HOLLYWOOD GENIUS TURNED OUT SERIES F MOVIE CLASSICS

BY DECEMBER 1938 the film producer David Selznick hod spent almost two years searching for an actress to ploy the

heroine Scarlett O'Hara in his monumental film Gone With The Wind but so far no one suitable had turned up.

In desperation Selznick began shooting outside S(:enes in which the heroine did not appear. Came the day when, with cameras rolling, he was busily bu(ning down a replica of the Georgia town of Atlanta. ·His brother. Iha actors' agenl degree• but they did havo

Myron Selznick. appeared on the expensive tastes they could no scan a with a pert Eng II sh longer afford and . a good brunette, the fiancee of his client knowledfce of the film mdus~ry, Laurence Olivier whom hi WIS Tho ~ der, M¥ron Selznick,

. ' 1 e ft 1mmed1ate1 y for 'howmg over tha studio. Hollywood where he eventual·

Myron Selznick introduced ly became a successful actors' her as Vivien Leigh to his agent and a millionaire in his bro ther who took one look own right. . into her green eyes and said: . The 21-y~ar-old Davi~ Sel~ ••y · S 1 O'H ,. nick also tntended going to

~u re my car ett ara. Hollywood but stayed in New . Signe? to play the role, V.i· York for a while to get himself

v1~n Leigh scored a dr~mat10 a financial stake. triumph and proved an impor· tant factor in Selznick's greatest triumph in a lifetime of film-making.

David Selznick grew up in the magic flickering light of tho silent films and camo to maturity as Hollywood was mastering the revolutionary complexities of sound.

Had he done nothing else ho would still rank high in film history as the man who mado Gone With The Wind, the one movie which symbolised Lht golden age of Hollywood.

It was a film which dominated conversation for three years before the cameras began to roll, cost a then astronomical $4.25 million, ran an unprecedented 3 hours 45 minutes and had made $60 mill ion at Selznick's death.

He ordered Selznick'• dia· missal only to be told the new· comer was a film prodigy who had just turned out two Westerns on the bud&et he had been given for one.

Tho mollified Louis B. Mayer relented. He not only let David Selznick stay but began to push him forward and soon made him executive producer of all MGM Westerns.

All went well until Selznick: began courting Mayor's daughter Irene. Her father dis·

In fact, Selznick had let't Paramount to 1tart his own independent company.

But his financial backers withdrew from tho deal when it was discovered that Louis B. Mayer had warned a number of distribution companies no< to handle any Selznick films.

So David Selznick went back to work in a job - as produc­tion chief of tho struggling RKO film company which was on the vergo of bankruptcy.

In short order Selznick put the company on its financial feet with brilliant films such as Animal Kingdom, Little Women, Kin4 Kong, Topazo and Bill OC Divorcement - in which his discovery Katharine Hepburn made her film debut.

But with RKO uved, com· pany executives began interfer­ing with Selznick. When they refused to give him a free hand

But for all that David Selz­nick did more than produce a11 h istoric movie moneymaker.

He was one of the most creative producers in tho history of the screen - a man who knew how to mako ma terpieces which also mado money at the box-office.

A scent from Selznick's epic film. Gone With the Wind. Scarlett O'Hara is seen walking, among the exhausted soldiers at the picture's left centre,

With boundless energy, dar· Ing and wide-eyed enthusiasm, Seltnick turned out such cl a,s ic films as Anna Karenina

1 Tale Of Two Cities, Liltle Lorct F au ntleroy, Little Women, Dinner At Eight and King ~ong.

RUSSIAN

This he achieved by turning covered what was going on1 he walked out ln 1932. out two quick: film short§, ono fired the new boy wonder or Strangely, ho then accepted on Argentinian boxer Luis Fir· the studio and shouted at $4000 a week to work for po who was training ·to meet Irene: MGM. Dempsey and the other depic- "Keep away from that Actually the offer had been ting film idol Rudolph Valen- schnook. He'll be a bum just made by the cunning Mayer as tino who was in New York to like his old man." insurance in caso the com-judge a beauty contest. Brimming with 11elf-con. pany's brilliant production

Young Selznick spent a day fidence and drive, Selznick chief Irving Thalberg did not making each of the two talkedhimselfintotheofficeof recoverfromarecentheartat-documentaries and then went Par amount chic f B. P. tack. out and sold them to a film Schulberg. To lure Selznick into the exhibitor for $18,500. After five minutes Schulberg fold, Mayer promised him his

With this capital David Selz- growled, ''You're tho most own production unit with a nick joined his brother in arrogant young man I've ever completely free hand and his

The youthful David Selxnlck. As a movie producer he had a gift for making masterpiece• which were also

money-spinners.

llnancial backera wort his brother Myron, Irving Thalberg and Thalberg's .wifo Norma Shearer.

Selznick's fint film as an Independent producer was Lit· tlo Lord Fauntleroy for which ho borrowed Freddio Bartholomew from MGM. It cost $560,000 to make and swiftly grossed $1,700,000.

A dynamo of energy who sometimes put in 72 hours at his sCudio without sleep, Selz­nick: quickly followed with another success, A Star ls Born.

It starred Janet Gaynor (when every other producer in Hollywood said ah• was finished) and Fredric March i and was Hollywood's biggest moneymaker of the year.

As a perfectionist Selznick spared no expenH with his films. He demanded top sta,rs1 tho most talented writera ana the best directors.

For A Star h Born ht employed seven different writers on the script before he was satisfied.

Those who worked for Selz.. nick found him a hard task­master who expected everyone to toil at his own superhuman pace:

Screenwriter Nunnally John­son once turned down a Selz­nick scripting job with the exr.lanation:

'An assignment from you consists of three months' work on pay and six months afterwards without pay to recuperate."

Selznick continued to turn out some of Hollywood's biggest box office successes including Intermezzo which starred an unknown Swedish actress he had imported, Ingrid Bergman.

reaaons. Then the father-in-law blandly asked:

"And teU me, David, who are you planning to cast fot Rhett Butler?"

Mayer knew that the wholo world was insisting there was only ono possible actor who could play Margaret Mitchell's hero. This was Clark Gable with whom MGM had an iron• · clad contract.

Selznick had to have Gable but ho still shook his head when Mayer tried to lure him back: to a studio job where ho could mako Gone With Tho Wind for MGM and use its contract star Gable.

The upshot was a deal in which Selznick got Gable's ser­vices.

But In return he had t<>' -accept $1.S million from MGM for a SO per cent sharo In tho production and profits and give the company exclusi'lo distribution rights to the film,

BARGAIN Gono With The Wind was

completed in 1939. It brought Selznic~ to tho peak of his career but financially the hard bargain hia father-in-law hacl dri ven cost him some $3() million in future profits paid ta MGM.

The following year Sel.wiclc turned out another film masterpiece In Rebecca itt which he starred yet another o( his discoveries, Joan Fontaine.

Ho continued to mako successful Hollywood filmi through the 1940s but with his divorce from Irene Mayer in 19-49 he closed down film production in the U.S .

David Oswald Selznick was born in Pittsburgh on May 10, 1902, the son of Lewis J. Selz­nick. a Russian immigrant who began as a jeweller and then became one of America's pioneer film producers.

Hollywood. And he needed the money because it was 1926 before he talked himself into a film job as a script reader at MGM at $100 a week . I The art of David Selznick I

That samo year Sc:lzniclc married the young actress Jen4

nifer Jones and his later films made in Europe usually starred her and caused critics to say ho had lost his touch .

His last film made in Italy in 1958 was Ernest Hemingway's Farewell To Arms. It too, was blasted for the way he turned a spectacular war drama ittto ll saccharine love story.

By the early . 1920s Lewis Selrni ck was worth an es­timated $23 million. He lived with his wife Florence and two sons Myron and David in an 18-room Park Avenus apartment.

By the end of World War I Lewis Selznick was spending $1 million a year. Even at high sc hool his sons received allowances of $300 a week each wh i<:h was raised to $750 a week when they attended Columbia University.

Then in 1923 Lewis Selznick went broke. He made several attempts at a business come­back but all failed and he was penniless when he died in 1933,

His two sons had to leave u n iversit y . They had no

The trouble went back to his father who had made so man y enemies with his buccaneering business methods that no film maker would give his on a job.

Even when David Selznick wormed his way into MGM, he got the job only through the influence of a company executive who had \\ orked fo r his father and v. ho took pity on him.

Uut once on · the pay roll Selznick soon proved his abili­ty and within two months was an assistant producer at $300 a week.

About a year later Louis B. Mayer, the head of the com­pany, discovered the son of his old enemy Lewis Selznick was working for MGM and he

.nearly had apoplexy.

met." Then he gave him a job on trial at $300 a week.

Within three years David Selznick was second only to Schulberg at Paramount. He had a $104,000-a-year contract and had produced a string of successful films.

PROPOSED So in 1930 he was able to

propose to Irene Mayer. She a cc epted but her father, although he attended the wed­ding, refused to speak to tho groom.

Soon afterwards Selznick impul sively resigned from Paramount causing Mayer to explode: "How dare you givo up that contract while you have my daughter to support,"

sori-in-law began churning out some of MGM's greatest successes of that period .

Selznick's first MGM film Dinner At Eight became tho studio's greatest moneymaker to that time.

It was followed by Dancing Lady (which brought Fred Astaire to the screen), M anhat­tan Melodrama (the first team­ing of William Powell and Myrna Loy) and David Copperfield for which he dis· covered Freddie Bartholomew.

But in July, 1933, Irving Thalberg returned to MG 1 and there was no room al tho studio for two film geniu es.

With friction beginning to develop, Selznick left to form his own company Selinick International. Among his

In 1936 Selznick paid $50,-000, the then record price for a first novel, for screen rights to Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind, the epic love story of Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler played out against the background of the Civil War.

But Jn July that year Irving Thalberg died and Louis 8. Mayer immediately turned lo his son-in-law to tak'e over the production reins at MGM.

Selw ick refused because he preferred to be an independent producer and he knew that in Gone With The Wind he had the chance to make a screen clas ic.

Louis B. Mayer listened when Selznick turned down his MGM job and gave his

Selznick suffered a heart at­tack while visiting his lawyer's New York office on Juno 22. 1965, and died two hours later.

" othing in Hollywood is r.ermanent, '' he once said. 'Once photographed, life her1t

is ended." That could be an epitaph for David 0. Selznick.

The NT News, Wednesday, Dec, 18, 197 - 1~