The Producer Prince

David O. (for Oliver) Selznick grew up in the magic, flickering light of the silent films, came to maturity as Hollywood was mastering the revolutionary complexities of sound, set his seal as a producer on the industry by proving that literary classics such as Anna Karenina, A Tale of Two Cities, Little Lord Fauntleroy and Little Women could be transferred to the screen with fidelity and power. Other Selznick productions included King Kong, Dinner at Eight and A Star Is Born. And for ten years running, movie exhibitors ranked him No. 1 producer of box-office successes. But even as death came to Selznick last week at the age of 63, he was still most famed for Gone With the Wind, the film that dominated conversation for three years before the cameras ever began to roll, cost the then astronomic sum of $4,250,000, ran an unprecedented 3 hr. 45 min., and has to date made $60 million.

G.W.T.W. was Selznick's greatest adventure. "It was such a stupendous undertaking," he said. "Anything else, no matter what we'll ever make, will always seem insignificant after that." He even proposed as his own epitaph, "Here lies David O. Selznick, who produced Gone With the Wind." He also recognized that his former glories could become a handful of dust. When the G.W.T.W. plantation set, including the mansion Tara, was finally dismantled and shipped to Atlanta in 1959, Selznick philosophized: "Once photographed, life here is ended. It is almost symbolic of Hollywood. Tara has no rooms inside. It was just a facade."

Quickie Stakes. Selznick's passing mood of pessimism was only a momentary fall from the relentless exuberance that made him appear as an outsized (6 ft. 1 in.) Teddy Roosevelt at costume parties, decide at one point to give up sleeping on Monday nights, and put chips on almost every number when playing roulette. "Live expensively!" advised his father, a Russian-born immigrant who became a multimillionaire in silent films. "Throw it around! Give it away! Always remember to live beyond your means. It gives a man confidence."

Lewis J. Selznick set the pace for his sons to follow. He lived in a 17-room Park Avenue apartment that in the early 1920s was a sort of Brown Derby East for the movie set. When his freewheeling days ended in bankruptcy in 1923, so did Son David's $300-a-week allowance and hopes for Yale. With his elder brother Myron, David staked himself for a trip to Hollywood by turning out two quickies that netted $16,000. Once there, David sold himself as a $100-a-week script reader at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, within months was an associate producer at triple the salary; Myron launched into a career as an agent, which in time landed him on the top of the heap.

Undisputed king of Hollywood at the time was Louis B. Mayer, who was convinced that "those Selznick boys will come to no good." Proving him wrong, David left MGM, became a $104,000-a-year boss at Paramount--and married the crown princess herself, L. B. Mayer's daughter Irene. L.B. imperiously refused to greet Selznick at the wedding, though when David at 30 returned to the M-G-M fold, wags quipped, "The son-in-law also rises." It was a canard that was not buried until Mayer's 1957 will, in which L.B. noted that Son-in-Law Selznick, unlike other members of the Mayer clan, "had never requested my assistance."

Finest Hours. In fact, assistance was something that Selznick always felt he could dispense with. "Your ideas may be right," he once explained to Director George Cukor while in the process of firing him, "but if I'm going to fall on my face, it is going to be entirely my own mistake." What Selznick did be lieve in was quality, talent and free-spending, and it turned out to be a formula that gave Hollywood some of its finest hours. Selznick's Bill of Divorcement introduced Katharine Hepburn to films; Freddy Bartholomew was discovered for David Copperfield; Alfred Hitchcock was imported to direct Rebecca.

In Hollywood, Joseph Gotten, Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire, Carole Lombard, Joan Fontaine and Myrna Loy advanced with Selznick's help. From abroad came Ingrid Bergman. But far and away, Selznick's most-discussed discovery was actually not his but his brother Myron's. In 1938 G.W.T.W. had gone into production with the hunt for an actress to play Scarlett O'Hara still in full cry.* While the old sets on Selznick's 40-acre lot in Culver City, Calif., were being fired and thus providing the climactic scene of the burning of Atlanta, Myron emerged through the smoke with a pert English brunette in tow. "I want you to meet Scarlett O'Hara," Myron announced dramatically. David Selznick agreed, signed up Vivien Leigh to play Scarlett.

"The Industry Needs You." Jennifer Jones, an Oscar winner for her role in Song of Bernadette, was a young actress that Selznick found. He starred her in Since You Went Away, Duel in the Sun and Portrait of Jenny. In 1948 Selznick divorced Irene Mayer, in 1949 married Jennifer. After the marriage, Selznick virtually retired from film making, produced only one more picture--Farewell to Arms (1958) with Jennifer Jones. But semiretirement did little to modify his compulsive ways. For Farewell, he wore out three secretaries while dictating a total of 10,000 memos, ranging from single sentences to one 30 pages in length, all initialed DOS. He had worn out writers (16 for G.W.T.W., including briefly F. Scott Fitzgerald) and directors at the same pace. One director he approached, Nunnally Johnson, declined, saying, "My understanding is that an assignment from you consists of three months' work and six months of recuperation."

In recent years Selznick shuttled between Beverly Hills and his suite at Manhattan's Waldorf Towers, but he remained full of projects. He had plans for revitalizing the book-publishing business, for bringing the morality crisis home to the U.S. public, and even had a scheme to help bail out the New York World's Fair. Hollywood missed his boundless energy and lunging, wide-eyed enthusiasms, and his friends knew he was mulling over a script, The Great Sarah, portraying the life of Sarah Bernhardt. Perhaps guessing that his old boss was ready for a comeback, Selznick's onetime pressagent had just run a series of ads in the Hollywood Reporter. Its last sentence: "Come home, DOS, the industry needs you!" The day it appeared, David O. Selznick was back in home territory discussing more projects in his lawyer's office when he was stricken with a heart attack and died two hours later at Hollywood's Mount Sinai Hospital.

* Which provided the theme for Clare Boothe Luce's 1938 Broadway hit, Kiss the Boys Good-Bye.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.