M. C. Levee
Encyclopedia
M.C. Levee was born Michael C. Levee. Beginning his career as a prop man, Levee worked his way up to an executive at several different studios, including First National Studios, United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....

 Studios, and Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

. Levee was one of the original 36 founding members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...

 (AMPAS) and served as the third president from 1931-1932. Levee was also one of Hollywood's top agents until his retirement in 1956, working with such stars as Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

, Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....

, and many more.

Personal life

Levee was one of six children growing up in Chicago. He had four brothers named Louis, George, Eddie and Sidney and a sister named Rose Levee. He was married to Rose (Mimi) Levee and had 2 sons. His oldest son, Michal Levee Jr., served as Vice-President of Radnite-Mattel Productions. His youngest son, John Levee
John Levee
John Levee is an American abstract expressionist painter who has worked in Paris since 1949. His father was M. C. Levee.-Background:...

, is a painter living in Paris. Levee died at the age of 83 from cancer in Palm Springs, California. His second marriage was to Trudy Levee.
Career
M.C. Levee Presents: The Isle of Lost Ships (1923) Levee began his career in the film industry by working as a prop man at Fox Film Corporation in 1917, earning $20 a week working on A Tale of Two Cities. Within a year, Levee became the assistant to Abe Carles, the General Superintendent at Fox. Levee left Fox in 1920 in order to become a business man at Robert Brunton Studios with Robert Brunton.

In 1920, Levee organized United Studios, serving as President. While working at United Studios, Levee produced The Isle of Lost Ships
The Isle of Lost Ships (1923 film)
The Isle of Lost Ships is a 1923 silent film adventure/melodrama directed and produced by Maurice Tourneur and distributed by Associated First National Pictures. The film is based on Crittenden Marriott's novel c.1909. The story was re-filmed in 1929 by director Irvin Willat...

(1923), The White Moth (1924), starring Barbara LaMarr, and Sweet Daddies (1926). In April 1926, Levee sold United Studios to Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...

. Levee then joined First National, also known as Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...

, in order to build more studio facilities in Burbank. Levee joined Nicholas Schenck
Nicholas Schenck
Nicholas M. Schenck was a motion picture mogul and impresario.One of seven children, Schenck was born to a Jewish household in Rybinsk, a Volga River village in Tsarist Russia...

 as General Studio and Business Manager until 1929, when he left to become Executive Manager at Paramount. In 1932, Levee was let go by Sam Jaffe
Sam Jaffe (producer)
Sam Jaffe was, at different points in his career in the motion picture industry, an agent, a producer and a studio executive. He was brother-in-law to B.P...

, the General Production Manager, who believed he could cover both jobs. Levee was also the founder and first President of Artists Management Guild.

In the 1930s Levee started the M.C. Levee Agency directly after working at United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....

. He ran a one-man business with no staff or organization. He had several important clients, most of which were from Warner Brothers. Most agents do not stick to one studio, it was simply a coincidence that Levee's client base were all working under Warner Brothers. Because he had several large clients, Levee was very well off. Some of Levee's star clients included Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

, Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....

, Merle Oberson, Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...

, Paul Muni
Paul Muni
Paul Muni was an Austrian-Hungarian-born American stage and film actor...

, Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald
Jeanette MacDonald was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier and Nelson Eddy...

, Leslie Howard
Leslie Howard (actor)
Leslie Howard was an English stage and film actor, director, and producer. Among his best-known roles was Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind and roles in Berkeley Square , Of Human Bondage , The Scarlet Pimpernel , The Petrified Forest , Pygmalion , Intermezzo , Pimpernel Smith...

, Greer Garson
Greer Garson
Greer Garson, CBE was a British-born actress who was very popular during World War II, being listed by the Motion Picture Herald as one of America's top ten box office draws in 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, and 1946. As one of MGM's major stars of the 1940s, Garson received seven Academy Award...

, Claude Rains
Claude Rains
Claude Rains was an English stage and film actor whose career spanned 66 years. He was known for many roles in Hollywood films, among them the title role in The Invisible Man , a corrupt senator in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Mr...

, Dick Powell
Dick Powell
Richard Ewing "Dick" Powell was an American singer, actor, producer, director and studio boss.Despite the same last name he was not related to William Powell, Eleanor Powell or Jane Powell.-Biography:...

, and Franchot Tone
Franchot Tone
Franchot Tone was an American stage, film, and television actor, star of Mutiny on the Bounty and many other films through the 1960s...

. He was also the agent of creators Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...

, Frank Borzage
Frank Borzage
Frank Borzage was an American film director and actor.-Biography:Frank Borzage's father, Luigi Borzaga, was born in Ronzone, in 1859. As a stonemason, he sometimes worked in Switzerland; he met his future wife, Maria Ruegg , where she worked in a silk factory...

, and Mervyn LeRoy
Mervyn LeRoy
Mervyn LeRoy was an American film director, producer and sometime actor.-Early life:Born to Jewish parents in San Francisco, California, his family was financially ruined by the 1906 earthquake...

. Robert Cowan referred to Levee as being a fair and reliable agent.

Founding the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

In 1927, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...

 was founded in order to improve the media industry without receiving government help. The founders knew they could create a stronger industry by establishing unity between all groups such as writers, directors, and technicians. With such exponential growth in American film, the industry also desperately needed a standardization of equipment and techniques. The founders saw that gathering a group of professionals together could create a positive response to the issues facing the industry and so the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was born.

Levee was considered one of the fathers of the Academy alongside Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....

, Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel was an American screen actor and matinee idol of the silent film era and beyond. He was also a well-known television actor and radio performer.-Biography:...

, Milton Sills
Milton Sills
Milton Sills was a highly successful American stage and film actor of the early twentieth century....

, William DeMille and Thalberg. Much of the work Levee did for the Academy was for little or no pay, working simply for the good of the Academy. Levee, along with the other 35 founding members had great hope for what the Academy could become for the film industry. They hoped to establish a professional society which might work toward the betterment of the motion picture industry. M.C. Levee believed in the objectives of the academy.

Levee served as treasurer of the Academy for 12 years. He was the founder and President of the Permanent Charities Committee of the film industry, one of the many different organizations created within AMPAS in order to get the view on all sides. In early March 1933, Levee resigned from the Board of Directors of the Academy as a statement that the business was being run into the ground by the studio executives and Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...

bankers who ran the industry.

Credit

Supported by an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program grant from the University of Notre Dame, Institute for Scholarship in the Humanities.
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