Goldwyn (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: A. Scott Berg
- First Published: 1989
- Type of Work: Biography
- Time of Work: 1879-1976
- Setting: Poland; London; Gloversville, New York; New York City; and Los Angeles
- Principal Characters: Samuel Goldwyn, Samuel Goldwyn, Jr., Blanche Lasky Goldwyn Turnbull, Ruth Goldwyn Capps, Jesse Lasky, Cecil B. DeMille, William Wyler
- Genres: Nonfiction, Biography
- Subjects: Acting or actors, 1930’s, Jews or Jewish life, Liberalism, Fame, Films, movies, or motion pictures, Hollywood, Filmmaking or filmmakers
- Locales: New York, NY, Los Angeles, CA, London, England, Poland
Samuel Goldwyn, one of Hollywood’s pioneer filmmakers and most distinguished producers, was a classic example of the poor immigrant who makes good. The oldest son of Aaron David and Hannah Gelbfisz, Hasidic Jews in Warsaw, Schmuel Gelbfisz was born in 1879. The family of eight lived in poverty in the Warsaw ghetto, where Schmuel spoke Yiddish at home and had Polish as a second language. His father died when Schmuel was fifteen, and, seeing no future for himself in Poland, young Gelbfisz left the next year and walked five hundred miles to Hamburg, where he learned the rudiments of...
[The entire page is 2783 words long]
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