Leo the Lion

Leo the Lion
Other Names	Slats (1924–1928), Numa (1927-1928), Telly (1928–1932), Jackie (1928-1956)
First Appearance	Polly of the Circus (1917)
Original Publisher	Goldwyn Pictures
Created by	Howard Dietz and Lionel S. Reiss

Origin

Photo of "Leo the Lion" being recorded for his roar to be heard at the beginning of MGM films. This lion's name was Jackie.

Leo the 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.

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.

In the opening of MGM’s movies before they begin, Leo roars 1 or 3 times depending on the film.

Goldwyn Pictures lions (1917–1924)

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". Names of the first two lions used for the Goldwyn Pictures logos are unknown.

Unknown lion(1917—1921)

Unknown lion #2 (1923—1924)

Slats (1924–1928)

Slats,trained by Volney Phifer, was the first lion used in the branding of the newly formed studio. Born at the Dublin Zoo on March 20, 1919, and originally named Cairbre (Irish for 'charioteer'), 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).

Slats (1924–1928)

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.

Numa (c. 1927–1928), Telly (1928–1932)

MGM began experiments with two-strip color short subjects in 1927 and animated cartoons in 1930. For these productions, Bill and Telly were used.

Bill (1927-1928)

Numa , a lost lion, appeared in the logo in only two films, due to being very rare, though a small number of frames existed, and is one of the three lions used for Technicolor test logos on early MGM color productions from 1927 to 1928

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.

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 (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.

Jackie (1928–1956)

1928 poster promoting a traveling tour of Jackie

Jackie, used from 1928 to 1956, pictured in the opening of “Ninotchka”. Jackie was the second lion used for the MGM logo and the first MGM lion to audibly roar onscreen. Born around 1915, he was a wild lion cub brought from the Nubian Desert in Sudan, and trained by Mel Koontz. Jackie bore a resemblance to his predecessor, Slats. He roared three times before looking off to the right of the screen (the lion's left); in the early years that this logo was used (1928 – c. 1933), 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. Jackie's footage was shot silently; recordings of his roar and growls were made long after he was filmed and at least four different recordings of roars/growls were used (some of the roars were not of Jackie), first heard via a gramophone record for MGM's first production with sound, White Shadows in the South Seas (1928).

Jackie appeared on all black-and-white MGM films from 1928 to 1956 (replacing Slats), as well as the sepia-tinted opening credits of The Wizard of Oz (1939). 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 (1934), also known as March of the Wooden Soldiers; an animated version created using rotoscope appeared on the 1939 Captain and the Kids cartoon Petunia Natural Park. Two films directed by William A. Wellman, Westward the Women and The Next Voice You Hear... (both 1950), used a still frame of the logo – sansgrowling— at the beginning. Jackie would make his last film appearance at the beginning of Hearts of the West (1975), and part of the roller coaster filmstrip animation sequence in the 1993 MGM/UA Home Video logo, where he only roars once with Tanner's roar.

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".

In the early 1930s, MGM reissued some of its earlier, pre-1928 silent films with prerecorded music soundtracks and sounds; such films included Greed (1924), Ben-Hur (1925), Flesh and the Devil (1926), and The Unknown (1927). 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. 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.

Public Domain Film Appearances

All published appearances of Leo the Lion released before January 1, 1930, are public domain in the US.

Notable Appearances are listed below:

• List of Goldwyn Pictures films released between 1917-1924
• List of MGM films released between 1924-1929

See also

• Wikipedia