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  • 2012-07-11 (xsd:date)
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  • Did the MGM Lion Kill Its Trainer? (en)
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  • The roaring lion appearing at the beginning of films produced by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio and in the company's logo is one of the world's most widely recognized mascots. According to a history of that logo, the choice of a lion as a mascot preceded the 1924 merger of Metro Pictures Corporation, Goldwyn Pictures, and Louis B. Mayer Pictures that created the MGM motion picture studio: As chronicled at The Silver Screen Affair blog, a number of different lions have been used for the MGM logo over the years, the most well known being Leo, who is MGM's longest-lived lion and has been appearing on MGM films since 1957. The MGM lion is prominent enough to have featured in urban legends, one of which we first encountered in 2004: This tale was nothing more than an amusing fabrication, one of a number of invented urban legends presented in video form on the JK Cinema web site. A similar claim about the original MGM lion's having killed its trainer and two assistants the day after he was filmed for the first MGM logo was promulgated by Factropolis.com, one of a number of sites whose raison d'être was passing off fictional factoids as real information. This claim is clearly not true, as the trainer of Slats, the lion first used by Goldwyn Pictures in 1917 (and subsequently by MGM) was Volney Phifer, a prominent animal trainer who long outlived Slats and passed away in retirement in the 1970s: Simply put, none of the several lions filmed by MGM for use in their logos was involved in incidents that killed their trainers. All of those animals were handled by professional trainers who were well known in show business circles and whose deaths in any lion-mauling attacks would have been prominent news. Although Slats was the first MGM lion, he wasn't technically the first one to roar for the studio, as his career as MGM's mascot spanned the silent film era. It was his replacement, Jackie, whose roar was first recorded for playback to filmgoing audiences: (en)
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