Memo from David O. Selznick by David O. Selznick

One of his last acts at RKO was to approve a screen test for a thirty-three-year-old, balding Broadway song-and-dance man named Fred Astaire. Selznick spent a mere fifteen months as RKO production chief, resigning over a dispute with new corporate president Merlin Aylesworth concerning creative control. John Barrymore was also enlisted for a few memorable performances. Selznick discovered and signed a young actress who was quickly counted as one of the studio's big stars, Katharine Hepburn.

Berman, aged twenty-six, increasingly important projects. To make films under the new system, Selznick recruited prize behind-the-camera personnel, such as director George Cukor and producer/director Merian C. 'Under the factory system of production you rob the director of his individualism', said Selznick, 'and this being a creative industry that is harmful to the quality of the product made.' Instituting unit production, he predicted, would also result in cost savings of 30–40 percent. In addition to implementing rigorous cost-control measures, Selznick championed the unit production system, which gave the producers of individual movies much greater independence than they had under the prevailing central producer system. Mayer.ĭavid Sarnoff, head of RKO, hired Selznick as Head of Production in October 1931. While at Paramount he married Irene Gladys Mayer, daughter of MGM mogul Louis B. He left MGM for Paramount Pictures in 1928, where he worked until 1931. In 1926, Selznick moved to Hollywood, and with the help of his father's connections, he gained a job as an assistant story editor at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He studied at Columbia University in New York City and started training as an apprentice for his father until the elder's bankruptcy in 1923. The 'O' stands for nothing, and he never had his name legally changed to incorporate it. David Selznick added the 'O' to distinguish himself from an uncle with the same name, and because he thought it had flair. ĭavid had three siblings, including his brother Myron, also a film producer and later a talent agent. His father was born in Lithuania in 1870. Selznick, a silent movie producer and distributor of Jewish origin.

Selznick, born as David Selznick (May 10, 1902 – June 22, 1965) was an American film producer, screenwriter and film studio executive who produced Gone with the Wind (1939) and Rebecca (1940), both of which earned him an Academy Award for Best Picture.īorn in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he was the son of Florence Anna (née Sachs) and Lewis J.

Memo from David O. Selznick by David O. Selznick