This 1960 aerial photo, taken for Flintkote, shows the MGM studio lot in Culver City, looking northeast. Visible are Washington, Culver, Overland, and Venice Boulevards, along with Ballona Creek and Jefferson Boulevard near Baldwin Hills. Originally Triangle Pictures (1915), the lot's first building, a large white structure with classical columns facing Washington Street, predates MGM's ownership. Formed in 1924 through Marcus Loew's acquisition of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, .. Read more »and Louis B. Mayer Pictures, MGM became Hollywood's most powerful studio, boasting "More stars than there are in the heavens" and producing around 50 films annually. Its star-studded roster included Clark Gable, Jimmy Stewart, Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Frank Sinatra, Jane Powell, Jean Harlow, Robert Young, Buster Keaton, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Elizabeth Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Hedy Lamarr, Spencer Tracy, and Katharine Hepburn. MGM produced numerous hits, including "Ben-Hur," "Gone With the Wind," "The Wizard of Oz," "Boys Town," "Doctor Zhivago," "The Dirty Dozen," and musicals like "Meet Me In St. Louis," "Singing in the Rain," "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," and "Guys and Dolls." However, post-war audience decline, television's rise, and evolving public preferences challenged the studio by 1948.
USA
