Samuel Goldwyn was one of the founding moguls of Hollywood, a pioneering film producer whose long career and famously mangled turns of phrase made him a legendary figure in the American movie industry. Born in Warsaw, in Russian-ruled Poland, to a poor Jewish family, he emigrated alone as a youth, made his way to America, and prospered first as a glove salesman before being drawn into the infant motion-picture business.
With his brother-in-law and others he helped produce one of the first feature-length films made in Hollywood, and he went on to be a founder of companies that would become pillars of the industry — including the firm that, combining his name with others, became the famed studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, though Goldwyn himself soon left it.
For most of his career Goldwyn worked as an independent producer, answerable to no studio, with a reputation for insisting on quality and for spending lavishly on the best writers, directors, and stars. His productions ranged across comedy and drama, and his crowning achievement, The Best Years of Our Lives, a moving portrait of returning Second World War veterans, won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1946.
Goldwyn became as famous for his fractured English as for his films. The "Goldwynisms" attributed to him — such as "include me out" and "a verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on" — entered popular legend. A tireless perfectionist, he remained active in films for decades and died in 1974.