Samuel Goldwyn — producer with roots in the Russian Empire
Samuel Goldwyn was born Szmuel Gelbfisz in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw, in Congress Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, the eldest of six children of Aaron Dawid Gelbfisz, a peddler, and Hanna Frymet Fiszhaut. He later gave his birth date as 27 August 1882, but he was most likely born in July 1879.
After his father's death he left Warsaw without money and made his way on foot to Hamburg, where a glove-maker named Jacob Liebglid taught him the trade and raised the fare for his onward journey. On 26 November 1898 he left Hamburg for Birmingham, where he spent six weeks with relatives, who renamed him Samuel Goldfish, and from there he reached the United States by way of Canada.
He settled in Gloversville, New York, then the centre of the American glove industry, rose from cutter to foreman to salesman at the Elite Glove Company, and became one of the most successful glove salesmen in the country. In 1910 he married Blanche Lasky and persuaded her brother, the vaudeville producer Jesse Lasky, to go into pictures. With Cecil B. DeMille they formed the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company, whose first production, The Squaw Man (1914), was one of the first feature films made in Hollywood.
After the company merged with Adolph Zukor's Famous Players in 1916 he left, and with the Broadway producers Edgar and Archibald Selwyn formed Goldwyn Pictures, combining their names; he took Goldwyn as his own legal name. Forced out of that company in 1922, he set up as an independent producer. In 1924 Goldwyn Pictures was merged into Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which kept his name although he never produced for it.
Over the next decades he produced some eighty films independently, among them eight with William Wyler, including Dodsworth (1936), Wuthering Heights (1939) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. His last film was Porgy and Bess (1959).
He died at his home in Los Angeles on 31 January 1974.
"Left Warsaw penniless after his father's death, walked to Hamburg, sailed to Birmingham in November 1898 and reached the United States by way of Canada."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Warsaw, Congress Poland
Born in Warsaw, Congress Poland, then part of the Russian Empire — in July 1879 or 1882; sources differ — to Aaron Dawid Gelbfisz and Hanna Frymet Fiszhaut. He left via Hamburg and Birmingham and reached the United States in January 1899, where he became a successful glove salesman before entering film.
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Warsaw, Congress Poland. At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
"Include me out."