to Katharine Hepburn, so I left MGM. — Laraine Day

When I was in Middle of The Night, MGM came and offered me a contract and I said that when I got out of the play, I'd like to try it. I didn't know anything about making movies but I was certainly finding it interesting. — Gena Rowlands

Our world was Northern, black and white, so it was a great thing for my sisters and me to sit down at Christmastime and watch these fabulous MGM musicals. All that color, all those beautiful costumes. — Tracie Bennett

MGM bores me when I see them, but I don't see them much. They have been a help in getting me introductions to morticians, who are the only people worth knowing. — Evelyn Waugh

Below, he could see down the entire Strip, from the radioactive green lion at the base of the MGM Grand to the glowing spire of the Stratosphere. The logjam street traffic just added to the visual effect: a thousand headlights blinking like neurons in the glowing spine that snaked down the center of the city. — Ben Mezrich

Well oddly enough, I liken the years at MGM, and I was there for about eight years, to doing stock, what we used to call repertory or stock, playing a whole bunch of different roles. — Angela Lansbury

As a kid, I just was a contract player at MGM Studios. They put me into goodness knows how many different roles.Some of them were wonderful and some of them were very just distasteful and awful because I was playing out of my age range and I was thoroughly uncomfortable, let's put it that way. So it took me many years to find my acting feet. — Angela Lansbury

And actually, about three weeks ago, Micky, Peter and I were in Vegas at the MGM Grand. And we did about 12 shows in seven days. It was quite an experience. — Davy Jones

I remember vividly seeing 'Tarzan' and Fred Astaire, the Chaplin films, Fred Astaire musicals, MGM, because of my mother. She was just interested in everything and she took me to opera and ballet, and then ballet got me hooked. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

When my mother signed at MGM, that was the only kind of contract you could sign. There was no such thing as an independent agent. — Lorna Luft

There was this little shaggy dog on it, and Frank Weatherwax was working the dog. One day we were all sitting around, and Frank said, listen, my brother Rudd just got the rights back from MGM for Lassie, and said have your agent check into it. I did, and I went for a screen test. — Tommy Rettig

Growing up, I would watch a movie on video and would go to the back of the VHS and locate the address for Universal Pictures or MGM or whatever. I'd write to the studios asking them if I could be in a movie. They never wrote me back. — Garrett Hedlund

I don't think I could ever go to Auschwitz, because when we took that tour of MGM, I nearly collapsed outside the Thalberg building. — Charles Busch

There was no studio involved when we made 'Stargate.' It was financed through Le Studio Canal+ in France and, after the film was finished, it was sold to MGM. When the film was a success, MGM decided to do a television series based on the movie. — Dean Devlin

My last days at MGM were like the fall of the Roman Empire in fast motion. — Joseph Barbera

I first saw 'West Side Story' on stage in 1958. I was in the army, having been conscripted while under contract to MGM. I caught the musical in New York, fell in love with it, bought the album, and memorised the whole thing. — Russ Tamblyn

Most of the contract people at MGM stayed and stayed and stayed. Why? Because the studio looked after them. Warner Brothers wouldn't - they were always spanking somebody or selling them down the river. — Ann Rutherford

By the time we got to MGM, and Lions Gate the movie was done there was nothing else to say. It was done. Just as at Universal, it was art by committee. — Rob Zombie

At MGM, you knew you were going to be working next year; you knew you were going to get paid. But I was too ambitious musically to settle for it. And I wanted to gamble with whatever talent I might have had. — Andre Previn

I wasn't a babe in the woods. I'd watched a lot of stars, from James Dean to Brando, and I'd seen everybody alive work at MGM. I had a certain old-timer's quality, even though I was young and new, and drew on what I believed before I made it. — Jack Nicholson

From the time you were signed at MGM you just felt you were in God's hands. — Ann Rutherford

I love pre-code movies. Some of my favorites are movies with Warren William and there is an MGM film called "Skyscraper Souls" which is the best Warner Brothers movie that MGM ever made. — Mike Royer

Over the decade that movie producer Menahem Golan had retained the rights for Spider-Man, he'd managed to involve half a dozen different corporate entities. Golan had originally bought the Spider-Man rights for his Cannon Films; after leaving Cannon, he transferred them to 21st Century Films. Next, he raised money by preselling television rights to Viacom, and home video rights to Columbia Tri-Star; then he signed a $5 million deal with Carolco that guaranteed his role as producer. But after Carolco assigned the film to James Cameron, Cameron refused to give Golan the producer credit, and the lawsuits began. By the end of 1994, Carolco was suing Viacom and Tri-Star; Viacom and Tri-Star were countersuing Carolco, 21st Century, and Marvel; and MGM - which had swallowed Cannon - was suing Viacom, Tri-Star, 21st Century, and Marvel. — Sean Howe

[From a window in the Writer's Building at MGM, which overlooked a cemetery:] Hello down there. It might interest you to know that up here we are just as dead as you are. — Dorothy Parker

Among the great glories of the MGM lot were the vast outdoor sets that had been constructed over the years. — Joseph Barbera

There was a saying around MGM: "Norma Shearer got the productions, Greta Garbo supplied the art, and Joan Crawford made the money to pay for both". — Joan Crawford

Under no circumstances would it be right for me to go with MGM. Irene shares my opinion. — David O. Selznick

outshines little Elizabeth Taylor as Velvet. The child is completely natural and unaffected, with a very sweet expressive face and the most beautiful soft blue eyes I've seen on the screen in a long time" (quoted in Haggerty, 2011). Taylor remained contracted to MGM for the next — Ellis Cashmore

A good portion of my work with Tangerine Dream at the time involved film music, and I remember approaching it as any 23-year-old would - without much fear or respect. Also, Tangerine Dream was typically asked to deliver a monochromatic kind of score, the electronic-analog trademark sound that TD had become famous for following landmark films such as Sorcerer [Universal, 1977], Thief [MGM, 1981], and Risky Business [Warner Brothers, 1983]. — Paul Haslinger

I'm a collector of cartoons. All the Disney stuff, Bugs Bunny, the old MGM ones. It's real escapism, it's like everything's alright. It's like the world is happening now in a far away city. Everything's fine. — Michael Jackson

I was invited to join the MGM cartoon department. But if I'd started work in animation I'd have had to take a cut in salary, so I didn't. — Jack Nicholson

Even though I had a lucrative contract with MGM, I had a husband who was drinking and gambling our money away faster than I could make it. — Esther Williams

When you worked in a studio it was the studio system that you kind of missed because it was a big, big family. I mean MGM had 5,000 people working a day there. You miss it. — George Sidney

MGM produced an occasional nonstar feature, although these were rare and usually had some obvious hook to draw audiences. A good example of this type of feature was The Fire Brigade, a 1926 project scheduled for a twenty-eight-day shoot and budgeted at $249,556. The picture starred May McAvoy, a "featured player" at MGM, and was directed by William Nigh. The second-class status of the project was obvious from the budget, with only $60,000 going for director, cast, story, and continuity. But the attractions in The Fire Brigade were spectacle, special effects, and fiery destruction rather than star and director. The budget allowed $25,000 for photographic effects and another $66,000 for sets, a relatively high figure since many of the sets for the picture had to be not only built and "dressed" but destroyed as well. — Thomas Schatz

We gave the show away and in return, we received a certain number of minutes per hour for the three-hour show that we could sell to Madison Avenue. One of the first sponsors was MGM Records. — Casey Kasem

I thought I was making fifty dollars a week [at MGM], but it turned out to be $35 because twelve weeks of the year you were on layoff. It was white slavery, and it lasted for seventeen years. — Ava Gardner

In the beginning I had a real work problem. Every time I had job I had to convince the immigration authorities I was the only man for that job and get a special work permit until I went under contract to MGM. — Rod Taylor

I tap danced for ten years before I began to understand people don't make musicals anymore. All I wanted to do was be at MGM working for Arthur Freed or Gene Kelly or Vincent Minelli. Historical and geographical constraints made this impossible. Slowly but surely the pen became mightier than the double pick-up time step with shuffle. — Zadie Smith

I was born at the age of twelve on an MGM lot. — Judy Garland

My first day at MGM they decided to bring this lion out, male, and it was not the best time for him to see me. All of a sudden he thought I was in heat and this lion went into the dressing room, which was just a trailer on the sound stage, and went crazy. — Kim Novak

I am willing to spend whatever it takes ... My moral standard compels me to speak out on this issue because I am the largest company by far in the industry and I am willing to speak out. I don't see any compelling reason for the government to allow people to gamble on the Internet and nobody has ever explained except for the two companies whose special interest is going to be served if there is gaming on the Internet, Caesars and MGM. — Sheldon Adelson