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Samuel Goldwyn ( ; born Szmuel Gelbfisz; ; July1879January31, 1974) was a Polish-born American film producer and pioneer in the American film industry, who produced the United States's first major motion picture. He was best known for being the founding contributor and Studio executive of several Film studio.Obituary, Variety, February 6, 1974, pg. 63. He was awarded the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award (1973), the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award (1947), and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award (1958).
He left Congress Poland penniless after his father's death and made his way from Warsaw to Hamburg. There he stayed with acquaintances of his family where he trained as a glove maker. On November 26, 1898, Gelbfisz left Hamburg for Birmingham, England, where he remained with relatives for six weeks under the name Samuel Goldfish. On January 4, 1899, he sailed from Liverpool, arrived in Philadelphia on January 19, and went to New York. He found work upstate in Gloversville, New York, in the bustling glove business. Soon, his marketing skills made him a very successful salesman at the Elite Glove Company. After four years as vice-president of sales, he moved to New York City and settled at 10 West 61st Street.
In 1914, Paramount was a film exchange and Movie theater corporation headed by W. W. Hodkinson. Looking for more movies to distribute, Paramount signed a contract with the Lasky Company on 1 June 1914 to supply 36 films per year. One of Paramount's other suppliers was Adolph Zukor's Famous Players Company. The two companies merged on 28 June 1916, forming the Famous Players–Lasky Corporation. Zukor had been quietly buying Paramount Share capital, and two weeks before the merger, became president of Paramount Pictures Corporation and had Hodkinson replaced with Hiram Abrams, a Zukor associate.Berg, pp. 49, 58.
With the merger, Zukor became president of Paramount and Famous Players–Lasky, Goldwyn was named chairman of the board of Famous Players–Lasky, and Jesse Lasky was the first vice-president. After a series of conflicts with Zukor, Goldwyn resigned as chairman, and as a member of the Committee on September 14, 1916. Goldwyn was no longer an active member of management, although he still owned stock and was a member of the board of directors. Famous Players–Lasky later became part of Paramount Pictures Corporation, and Paramount became one of Hollywood's major studios.Berg, pp. 58–59, 63.
After personality clashes, Samuel Goldwyn left the company in 1922. Godsol became chairman of the board and President of Goldwyn Pictures in 1922. On April 10, 1924, Goldwyn Pictures was acquired by Marcus Loew and merged into his Metro Pictures Corporation, becoming Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Despite including his name, Samuel Goldwyn was never connected with ownership, management, or production at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
For 35 years, Goldwyn built a reputation in filmmaking and developed an eye for finding the talent for making films. William Wyler directed many of his most celebrated productions, and he hired writers such as Ben Hecht, Sidney Howard, Dorothy Parker, and Lillian Hellman. (According to legend, at a heated story conference, Goldwyn scolded someone—in most accounts, Mrs. Parker, who recalled he had once been a glove maker—who responded to him, "Don't you point that finger at me. I knew it when it had a thimble on it!")
Goldwyn made numerous films during that time and reigned as Hollywood's most successful Independent film producer. Many of his films were forgettable; his collaboration with John Ford, however, resulted in a Best Picture Academy Awards nomination for Arrowsmith (1931). Goldwyn and Ford had another successful collaboration six years later with The Hurricane (1937). William Wyler was responsible for most of Goldwyn's highly lauded films, with Best Picture Academy Awards nominations for Dodsworth (1936), Dead End (1937), Wuthering Heights (1939), The Little Foxes (1941) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Leading actors in several Goldwyn films, especially those directed by Wyler, were also Oscar-nominated for their performances. Throughout the 1930s, Goldwyn released all his films through United Artists; beginning in 1941 and continuing nearly to the end of his career, Goldwyn's films were distributed by RKO Pictures.
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). Released by Columbia Pictures, the film was nominated for three Oscars but won only one for Best Original Score. It was also a critical and financial failure, and the Gershwin family reportedly disliked the film and eventually pulled it from distribution. The film turned the opera into an operetta with spoken dialogue in between the musical numbers. Its reception was a major disappointment for Goldwyn, who, according to biographer Arthur Marx, saw it as his crowning glory and had wanted to film Porgy and Bess since he first saw it onstage in 1935.
Goldwyn's house at 1200 Laurel Lane in Beverly Hills was completed in 1934, designed by Douglas Honnold and George Vernon Russell. The Goldwyns hosted frequent social events at the house.Berg, p. 246
Despite his marriages, Samuel Goldwyn was known as a ladies' man in social circles. Goldwyn Girl Jean Howard was quoted saying, "Sam Goldwyn was not a fellow to make a pass in public; he had too much taste for that," but his dalliances were many, even as his wife Frances Howard turned a blind eye.
For example, the statement attributed to Goldwyn that "a verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on" is a misreporting of someone else's quote praising the trustworthiness of a colleague: "His verbal contract is worth more than the paper it's written on". The identity of the colleague is variously reported as Joseph M. Schenck (1990). 9780199879168, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199879168 or Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Goldwyn himself was reportedly aware of—and pleased by—the misattribution.
Upon being told that a book he had purchased for filming, The Well of Loneliness, couldn't be filmed because it was about , he reportedly replied: "That's all right, we'll make them Hungarians." The same story was told about the 1934 rights to The Children's Hour with the response "That's okay; we'll turn them into Armenians."
In the Grateful Dead's song "Scarlet Begonias", the line "I ain't often right, but I've never been wrong" appears in the bridge. This is similar to Goldwyn's "I'm willing to admit that I may not always be right, but I am never wrong."
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