Howard Strickling (1897-1982) was born in West Virginia, and his family moved to Los Angeles when he was a child. After serving in World War I, he worked in the newspaper business until joining the publicity department of Metro Pictures in 1919. He remained with the MGM organization for 50 years, mostly as head of publicity, and from 1959, as vice-president. He was the first publicist to achieve such a high position at a Hollywood studio.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was formed in 1924 when the theater circuit Loew's Inc., owner of Metro Pictures Corporation, acquired Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer Pictures and subsequently merged the three companies. The Culver City studio soon became one of the strongest and most prestigious of the major production companies, superior both in profits and in critical acclaim throughout most of the 1930s and 1940s. During the 1950s changes brought about by the Paramount consent decree eventually rendered the studio system obsolete, and MGM, which had once dominated that system, suffered a slow decline. The studio was purchased in 1970 by Kirk Kerkorian, who sold off most of its assets and, in 1973, shut down the distribution arm of the company. Ted Turner purchased MGM in 1986, then immediately sold the studio to Lorimar Pictures while retaining the film library and script material (see Turner/MGM scripts). Acquired by a consortium of investors in 2005, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. continues to function as a film production and distribution company out of its Century City, California headquarters.