A rare photo of Jerry Mayer’s office at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Jerry was one of Louis’ and Ida’s two younger brothers and worked as MGM’s studio manager – in fact, you can see his map of the entire studio footprint, and some contraption that looks like a card system, all at the ready.
Everything about this office is just sheer Art Deco magnificence, from the plush carpet (oh, to know what color it was) to the fantastic light fixtures, and everything in between, including the rounded desk and wall paneling. I can just imagine how everything would’ve gleamed. Jerry’s office was in the original Executive Building, what is now called the Poitier Building (after Sidney Poitier, of course).*
This photo came via my cousin Jillian, whose father Gerald Mayer was the son of Jerry and his lovely wife Rheba.
I can’t talk about Jerry without talking about Gerald, who passed away a number of years ago, and remembering his beautiful wife Irene (nee Briller), who sadly only passed away in 2015. They were two of the sweetest people on the planet.
I have such a clear memory of Mitzi taking me to visit Gerald (her first cousin) and Irene at their lovely home in LA, and being given a very special birthday gift of a rather sophisticated little black and red circular purse.
Oh how I coveted that purse for years and years! I think I only finally parted with it when it became moldy after living in a damp home in Australia’s capitol city, Canberra — if you know Australia at all you’ll know that sadly mold is a real issue here.
In any event, Gerald also went into the movie business and directed several films (including ‘Bright Road,’ which my grandfather produced) but he came into his own directing television series, including episodes of ‘Slattery’s People,’ ‘Peyton’s Place,’ ‘Bonanza,’ ‘The Virginian,’ ‘Lou Grant,’ ‘Shirley,’ ‘Quincy,’ ‘Logan’s Run,’ ‘Westside Medical,’ ‘Serpico,’ ‘The Six Million Dollar Man,’ ‘Swiss Family Robinson,’ ‘Mannix,’ ‘Eight is Enough‘ and others.
See what one photo of an MGM office does to me?? It unlocks memory after memory…
Copyright 2017 Alicia Mayer. All rights reserved.
*My thanks to David Diamond of Sony for pointing this out to me.
The Film Colony ♛ 
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