Samuel Goldwyn
'''Samuel Goldwyn''' (
July, 1879, Warsaw, Poland –
January 31, 1974,
Los Angeles, California,
United States) was a major producer of motion pictures.
Born
Schmuel Gelbfisz at age 16 he left his native Warsaw penniless and on foot. He made his way to
England where he remained with relatives for a few years using the English sounding name, Samuel Goldfish. In 1898, he emigrated to
Nova Scotia but, unsuccessful at accumulating money and wanting to try his luck in the
United States, he began walking again. Eventually arriving in
New York City, he soon got work in the bustling garment business where his innate marketing skills made him a very successful salesman. At the time, the fledgling film industry was expanding rapidly and in his spare time, an enraptured Samuel Goldfish went to see as many movies as possible. Before long, he went into the business with
Vaudeville performer Jesse L. Lasky and
Louis B. Mayer, a theater owner formerly from
Saint John, New Brunswick. Together, the three produced their first film, using an ambitious young director named
Cecil B. DeMille. Disputes arose between the partners and Goldfish left after a few years but their company evolved to later become
Paramount Pictures.
In 1916 Samuel Goldfish partnered with
Broadway producers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn, using a combination of both names to call their movie-making enterprise the
Goldwyn Picture Corporation. Seeing an opportunity, Samuel Goldfish then had his name legally changed to Samuel Goldwyn. The Goldwyn Company proved moderately successful but it is their "Leo the Lion" trademark for which the organization is most famous. Eventually the company merged with
Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Film Company, adopting the "Leo the Lion" trademark but Samuel Goldfish was forced out by his partners and was never a part of the new studio that became Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
After his departure, Goldwyn established Samuel Goldwyn Inc., eventually opening Samuel Goldwyn Studios on Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood. For 35 years, Goldwyn built a reputation for excellence in filmmaking and an eye for finding the talent for making films. He discovered actor
Gary Cooper, used director
Billy Wilder for many of his productions and hired writers such as
Ben Hecht and
Sidney Howard and James Roosevelt. For more than three decades, Goldwyn made numerous successful films and received Best Picture
Oscar nominations for
Arrowsmith (1931),
Dodsworth (1936),
Dead End (1937),
Wuthering Heights (1939), and
The Little Foxes (1941). The hallmark of his films was excellence.
In 1946, the year he was honored by the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with the
The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, Goldwyn's drama
The Best Years of Our Lives, won the
Academy Award for Best Picture. In the 1950s Samuel Goldwyn turned to making a number of
musicals including the 1955 hit
Guys and Dolls starring
Marlon Brando. Two years later, in 1957, he was awarded
The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for his outstanding contributions to humanitarian causes.
In his final film made in 1959, Samuel Goldwyn brought together
African-American actors
Sidney Poitier Dorothy Dandridge,
Sammy Davis, Jr. and singer
Pearl Bailey in a film rendition of the
George Gershwin Opera,
Porgy and Bess. The film won three Oscars.
Samuel Goldwyn passed away at his home in Los Angeles in 1974. He was interred in the
Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in
Glendale, California. In the 1980s, Samuel Goldwyn Studios was sold to
Warner Bros.. There is a theater named for him in Beverly Hills and he has a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1631 Vine Street.
Goldwyn is remembered as a ruthless businessman who lacked formal education and his sometimes crude manners added to an explosive temper that left him with few close friends. He nevertheless was a film genius who believed in quality and who not only survived, but prospered in an extremely competitive business. On the passing of former partner and arch rival
Louis B. Mayer, he is quoted as saying: "The reason so many people turned up at his funeral is that they wanted to make sure he was dead."
Samuel Goldwyn's lack of English language skills led to many of his malapropisms being frequently quoted such as:
- "A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."
- "Include me out."
- "What we need now is some new, fresh clichés."
- "Anyone who would go to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined!"
- "Every director bites the hand that lays the golden egg."
- "Flashbacks are a thing of the past."
- "A wide screen just makes a bad film twice as bad."
Image:Wikiquote.png
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
{{PAGENAME}}
Goldwyn, Samuel
Goldwyn, Samuel
Goldwyn, Samuel
de:Samuel Goldwyn