Search results
Sep 25, 2014 · Tony Goldwyn (Fitz) is the stuff of Hollywood legend. His grandfather was Samuel Goldwyn, the iconic producer who founded some of the biggest studios in Hollywood, including Paramount and MGM...
Nov 9, 2017 · One night in 1903 or 1904, Sam Warner suggested something different: As his brothers sampled their mother Pearl’s potato latkes with applesauce and sour cream, he used a recent technological...
Jan 31, 2015 · Goldwyn left the fate of Samuel Goldwyn Productions to his widowed wife Frances Howard (specifically requesting that the studio live on) and a $1 million trust fund to his son.
Jan 10, 2015 · Jan. 9, 2015. LOS ANGELES — Samuel Goldwyn Jr., an urbane, soft-spoken scion of a Hollywood dynasty who became an influential movie executive in his own right, supporting promising young...
- Introduction
- New York
- Hollywood Beginnings
- Paramount Pictures
- Goldfish to Goldwyn
- The Birth of MGM
- Talent and Work Ethic
- The Goldwyn Touch
- Goldwynisms
- Wuthering Heights
Looking at the life of movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn, it’s utterly amazing to see how many threads of the film industry he touched. Indeed, in many ways, telling his sprawling story is like describing the history of Hollywood itself. We hope you’ll agree it’s an incredible tale. Schmuel Gelbfisz entered this world in July 1879. Born in a Jewish ghetto...
Sitting in steerage during the voyage, he heard horror stories from the other immigrants about American authorities sending penniless immigrants back to Europe. Taking no chances, Goldfish got off the boat at its first port of call in Halifax, Nova Scotia. From there, he trudged five hundred miles in the dead of winter to New York City. When Goldfi...
There was only one problem. Neither Goldfish nor Lasky knew anything about making movies. So, they reached out to a theatrical director named Cecil B. DeMille and asked him to join the company. DeMille was intrigued but was upfront about the fact he had never made a movie either. However, after spending some time visiting Thomas Edison’s studios in...
But the project still ran out of money before DeMille had finished. So, to pay for the completion of The Squaw Man,Goldfish and Lasky approached a distributor named Adolph Zukor. In return for the rights, Zukor gave them enough money to finish shooting. When The Squaw Man proved a major success, a merger was proposed between Goldfish, Lasky, DeMill...
Down, but not out, Goldfish struck up a new partnership. This time with Broadway producers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn. They formed another new company, bought some property in Culver City, California, and called it Goldwyn Picturesafter a melding of their two last names. Mr. Goldfish was so delighted he legally changed his own name to match that of...
Behind Goldwyn’s back, the distributor leveraged this into a controlling interest and sold the company to theater chain owner Marcus Loew. The two men named the venture Metro Goldwyn Studios and brought in an outsider named Louis B. Mayer to run it. Mayer asked for, and the partners agreed, to add his name to the masthead. It became known as Metro-...
This all took place in 1924, and Samuel Goldwyn fell into a deep depression. For nearly a year, he remained inactive and kept to himself. Taking stock of his finances, Goldwyn was well aware that he was still broke. He figured he needed around $250,000 to get re-started. Goldwyn approached Cecil B. DeMille, who now sat on the board of directors at ...
In 1931, Goldwyn hired director John Ford to bring Sinclair Lewis’ tale of an idealistic young doctor to the screen in Arrowsmith. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Goldwyn was deeply disappointed when he lost the grand prize to MGM and Louis B. Mayer’s production of Grand Hotel(1932) the following year. It was...
As Samuel Goldwyn’s reputation as a major producer began to take root, stories began to circulate throughout the film industry about his unique style of phrasing. As an immigrant, Goldwyn was at first embarrassed and self-conscious about his grammatical missteps. But his publicity department reminded him that every time someone told a joke about Go...
Humor and levity aside, Goldwyn’s management style finally met its match with the classic film Wuthering Heights (1939). It starred Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in a tale of doomed love between a stable boy and a girl of higher social standing. After circumstances conspire to keep them apart, she falls gravely ill and dies after admitting she’...
In his final film, Samuel Goldwyn brought together African-American actors Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis Jr. and Pearl Bailey in a film rendition of the George Gershwin opera, Porgy and Bess (1959).
People also ask
Who was Samuel Goldwyn Jr?
What happened to Samuel Goldwyn?
What happened to Samuel Goldwyn Productions?
Was Samuel Goldwyn a ladies' man?
Jan 11, 2015 · Samuel Goldwyn Jr, a champion of independent film and son to one of the founding fathers of Hollywood cinema, has died aged 88. Among his achievements, he was credited with giving Julia Roberts...
