Image COURTESY WIKIPEDIA COMMONS / PUBLIC DOMAIN
It’s one of the best-known mascots in the world, but over the years, MGM used at least seven different lions for the role. Most historians believe this one is Jackie.
Dear Vance: Is it true that Leo, the lion that roars at the beginning of every MGM movie, actually came from the Memphis Zoo? — T.N., Memphis.
Dear T.N.: Decades ago, The Commercial Appeal ran a question-and-answer column called “The Night Desk.” In 1947, a reader submitted a query identical to yours, and the paper responded, “The lion that roars from the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer trademark was Volney. He was given to the Overton Park Zoo by MGM and was a familiar sight to Memphis youngsters until his death in 1944.”
So, there’s your answer, right? I can slump back in my La-Z-Boy, with an ice-cold Kentucky Nip at hand, because somebody has done my job for me.
But wait. For one thing, MGM actually employed seven different lions for their “bumper,” as that 10-second intro is called. So which lion was it, and why was it named “Volney” when the label beneath most of the various on-screen lions says “Leo”? In my attempts to dig up more information, all I encountered was contradiction and confusion.
Well, let’s just add to it.
The MGM lion is one of the most famous mascots in the world, introducing almost every feature film, comedy, and short produced since MGM was founded a century ago. Using a lion was the brainchild of studio publicist Howard Dietz, a graduate of Columbia University, who wanted to honor his alma mater’s lion mascot.
“The MGM logo was regal business,” according to the website SilverScreenings.org, “festooned with film as banners above a Greek theater mask and the motto Ars Gratia Artis (“Art for Art’s Sake”). It’s a logo fit for a king, or in this case, the King of the Jungle.”
The lion is so well-known — right up there with Lassie and Rin-Tin-Tin in the TV and movie industry — that an online search quickly turned up dozens of history and pop-culture websites that have featured him, among them SmithsonianMagazine.com, Cheezburger.com, and even London’s SundayPost.com. I found these sources were often a maze of confusion, but I blended them to compile a list of all the MGM lions:
• Slats (active 1924-1928) was the first lion used by the brand-new studio. Born at a zoo in Dublin, Ireland, he was sold to a private zoo in California, where MGM found him. He never roared on-screen since movies made during this period were silent. His trainer was Volney Phifer (remember that name, please). Slats died in 1936, and Phifer buried the remains on his farm in New Jersey, marking the gravesite with a granite slab.
• Jackie (active 1928-1956) originally came from Sudan, but sources don’t say how he came to America. He was the first MGM lion to roar on-screen. He also became famous for his misadventures during a farewell tour of America, surviving two train wrecks, an explosion in a studio, and even a plane crash; he and the pilot lived off sandwiches until they were rescued. Jackie retired to the Philadelphia Zoo, where keepers found him dead of a heart attack in 1935.
• Bill (active (1927-1928), Telly (active 1928-1932), and Coffee (active 1932-1955) each introduced color shorts, though I don’t know why MGM changed lions during this seven-year period. Not much is known about these lions.
• Tanner (active 1934-1956 and again 1963-1967) was the MGM star for a total of 22 years and also made dozens of appearances in movies during this period. He was quite popular in Three Stooges shorts.
• George (active 1956-1957) had the best mane of all the MGM lions, according to lion experts, but he was only used for two years, before the studio brought back Tanner.
• Leo (active 1957-1963) was the only one actually named Leo. He was purchased from a wild animal dealer in New York City, who provided all sorts of creatures to zoos and circuses.
PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY WIKIPEDIA COMMONS / PUBLIC DOMAIN
This photo depicts a rather brave crew filming and recording the roar of the MGM lion, but which lion — and where were they?
Okay, now that we have them all lined up, I hope you noticed that none of the lions is “officially” called Volney — and, more to the point, Memphis is never mentioned in any way.
So I decided to review local coverage, perusing The Commercial Appeal archives. What I found were three different versions of the Memphis/MGM lion story:
1) The lion was born at the Memphis Zoo. 2) The lion wasn’t born here, but only lived here for a while. 3) The lion died at the zoo.
Are any of these versions true? Let’s start with the birth. In a 1940 Commercial Appeal story, the reporter tells of a lioness called Queen Mary: “During her lifetime here, she gave birth to 54 cubs, and proved a distinct asset to the zoo. Most of her children were sold for cash or traded for other animals. The MGM lion which roars at the start of moving pictures was her son.”
Image COURTESY WIKIPEDIA COMMONS / PUBLIC DOMAIN
The MGM lion did more than roar for a few seconds at the beginning of movies. As this poster shows, the studio also took him on publicity tours.
The reporter didn’t provide the name of the “son” but something’s wrong. Giving birth to 54 cubs is not biologically possible. If she’s lucky, according to the South Africa Wildlife Guide website, a lioness might give birth to six litters during her lifetime, each containing from two to four cubs. Well, do the math, and at most Queen Mary provided the zoo with 24 cubs, not 54. So already, we have a big problem proving the MGM lion was born at our zoo. And that’s the only local story that mentions it.
All right, what about the claim that the lion died here? After all, the Memphis Zoo website includes a timeline of major events, with this pertinent entry: “1944 — Volney, the MGM lion, dies at the Memphis Zoo.”
Oh, what a headache. Assuming that Slats, raised by trainer Volney Phifer, is the lion they are now calling Volney, the death dates don’t match. Most websites agree that Slats/Volney died in 1936, not 1944.
It doesn’t help that local reporters couldn’t agree on the name. A 1980 “Your Zoo” column in the CA says, “Maybe some of the younger readers don’t know that the MGM lion was an inhabitant of the Memphis Zoo.” Years later, we read, “Through the years, the Memphis Zoo has been home to such famous animals as Leo, the MGM lion.” More recently, a 2015 column noted, “According to many published and contradictory reports, the movie lion that appeared inside the MGM logo in the 1920s, a king of beasts with the commoner’s name of Slats, lived out his post-show-business days at the Memphis Zoo.”
That writer — I won’t name names here — acknowledged that “this MGM lion’s Memphis history may be hard to trace.”
But back to the lion’s death. In 1946, a lion died at the Memphis Zoo. It wasn’t the MGM lion, but that sad event made the front page of The Commercial Appeal. Named Prince, “the gentle lion became the pet of thousands” and was so easy-going that children could reach through the bars of his cage and rub his mane.
This story shows that a lion dying at the zoo was obviously big news in Memphis. So it’s hard to comprehend why the death of the world-famous MGM lion — in our city in 1944, according to the zoo — didn’t merit a single mention in the local newspapers, and isn’t chronicled today on various websites.
Okay — whew — what about photographic evidence? Here’s a film crew working perilously close to a lion that could eat them in a few bites. Though undated, it’s often captioned, “Volney being filmed and recorded at the Memphis Zoo.” Nevertheless, a local history buff, “Birch of Memphis,” posted this image on Flickr but observed, “Volney was not given to the Memphis Zoo until after his retirement by MGM, so it’s unclear how or why his roar would have been recorded here.” He concluded, “There seems to be a lot of foggy history regarding the lives of the MGM lions.”
Yes, indeed. In fact, the Sunday Post website identified that lion as Jackie, not Volney. And if we wanted any more confusion, in 1955, The Commercial Appeal ran a brief news item headlined, “M-G-M Lion Dies.” The story mentioned the death in a Dublin Zoo of “Stephen, the lion who growls at the beginning of all MGM films.”
Stephen??? Where does he fit into all this?
I can’t make sense of all these lions. Was an MGM lion born at the Memphis Zoo? Eh, hard to say. Did an MGM lion “live out his retirement” here? Probably, based on casual mentions in the newspaper, all sadly lacking in detail. Finally, did he die here? Well, obviously, lions can’t live forever, but if such a famous zoo resident died, I can’t say when — or what happened to his remains.
In conclusion (finally!), my answer to this question would be a qualified “yes” — but I can’t provide specific details.
Look, enough about the lions. Now, what’s this I hear about Memphis being “The Hippo Capital of the World”? I have a bad feeling this involves the Lauderdale family in some way.
Got a question for Vance?
Email: ask-vance@contemporary-media.com
Mail: Vance Lauderdale, Memphis Magazine. P.O. Box 1738, Memphis, TN 38103
