Samuel Goldwyn

Is portrayed by Olivier Pierre in RKO 281 (1999) (TV), by Lee Wallace in This Year's Blonde (1980) (TV) and by Vernon Weddle in Malice in Wonderland (1985) (TV)

In the 1930s and 1940s the Hollywood studio system was dominated by a handful of men who ran their domains largely by themselves, and with an iron hand: Louis B. Mayer (MGM), Adolph Zukor (Paramount), Harry Cohn (Columbia), Carl Laemmle (Universal), Jack L. Warner (Warner Bros.), Herbert J. Yates (Republic), Darryl F. Zanuck (Warners in the 1930s and 20th Century-Fox in the 1940s) and Goldwyn and David O. Selznick as independent producers. By 1959 all of these men--with the exception of Warner--had either died, retired or been forced out of their own companies.

In his book "Hollywood", Garson Kanin wrote that over his lengthy career, the impressive list of writers that Samuel Goldwyn employed included Thornton Wilder, Edna Ferber, Francis Marion, Montague Glass, Joseph Hergesheimer, Elmer Rice, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, Morrie Ryskind, Howard Estabrook, Moss Hart, George S. Kaufman, William Anthony McGuire, Nunnally Johnson, Willard Mack, Harry Wagstaff Gribble, Preston Sturges, Maxwell Anderson, Mordaun

2002: Portrayed on Broadway in "Alan King as Mr. Goldwyn" by actor/comedian/producer Alan King. Play focuses on Goldwyn in early 1950s when he is making Hans Christian Andersen (1952).

In 1917 he merged his production company with All-Star Feature Films Corp., owned by brothers Edgar Selwyn and Archibald Selwyn, creating the Goldwyn Pictures Corp. The symbol of the new company was a reclining lion, surrounded by a banner made from a strip of celluloid film with the words "Ars Gratia Artis" ("Art for Art's Sake") at the top, which was designed by Howard Dietz. The trademark adorned the front gate of the studio's Culver City, California, production facilities, which ranked with the finest in Hollywood (the inspiration for the original "Leo the Lion" likely were the stone lions at the New York Public Library on 44th St., which was across from the All-Star Feature Corp.'s offices). Goldfish liked the name of the new studio so much that he renamed himself Samuel Goldwyn. He was forced out of the company in 1922. It was merged with Loew's Inc.'s Metro Pictures in 1924 through a stock swap, creating Metro-Goldwyn, which subsequently merged with Louis B. Mayer Productions, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was born--even though Goldwyn himself had nothing to do with the company that bore his name (he tried legal action to prevent the new company from using it, but lost). Goldwyn, who h