DANIEL SELZNICK

SELZNICK--Daniel Mayer. Hollywood's last direct connection to one of the industry's founding families, director - producer - executive - author Daniel Mayer Selznick, passed away on August 1, 2024, at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, CA. Daniel was 88 years old and had been a longtime and dearly beloved resident at the retirement home. He oversaw the construction of the Louis B. Mayer theater on the campus (1967) and he also spoke at the opening of the remodeled theater complex in 2017. Residents and staff of the Motion Picture & Television Fund will remember him for his intelligence, charm, sweetness, and generosity. During his time at the Motion Picture Home, he wrote a memoir, Walking with Kings, which will be published next year by Alfred Knopf and which recounts in vivid detail the author's recollections of growing up as a young prince of Hollywood. The younger son of iconic film producer David O. Selznick and legendary theatrical producer Irene Mayer Selznick and the grandson of Louis B. Mayer and his first wife Margaret Shenberg Mayer, Daniel grew up in Beverly Hills. He graduated from the George School and Harvard University and attended the University of Geneva and did graduate work at Brandeis University. He spent the rest of his life in and around the entertainment industry, serving as a production executive at Universal Studios for four years and in 1988 produced the Peabody award winning documentary "The Making of a Legend: 'Gone with the Wind" along with his older brother Jeffrey (who died in 1997). In the exceptionally well researched documentary, the Selznick brothers pieced together how their father created one of America's most beloved and highest grossing motion pictures. Jeffrey and Daniel Selznick were six and three respectively when their father made "Gone with the Wind." Daniel also produced the television mini-series ''Blood Feud'' and ''Hoover vs. the Kennedys,'' among others. For many years he served as the director of the Louis B. Mayer Foundation. A vocal and enthusiastic supporter of the arts, Selznick was also a frequent speaker at film retrospectives and was always available to film historians to answer questions about his family and his first- hand memories of golden age Hollywood. Selznick had notable success as a theatrical producer - he presented his beloved stepmother Jennifer Jones in a charming light comedy, The Man with the Perfect Wife. Married three times, Selznick has no immediate survivors.