The way I see it, my function is to be responsible for everything.David O. Selznick
Producer David O. Selznick was born David Selznick. He added the "O" because he thought it sounded theatrical. The son of a silent film distributor, Selznick was literally born into the movie business. When his father went bankrupt, Selznick moved the family to Hollywood where he landed his father a job at MGM. He later went to work at Paramount and then as head of production at RKO, where he produced the legendary King Kong (1933). Returning to MGM after marrying studio head Louis B. Mayer's daughter, he produced a series of landmark film classics in 1935 including David Copperfield, Anna Karenina, and A Tale of Two Cities. Wanting to be an independent producer, he started Selznick International Pictures, and in 1939 produced Gone With the Wind, then the most expensive film ever made. It was for this film that Selznick enjoyed his greatest triumph and earned his notoriety as a true obsessive. He was renowned for peppering everyone on the film with "memos from David O. Selznick," detailing every facet of production from the color of a lace cuff to the shape of ice cubes. Gone With the Wind earned Selznick a Best Picture Oscar, along with 9 others, making it the most awarded film in history, a title held by the monumental epic until 1959's Ben Hur, also from MGM. The very next year (1940), Selznick won best picture again for Rebecca, directed by the little known art-house madman Alfred Hitchcock. Despite these successes, Selznick would spend most of the rest of his career trying to top Gone With the Wind, his magnum opus. Neither he, nor anyone else, has managed to do so.
He leadeth me. (inscribed on his gravestone)Victor Fleming
Director Victor Fleming grew up in La Canada, California and became an auto mechanic and race car driver. Drawn to Hollywood-land in the 20s film boom, he got a job as Errol Flynn's chauffeur and legend says that after driving Flynn to the set one day, he saved production by repairing a broken camera and was immediately hired as a cameraman. A few years later he was directing. His first hit was Test Pilot, starring Spencer Tracy, Clark Gable and Myrna Loy. He directed many great films of the Golden Age of Hollywood, but will be remembered most for his work on Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, arguably two of the greatest films of all time, both released in 1939. No director in the history of film had a year like Fleming's 1939 until Steven Spielberg's back to back hits Jurassic Park and Schindler's List in 1993. Spooky.
When asked by his new wife's discomfited parents, "Why didn't you tell us you were a Jew?", Hecht responded, "I was afraid you would think I was bragging."
Screenwriter Ben Hecht, known as the "Shakespeare of Hollywood," was one of Hollywood's most noted and prolific screenwriters. He wrote over 75 screenplays, as well as 35 books. He was also known as a "script doctor" who would routinely come in at the last minute to anonymously fix troubled screenplays, therefore it is nearly impossible to tell exactly how many screenplays he has to his credit. Raised in Wisconsin, Hecht became a circus acrobat at age 12. He later moved to Chicago and became a newspaper reporter for the Chicago Daily News and continued to write short stories and novels. He moved to New York in the early 20s and it was there that he received a telegram from friend Herman J. Mankiewicz, who had recently arrived in Los Angeles. "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots," it read. "Don't let this get around." Hecht eventually moved to Hollywood, where he scripted Josef von Sternberg's gangster story Underworld in 1927, winning an Oscar for this work at the first Academy Awards presentation. His plays include Twentieth Century and The Front Page, based on his work as a reporter. The latter was filmed four times, most notably as His Girl Friday in 1940. Though Sidney Howard actually won the Oscar for the screenplay for Gone With the Wind, this is one legendary "script doctoring" that is true ... Ben Hecht saved the greatest picture ever made.