Lion Roar At Beginning Of Movies

[Gibert Chisholm]

Leothe Lion is the mascot for the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and one of its predecessors, Goldwyn Pictures. The logo was created by artist Lionel S. Reiss, who served as art director at Paramount Pictures.[1]

Since 1917, and through the time the studio was formed by the merger of Samuel Goldwyn's studio with Marcus Loew's Metro Pictures and Louis B. Mayer's company in 1924, several different lions have been used for the MGM logo.

Although MGM has referred to all of the lions used in their trademark as "Leo the Lion", only the lion in use since 1957 was actually named "Leo". In 2021, MGM debuted a new CGI logo which features a lion partially based on Leo. This version of the logo remains in use as of 2023 by Amazon MGM Studios under its Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer label, mainly for film productions following their acquisition of the studio in 2022.

The lion was chosen as the company's mascot in 1916 by publicist Howard Dietz, as a tribute to his alma mater Columbia University, whose mascot is a lion. Dietz was most directly inspired by the university's fight song, "Roar, Lion, Roar".[2] Names of the first two lions used for the Goldwyn Pictures logos are unknown.

Slats,[3] trained by Volney Phifer, was the first lion used in the branding of the newly formed studio. Born at the Dublin Zoo[4] on March 20, 1919, and originally named Cairbre[5] (Irish for 'charioteer'[6]), Slats was used on all black-and-white MGM films between 1924 and 1928. The first MGM film that used the logo was He Who Gets Slapped (1924).

Unlike his successors, Slats did nothing but look around in the logo, making him the only MGM lion not to roar. However, it is rumored that Phifer trained the lion to growl on cue, despite the fact that synchronized sound would not be used in motion pictures until 1927.

Slats died in 1936 when he was 17. At that time Phifer retired to his farm in Gillette, New Jersey, where he kept other animals used on Broadway. Upon his death, Phifer buried the lion on his farm and placed a plain block of granite to mark the grave. Later, Phifer planted a pine tree directly above the grave so that the roots would "hold down the lions spirit", replacing the granite block.[2]

In addition to the MGM logo, Jackie also appeared in over a hundred films, including the Tarzan film series that starred Johnny Weissmuller. Jackie also appeared alongside a clearly apprehensive Greta Garbo in a famous 1926 MGM publicity still. A short 1933 film of a very annoyed Jackie receiving a bath from trainer Mel Koontz also exists. The lion is also known for surviving several accidents, including two train wrecks, a sinking ship, a 1933 earthquake, and an explosion in the studio. The most notable accident was a plane crash. On September 16, 1927, Martin "Marty" Jenson was hired to fly Jackie cross-country. The airplane was a B-1 Brougham airplane, a modified version of Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis. Installed behind the pilot's seat was a glass enclosed iron bar cage. The plane took off from Camp Kearny Airfield, near San Diego. However, the plane was overweight as Jackie weighed 350 pounds (160 kg). The excessive weight caused the plane to go down in the mountains near Payson, Arizona. Both Jenson and Jackie survived the crash and for four days subsisted on sandwiches, milk and water that were on board the plane. After being rescued, a thin and weak Jackie was returned to MGM and he was well cared for by his handlers for the rest of his life. Due to surviving these accidents, Jackie received the nickname "Leo the Lucky".[8]

In 1931, Jackie went on a farewell tour and subsequently retired to the Philadelphia Zoo. Jackie was reportedly quite tame and gentle and liked people. On February 25, 1935, Jackie was found dead by his zookeeper John McCullen. The cause of his death was attributed to heart issues. What happened to Jackie after his death is unknown. It was once rumored he was flown to Los Angeles and preserved by a taxidermist named Thomas Hodges and then sent to McPherson, Kansas. This theory has been proven false through extensive research by McPherson Museum and Arts Foundation curator, Brett Whitenack.

Footage of the first lion is very rare, although a few frames of the logo with this lion exist in the public domain. He is known to have appeared in the silent color films Buffalo Bill's Last Fight (1927) and The Heart of General Robert E. Lee (1928). The former gave him the nickname Bill, while the latter is currently being restored by the Library of Congress.

The second lion, Telly, appeared on color MGM movies between 1928 and 1932.[9] An extended version of the logo featuring Telly appears at the beginning of the film The Viking (1928), featuring the lion having the same roar as Jackie. In current prints of The Mysterious Island (1929), Telly appears in black and white because the color version is lost.

The third lion, Coffee, appeared on color films between 1932 and 1934[9] or 1935 for the Happy Harmonies shorts, until production was switched to full three-strip Technicolor filming. The Cat and the Fiddle, released in 1934, had brief color sequences, but was otherwise in black-and-white including its opening credits, so it used Jackie instead of Coffee. The Cat and the Fiddle however, showed its "The End" title card against a Technicolor background. An extended version of the logo featuring Coffee appears at the beginning of the short Wild People (1932), featuring the lion roaring three times, rather than just twice.

Tanner, whose first appearance was before the short subject Holland in Tulip Time (1934) (his first feature film appearance was before Sweethearts four years later, in 1938), was MGM's third longest-used lion (for a total of 22 years), after Jackie (who was used for a total of 28 years) and the current lion (who has been retained for 67 years). It is this version of the logo that was the most frequently used version throughout the Golden Age of Hollywood, although color did not really become the norm until the 1960s, and even then, many movies were still being made in black-and-white.

Tanner and Jackie were both kept in the change from Academy ratio films to widescreen CinemaScope movies in 1953, with Tanner for color films and Jackie for black-and-white films. The logo was modified for this change; the marquee below the ribbon design was removed, and the company name was thus placed in a semi-circle above the ribbon.

Leo, the eighth and current lion, is by far MGM's longest-used, having appeared on most MGM films since 1957. Leo was born in 1956 in Dublin Zoo, Ireland, the same as Slats. He was also the youngest at the time MGM filmed him roaring, hence his much smaller mane. Leo made his debut for the film Tip on a Dead Jockey.

In 1981, MGM acquired United Artists which had been the domestic distributor for MGM films since 1974. Beginning in 1983, the MGM logo was modified to read "MGM/UA Entertainment Co." in place of "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer"; this logo would appear on all MGM/UA films from 1983 until 1986 and again in 1987 on the film O.C. and Stiggs, which was originally produced in 1985. It was also at this time that the original lion roar sound (which, in fact, sampled Tanner's roar) was replaced with a remade stereophonic one, redone by Mark Mangini (and made of tiger sounds; as Mangini would later explain, "Lions don't make that kind of ferocious noises, and the logo needed to be ferocious and majestic.").[11] The new roar sound effect made its debut on Poltergeist (1982). Incidentally, the sound effect was also used for the "door ghost" near the end of the film.

When the company began using MGM and UA as separate brands in 1986, a new logo for MGM was introduced; the same gold ribbons used for the "Diamond Jubilee" variant was retained, and the text was redone in exactly the same color. The following year, a new "MGM/UA Communications Co." logo was introduced, and would precede both the MGM and UA logos until it was dropped in 1990. However, both logos would maintain the byline "An MGM/UA Communications Company" until 1992. Mangini remixed Leo's 1982 roar in 1995, using digital audio technology to blend it in with several other roar sounds; the remixed sound effect debuted with the release of Cutthroat Island (1995). This was done to give the roar more "muscle" which an MGM executive reportedly had found the iconic sound to be lacking beforehand, as well as fit it into films with 5.1 surround sound. There was one time where the reef and the text were flashed out by the sparkle of dust, with Leo and the drama mask gold so the text on the bottom of the ribbons fade in to represent the MGM/UA Home Video brand for videos from 1993. In 2001, MGM's website address, "www.mgm.com", was added to the bottom of the logo; the website address debuted with the release of Antitrust (2001).

The logo was revised again in 2008, with the ribbons, text, and drama mask given a more lustrous gold color since the 1993 MGM/UA home video logo. Leo's image was digitally restored and enhanced by staff at Pacific Title. This included a three-dimensional model of a new mane being designed, and then composited and blended onto Leo's actual mane. Additionally, the tips of his ears were digitally remodeled, so that the tip of his left ear would now cross in front of the film ribbon, in an effort to give the logo more depth.[2] For the restoration process, the extended "three-roar" version of Leo's footage was used, sourced from the master negative print of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, as the original raw footage of Leo, which was originally going to be used for the restoration, had been considered lost by this point.[2] For MGM's upcoming feature films, it would have to be shortened to show Leo roaring just twice. (The new logo's design was based on that of MGM's then-current print logo, which had been introduced in 1992.) The website address was also shortened to "MGM.COM". Leo's roar was remixed once again by sound editor Eric Martel,[2] maintaining most of the original 1982 sound elements. However, beginning with The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009), the 1995 roar was reused. The newly-done logo debuted with the release of the James Bond film Quantum of Solace.

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