Dietz was most directly inspired by the university's fight song, ' Roar, Lion, Roar'. 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. History Goldwyn Pictures lions (1917–1924) In 2021, MGM introduced a new CGI logo which features a lion partially based on Leo. Mayer's company in 1924, several different lions have been used for the MGM logo.Īlthough MGM is referred to all of the lions used in their trademark as 'Leo the Lion', only the lion in use since 1957 (a total of 66 years), was actually named 'Leo'. 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. Reiss, who served as art director at Paramount Pictures. Leo the Lion is the mascot for the Hollywood film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and one of its predecessors, Goldwyn Pictures.
