Koverman is one of my favorite Hollywood characters because she was the brains of MGM, and not many people know about her.
Adriana Trigiani
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
From the time you were signed at MGM you just felt you were in God's hands.
Ann Rutherford
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.
I did a lot of hokey movies when I was starting out at MGM. Good and bad, mostly bad.
Ava Gardner
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
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
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
Who needs MGM? Who needs any of these places?
D. B. Sweeney
Under no circumstances would it be right for me to go with MGM. Irene shares my opinion.
David O. Selznick
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
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
We did the original 'Stargate' as an independent movie. It was a surprise success. Shortly before the movie came out, the financiers who were frightened the movie might not do well sold the film to MGM. When the film came out, it was a hit and spawned TV shows.
Dean Devlin
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.
Lana Turner and Ava Gardner were my special friends at MGM.
Debbie Reynolds
All the training at MGM came to be a great help for me on 'Molly Brown.'
Everything about the studio was enormous. You walked through the gates of iron, and it was palatial looking. The first day, I was introduced to Clark Gable. He said, 'Hello, kid. Welcome to MGM. I'm just leaving.'
I came from the theatre, which had given me opportunities in television as well as a film adaptation of my second play 'Daddy's Dyin'... Who's Got The Will?' for MGM.
Del Shores
Herb Solo at that time was the head of MGM. I said, 'I want to live like Clint Eastwood.' Did I know at that time Clint Eastwood, to him, Heaven was a truck, a dog, and a picnic basket for food or something?
Don Rickles
As a rule, Michael Balcon was at great pains to ensure Ealing remained very British. There was no point our trying to be MGM, and we didn't see a lot of American stars.
Douglas Slocombe
I gave my eardrums to MGM. And it's true: I really did.
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.
The electro scene is all over the clubs now: groups like Duck Sauce, Empire of the Sun, even MGMT. But I get inspiration from everywhere. I'll go to the gym and put on old albums - Guns N' Roses or old Jay-Z.
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.
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.
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.
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!'
Among the great glories of the MGM lot were the vast outdoor sets that had been constructed over the years.
My last days at MGM were like the fall of the Roman Empire in fast motion.
I was born at the age of twelve on an MGM lot.
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.
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.
Looking out the window and seeing the MGM and Floyd Mayweather takes me back to when I was a kid. Those were the places you'd hear about, the ones that staged big fights and top fighters. You always want to one day fight there yourself.
I saw Bob Arum out in America, I saw him walking through the lobby in the MGM Grand. I basically went over and said: 'You're running out of opponents for Crawford and I'm the guy to beat him. I'm here.' I saw Terence Crawford, he said he was ready for it, so everybody is on the same page. Everyone wants to make the fight.
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.
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.
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?
In those days, I auditioned for everything MGM made while I was under contract. Not for the roles Elizabeth Taylor eventually got, of course.
I'm a big Broadway fan and a big MGM fan.
My parents were big movie-musical fans. And I thought 'Grease' was different from the usual MGM musical. I was intrigued and fell in love with it.
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.
My dad had made a documentary called 'The Dream Factory' about MGM, and my whole life, I just wanted to be inside it. And there I was.
Nobody could emerge from a childhood at MGM unscathed.
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.
I kind of go for the MGM version of every musical style.
I wore so much rubber when I was at MGM, I bumped into the wall once, and I ricocheted.
Actually, my true name is Rosa Dolores Alverio. And then I became Rosita Moreno when a stepfather stepped in. And when I got to MGM studios, which was my first film contract, they just thought that Rosita wasn't a good name, and they changed it to Rita. And yes, it was their idea.
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.
It was an absolute honour to fight in Vegas. Every fighter dreams of fighting at the MGM Grand. That's where so many legends have fought before and so many legends will continue to fight.
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.
