Leo the Lion (MGM)
Leo the Lion is the mascot for the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer; its former sister company MGM Resorts; and its predecessor Goldwyn Pictures, featured in the studio's production logo, which was created by the Paramount Studios art director Lionel S. Reiss.
Since 1916, 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, there have been eleven different lions 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 introduced a new CGI logo which features a lion mostly based on Leo.
History
Slats (1924–1928)
In 1916, Publicist Howard Dietz chose the lion as the Goldwyn mascot as a tribute to his alma mater Columbia University, whose mascot is a lion. Dietz was directly inspired by the university's fight song, "Roar, Lion, Roar".Slats, trained by Volney Phifer, was the first lion used in the branding of the newly formed studio. Born at Dublin Zoo on March 20, 1919, and originally named Cairbre, 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.
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 at age 17. At that time, Phifer retired to his farm in Gillette, New Jersey, where he kept other animals used on Broadway. Upon the lion's death, Phifer buried Slats on his farm and placed a plain block of granite to mark the grave. Later, Phifer replaced the granite block with a pine tree planted directly above the grave so that the roots would "hold down the lion's spirit".
Numa (1927–1928)
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer began experiments with two-strip color short subjects in 1927 and animated cartoons in 1930. For these productions, three different lions were used.Footage of the first lion Numa is widely inaccessible, 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 and The Heart of General Robert E. Lee. The former gave him the nickname Bill, while the latter is currently being restored by the Library of Congress.
Telly (1928–1932)
The second lion, Telly, appeared on color MGM movies between 1928 and 1932. An extended version of the logo featuring Telly appears at the beginning of the film The Viking, featuring the lion having the same roar as Jackie. In current prints of The Mysterious Island, Telly appears in black and white because the color version is lost.Jackie (1928–1935)
Jackie was the second lion used for the MGM logo and the first MGM lion to audibly roar. Born around 1915, he was a wild lion cub brought from the Nubian Desert in Sudan, and trained by Mel Koontz. Jackie roared/growled three times before looking off to the right of the screen ; in the early years that this logo was used, there was a slightly extended version wherein, after looking off to the right, the lion would return his gaze to the front a few seconds later. The roar was recorded long after Jackie was filmed and at least four different recordings of roars/growls were used, first heard via a gramophone record for MGM's first production with sound, White Shadows in the South Seas. Jackie appeared on all black-and-white MGM films from 1928 to 1956, as well as the sepia-tinted opening credits of The Wizard of Oz. He also appeared before MGM's black-and-white cartoons, such as the Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper series produced for MGM by the short-lived Ub Iwerks Studio, as well as the Captain and the Kids cartoons produced by MGM in 1938 and 1939. A colorized variation of the logo can be found on the colorized version of Babes in Toyland, also known as March of the Wooden Soldiers; an animated version created using rotoscope appeared on the 1939 Captain and the Kids and Count Screwloose cartoon Petunia Natural Park. For the films Westward the Women and The Next Voice You Hear..., a still frame of the logo – sans growling—was used at the beginning. Jackie would make his last film appearance at the beginning of the film Hearts of the West.In addition to appearing in the MGM logo, Jackie appeared in over a hundred films, including the Tarzan film series that starred Johnny Weissmuller. Jackie also appeared with an apprehensive Greta Garbo in a well-known 1926 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, an 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 take 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 over weight as Jackie weighed 350 pounds. The excessive weight caused the plane to go down to the mountains of northern Arizona. Both Jenson and Jackie survived the crash and subsisted on milk, water and sandwiches that were on board the plane. After being rescued, a thin and weak Jackie was returned to MGM's handlers and was well cared for the rest of his life. Due to surviving these accidents, Jackie received the nickname "Leo the Lucky".
In the early 1930s, MGM reissued some of its earlier, pre-1928 silent films with prerecorded music soundtracks and sounds; such films included Greed, Ben-Hur, Flesh and the Devil, and The Unknown. For these sound reissues, the original Slats logo was replaced with Jackie.
In 1931, Jackie went on a farewell tour and subsequently retired to the Philadelphia Zoo. On February 25, 1935, the lion was found dead by his zookeeper John McCullen. The cause of his death was attributed to heart issues. Jackie's body was flown from Philadelphia to Los Angeles where taxidermist Thomas Hodges preserved his skin into a rug. Francis Vaniman bought the rug and put it on display along with other animal skins on the third floor of his house in McPherson, Kansas, which later became the "African Room" in the McPherson Museum.
Coffee (1932–1935)
The third lion, Coffee, appeared on color films between 1932 and 1934 or 1935 for the Happy Harmonies shorts, until production was switched to full three-strip Technicolor filming. The Cat and the Fiddle 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, featuring the lion roaring three times, rather than just twice.Tanner (1934–1956, 1963–1967)
In 1934, MGM began producing its first full three-strip Technicolor film, Holland in Tulip Time. Tanner, also trained by Mel Koontz, appeared on all Technicolor MGM films and cartoons, replacing Telly and Coffee. The Wizard of Oz had the Oz scenes in color, but it had the opening credits, closing credits, and the Kansas scenes in sepia-toned black-and-white, so it used Jackie instead of Tanner. Third Dimensional Murder was shot in 3-D and in Technicolor, but it had the opening credits in black-and-white, so it also used Jackie instead of Tanner. The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Secret Garden both had brief color sequences, but were otherwise in black-and-white including their opening credits, so they used Jackie instead of Tanner as well. The Secret Garden, however, showed its "The End" title card and the cast list against a Technicolor background. The Long, Long Trailer and Forever, Darling use Tanner with Jackie's roar instead. Tanner roared three times in the logo; an extended version of this logo appeared on the Colortone Musicals shorts The Spectacle Maker and My Grandfather Clock, Star Night at the Cocoanut Grove, and several early James A. Fitzpatrick Traveltalks color shorts, with two additional roars from the lion.Tanner was MGM's third longest-lived lion to be used, for a total of 22 years. His first feature film appearance was before Sweethearts four years later, in 1938. He featured after Jackie, who was used for a total of 28 years, and the current lion, who has been retained for 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.
In addition to being used as MGM's lion mascot, Tanner also made an appearance before the film Countdown for Zorro, Three Stooges shorts Movie Maniacs, Wee Wee Monsieur, Three Missing Links, You Nazty Spy and Hold That Lion!. Also, between the mid-1940s and 1960s, MGM's cartoon studio would use Tanner's roar as a sound effect for many of their animated shorts.
Tanner and Jackie were both kept in the change from Academy ratio films to widescreen CinemaScope movies in 1953, with Tanner for color movies 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.