Born Eliezer Meir in Minsk, Russia, (now Belarus), on July 4, 1885, when he was still very young his family emigrated to Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, where Mayer attended school.
On November 28, 1907 in Haverville, Massachusetts, Mayer, then a scrap-metal dealer, opened his first movie theater. Within a few years he had the largest theater chain in New England, and in 1917 he founded his own production company, Louis B. Mayer Pictures, which eventually became part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
His daughter, Irene Gladys Mayer, married film director David O. Selznick.
Louis B. Mayer died on October 29, 1957 and was interred in the Home of Peace Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California.