On this day: Gone With the Wind premieres

He worked on films from A Bill of Divorcement to King Kong, but his major successes came after 1935 when he started his own production company, Selznick International Pictures. The company worked on classic titles including A Star Is Born and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, before Selznick gained international recognition with the adaptation of Gone with the Wind.

In 1940 he collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on Rebecca, but after that he took a step back from the industry and never again made a major film.

Selznick, who died in 1965 at the age of 63, married twice; the first time to Irene Gladys Mayer, whose father built up MGM. He was awarded a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame for his contribution to cinematic history.

What the JC said in a feature about Jews and Hollywood: Ben Hecht [one of the screenwriters for Gone with the Wind] in the early ‘forties sought to enlist 20 Jewish tycoons to press for the formation of a Jewish division in Palestine, under British command. All the moguls refused point-blank, including David O Selznick...who declared, ‘I am an American, not a Jew, and I am not interested in Jewish political problems.’ To change Selznick’s mind, Hecht asked him to name three people whom they would phone on the spot and ask whether they considered Selznick and American or a Jew. If even one of the three answered ‘an American,’ Selznick would win. Selznick lost, and later became head of the motion picture division of the United Jewish Appeal.

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