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Known for:	Gone with the Wind, King Kong, Rebecca
Birth name:	David Selznick
Birthday:	10 May 1902, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA
Height:	6' 1" (1.85 m)

Son of Lewis J. Selznick. Brother of Myron Selznick. David and Irene Mayer Selznick had two sons, Geoffrey and Daniel Selznick. On May 11, 1976, Selznick's daughter with Jennifer Jones, (the 22-year-old Mary Jennifer), killed herself by jumping from the tallest building in Westwood while her psychotherapist was away on vacation. It was two days after Mother's Day and one day after what would have been her father's 74th birthday. Jones subsequently became a therapist herself. He abandoned his career at MGM after marrying Irene, the daughter of MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer, and moved to RKO. He eventually returned to MGM to take up the slack left by the disability of production czar Irving Thalberg. This led to the famous observation that "the son-in-law also rises." Despite being considerably taller and bulkier than director George Cukor, Selznick bore a striking resemblance to him. He would later collaborate with Cukor on Gone with the Wind, from which Cukor was eventually fired by Selznick. In order to fulfill his picture obligation to United Artists, Selznick brought over Alfred Hitchcock from Europe to produce/direct Selznick's UA projects while he devoted the bulk of his time to Gone with the Wind. Responsible for casting Katharine Hepburn (A Bill of Divorcement), Joan Fontaine (Rebecca), Vivien Leigh (Gone with the Wind) and Jennifer Jones (The Song of Bernadette) in the roles that made them stars. According to the 2005 Louis B. Mayer biography "The Last Lion," Selznick sold off his interest in Gone with the Wind to former Selnick International chairman John Hay Whitney for $200,000, which has to rank as the worst deal Selznick ever made, as the classic movie continued to make massive amounts of money in re-release through the 1970s. Is portrayed by Ron Berglas in RKO 281 and by Tony Curtis in Moviola: The Scarlett O'Hara War Selznick was famed for his long, detailed and incredibly involved--and, to many of the people who received them, maddening--memos sent to many different people during the production of a film, not just the director or writer but cameramen, editors, and pretty much anyone who had anything to do with the picture. A publicist on one of his films once got a Western Union telegram from Selznick that ended up being more than 30 feet long and finished up with, "I have just received a phone call that pretty much clears up this matter. Therefore you can disregard this wire." Is the only producer winner back-to-back of the Academy Award for Best Picture for Gone with the Wind and Rebecca The "O" in his middle name, though it has a period after it, doesn't stand for anything. He added it because he felt it gave flair to his name. Profiled in in J.A. Aberdeen's "Hollywood Renegades: The Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers". Palos Verdes Estates, CA: Cobblestone Entertainment In 1935, Greta Garbo signed a contract with MGM saying only Irving Thalberg and Selznick could supervise her pictures. After the surprise success of Anna Karennina (1935) with Greta Garbo, David O. Selznick announced that he was leaving MGM to start his own company. Garbo begged him to stay at MGM, saying he could solely produce her pictures. Selznick turned down her offer, saying he had bigger ambitions. It is interesting to note that she only acted in four other films after that-Camille (1936), Conquest (1937), Ninotcchka (1939) and Two Faced Woman (1941), and only two were box-offices successes. MGM modified the contract after Thalberg's surprise death in 1936, and Garbo was reportedly furious by this decision. When Selznick announced he was starting his own production company, Irving Thalberg called him to ask "If he had any financing yet." Selznick replied, "Not a nickel." Thalberg, usually quite careful with money, said "Well, me and Norma would like to give you $250,000 to get on your feet." Thalberg thus became the first financier of Selznick Enterprises.

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