After her retirement from the Metropolitan Opera House in 1935, Louis
B. Mayer offered her a contract with MGM. Ms. Ponselle was not
interested, but did not say "no"; instead she asked for a very large
fee, so large that Mr. Mayer is reputed to have rolled his eyes upward
(to heaven perhaps) and indignantly asked her agent, "How did Miss
Ponselle arrive at this figure? Did she add up all the numbers in the
Los Angeles telephone Book?" Needless to say, Rosa Ponselle did not go
to work for MGM.