The life and work of Samuel Goldwyn, a Polish-born glove salesman who became one of Hollywood's greatest independent producers, is remembered in this classy documentary created for the PBS American Masters series. Based on A. Scott Berg's acclaimed biography, the film includes new interviews with Goldwyn's surviving family members as well as vintage interviews with such luminaries as Bette Davis, John Huston, Laurence Olivier and others.
10-07-2001
1h 58m
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Main Cast
Movie Details
Production Info
Directors:
Mark A. Catalena, Peter Jones
Writers:
A. Scott Berg, Peter Jones
Production:
Thirteen, Eagle Rock Entertainment
Key Crew
Co-Producer:
A. Scott Berg
Producer:
Peter Jones
Editor:
Mark A. Catalena
Makeup Artist:
Kara Raynaud
Music:
Robert Israel
Locations and Languages
Country:
US
Filming:
US
Languages:
en
Main Cast
Dustin Hoffman
Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. He is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. Actor Robert De Niro described him as "an actor with the everyman's face who embodied the heartbreakingly human". At a young age Hoffman knew he wanted to study in the arts, and entered into the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music; later he decided to go into acting, for which he trained at the Pasadena Playhouse in Los Angeles. His first theatrical performance was 1961's A Cook for Mr. General as Ridzinski. During that time he appeared in several guest roles on television shows like Naked City and The Defenders. He then starred in the 1966 off-Broadway play Eh? where his performance garnered him both a Theatre World Award and Drama Desk Award.
His breakthrough role was as Benjamin Braddock in Mike Nichols' critically acclaimed and iconic film The Graduate (1967), for which he received his first Academy Award nomination. His next role was "Ratso" Rizzo in John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy (1969), in which he acted alongside Jon Voight; they both received Oscar nominations, and the film went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. He gained success in the 1970s playing roles that shaped the craft of his acting, crossing genres effortlessly in the western Little Big Man (1970), the prison drama Papillon (1973), playing a controversial and groundbreaking comedian in Bob Fosse's Lenny (1975), Marathon Man alongside Laurence Olivier (1976), and as Carl Bernstein investigating the Watergate scandal in All the President's Men (1976). In 1979, Hoffman starred in the family drama Kramer vs. Kramer alongside Meryl Streep. They both received Academy Awards for their performances.
After a three-year break from films, Hoffman returned in Sydney Pollack's show business comedy Tootsie (1982) about a struggling actor who pretends to be a woman in order to get an acting role. He returned to stage acting with a 1984 performance as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman and reprised the role a year later in a television film earning a Primetime Emmy Award. In 1987 he starred alongside Warren Beatty in Elaine May's comedy Ishtar. He won his second Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the autistic savant Ray Babbitt in the 1988 film Rain Man, co-starring Tom Cruise. In 1989, he was nominated for a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award for playing Shylock in a stage performance of The Merchant of Venice. In the 1990s, he made appearances in such films as Warren Beatty's action comedy adaptation Dick Tracy (1990), Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991) as Captain Hook, medical disaster Outbreak (1995), legal crime drama Sleepers (1996), and the satirical black comedy Wag the Dog (1997) alongside Robert De Niro.
Anthony Howard 'Tony' Goldwyn (born May 20, 1960) is an American actor, singer, producer, director, and political activist. He's known for his roles as Carl Bruner in Ghost, President Fitzgerald Grant on ABC's drama Scandal, district attorney Nicholas Baxter on Law & Order, Gordon Gray in Oppenheimer, Paul Cohen in King Richard (2021), Andrew Prior in Divergent and Insurgent, Colonel Bagley in The Last Samurai, Michael Drucker in The 6th Day, Dr. William 'Will' Rudolph in Kiss the Girls, Neil Armstrong in the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, Harold Nixon in Nixon (1995), Fletcher Cole in The Pelican Brief, and the voice of Tarzan in the Disney animated Tarzan.
He made his acting debut appearing as Darren in the slasher film Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986), and had his breakthrough for starring as Carl Bruner in the fantasy thriller film Ghost (1990), which earned him a nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor. He went on to star as Harold Nixon in the biographical film Nixon (1995), which earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, and as Neil Armstrong in the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (1998).
He portrayed Paul Cohen in King Richard (2021), which earned him a second nomination for a Screen Actors Guild Award. He starred as President Fitzgerald Grant III in the ABC legal/political drama Scandal (2012–2018) and directed a number of episodes for the series, for which he won a Peabody Award.
He is the son of film producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr. and actress Jennifer Howard. His paternal grandparents were film producer and movie studio mogul Samuel Goldwyn, a Polish Jewish immigrant from Warsaw, and actress Frances Howard, who was originally from Nebraska. His maternal grandparents were playwright Sidney Howard and actress Clare Eames. His brother John Goldwyn is a film producer, a former executive of Paramount Pictures and the executive producer of the series Dexter. His brother Peter is also a film producer and the current President of Samuel Goldwyn Films. His half-sister Liz Goldwyn is a filmmaker. His niece is writer/producer Emily Goldwyn (John's daughter - and her mother is actress Colleen Camp).
He has been married to production designer Jane Musky since 1987 and they have two daughters: Anna, a screenwriter, and Tess, an actress.
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Ann Marie Blyth (born August 16, 1928) is an American actress and singer, often cast in Hollywood musicals, but also successful in dramatic roles. Her performance as Veda Pierce in the 1945 film Mildred Pierce was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Ann Blyth, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres; from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional comedies, though her greatest successes were her roles in romantic dramas.
After appearing in Broadway plays, Davis moved to Hollywood in 1930, but her early films for Universal Studios were unsuccessful. She joined Warner Bros. in 1932 and established her career with several critically acclaimed performances. In 1937, she attempted to free herself from her contract and although she lost a well-publicized legal case, it marked the beginning of the most successful period of her career. Until the late 1940s, she was one of American cinema's most celebrated leading ladies, known for her forceful and intense style. Davis gained a reputation as a perfectionist who could be highly combative, and confrontations with studio executives, film directors and costars were often reported. Her forthright manner, clipped vocal style and ubiquitous cigarette contributed to a public persona which has often been imitated and satirized.
Davis was the co-founder of the Hollywood Canteen, and was the first female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, was the first person to accrue 10 Academy Award nominations for acting, and was the first woman to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute. Her career went through several periods of eclipse, and she admitted that her success had often been at the expense of her personal relationships. Married four times, she was once widowed and thrice divorced, and raised her children as a single parent. Her final years were marred by a long period of ill health, but she continued acting until shortly before her death from breast cancer, with more than 100 films, television and theater roles to her credit. In 1999, Davis was placed second, after Katharine Hepburn, on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest female stars of all time.
Marlon Brando Jr. (April 3, 1924 – July 1, 2004) was an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he received numerous accolades throughout his career which spanned six decades, including two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and three British Academy Film Awards. Brando was also an activist for many causes, notably the civil rights movement and various Native American movements. Having studied with Stella Adler in the 1940s, he is credited with being one of the first actors to bring the Stanislavski system of acting and method acting, derived from the Stanislavski system, to mainstream audiences.
He initially gained acclaim and his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role for reprising the role of Stanley Kowalski in the 1951 film adaptation of Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire, a role that he originated successfully on Broadway. He received further praise, and a first Academy Award and Golden Globe Award, for his performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront, and his portrayal of the rebellious motorcycle gang leader Johnny Strabler in The Wild One proved to be a lasting image in popular culture. Brando received Academy Award nominations for playing Emiliano Zapata in Viva Zapata! (1952); Mark Antony in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's 1953 film adaptation of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar; and Air Force Major Lloyd Gruver in Sayonara (1957), an adaptation of James A. Michener's 1954 novel.
The 1960s saw Brando's career take a commercial and critical downturn. He directed and starred in the cult western One-Eyed Jacks, a critical and commercial flop, after which he delivered a series of notable box-office failures, beginning with Mutiny on the Bounty (1962). After ten years of underachieving, he agreed to do a screen test as Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972). He got the part and subsequently won his second Academy Award and Golden Globe Award in a performance critics consider among his greatest. He declined the Academy Award due to alleged mistreatment and misportrayal of Native Americans by Hollywood. The Godfather was one of the most commercially successful films of all time, and alongside his Oscar-nominated performance in Last Tango in Paris (1972), Brando reestablished himself in the ranks of top box-office stars.
After a hiatus in the early 1970s, Brando was generally content with being a highly paid character actor in supporting roles, such as Jor-El in Superman (1978), as Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (1979), and Adam Steiffel in The Formula (1980), before taking a nine-year break from film. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Brando was paid a record $3.7 million ($16 million in inflation-adjusted dollars) and 11.75% of the gross profits for 13 days' work on Superman.
Brando was ranked by the American Film Institute as the fourth-greatest movie star among male movie stars whose screen debuts occurred in or before 1950. He was one of only six actors named in 1999 by Time magazine in its list of the 100 Most Important People of the Century. In this list, Time also designated Brando as the "Actor of the Century".
Carver Dana Andrews (January 1, 1909 – December 17, 1992) was an American actor. A leading man during the 1940s, he continued acting in less prestigious roles and character parts into the 1980s. He is best known for his portrayal of obsessed police detective Mark McPherson in the noir Laura (1944) and his critically acclaimed performance as World War II veteran Fred Derry in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).
Description above from the Wikipedia article Dana Andrews, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Gary Cooper (May 7, 1901 - May 13, 1961) was an American film actor known for his natural, authentic, and understated acting style and screen performances. His career spanned thirty-six years, from 1925 to 1961, and included leading roles in eighty-four feature films. He was a major movie star from the end of the silent film era through to the end of the golden age of Classical Hollywood. His screen persona appealed strongly to both men and women, and his range of performances included roles in most major movie genres. Cooper's ability to project his own personality onto the characters he played contributed to his natural and authentic appearance on screen. Throughout his career, he sustained a screen persona that represented the ideal American hero.
British leading man of primarily American films, one of the great stars of the Golden Age. Raised in Ealing, the son of a successful silk merchant, he attended boarding school in Sussex, where he first discovered amateur theatre. He intended to attend Cambridge and become an engineer, but his father's death cost him the financial support necessary. He joined the London Scottish Regionals and at the outbreak of World War I was sent to France. Seriously wounded at the battle of Messines--he was gassed--he was invalided out of service scarcely two months after shipping out for France. Upon his recovery he tried to enter the consular service, but a chance encounter got him a small role in a London play. He dropped other plans and concentrated on the theatre, and was rewarded with a succession of increasingly prominent parts. He made extra money appearing in a few minor films, and in 1920 set out for New York in hopes of finding greater fortune there than in war-depressed England. After two years of impoverishment he was cast in a Broadway hit, "La Tendresse". Director Henry King spotted him in the show and cast him as Lillian Gish's leading man in The White Sister (1923). His success in the film led to a contract with Samuel Goldwyn, and his career as a Hollywood leading man was underway. He became a vastly popular star of silent films, in romances as well as adventure films. The coming of sound made his extraordinarily beautiful speaking voice even more important to the film industry. He played sophisticated, thoughtful characters of integrity with enormous aplomb, and swashbuckled expertly when called to do so in films like The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). A decade later he received an Academy Award for his splendid portrayal of a tormented actor in A Double Life (1947). Much of his later career was devoted to "The Halls of Ivy", a radio show that later was transferred to television "The Halls of Ivy" (1954). He continued to work until nearly the end of his life, which came in 1958 after a brief lung illness. He was survived by his second wife, actress Benita Hume, and their daughter Juliet Benita Colman.
Eddie Cantor (born Isidore Itzkowitz; January 31, 1892 – October 10, 1964) was an American comedian, actor, dancer, singer, songwriter, film producer, screenwriter and author. Cantor was one of the prominent entertainers of his era.
Dorothy Jean Dandridge (November 9, 1922 – September 8, 1965) was an American actress and singer. She was the first African-American film star to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, which was for her performance in Carmen Jones (1954). Dandridge also performed as a vocalist in venues such as the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater. During her early career, she performed as a part of The Wonder Children, later The Dandridge Sisters, and appeared in a succession of films, usually in uncredited roles.
In 1959, Dandridge was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Porgy and Bess. She is the subject of the 1999 biographical film Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, with Halle Berry portraying her. She has been recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Douglas Elton Fairbanks Jr. (December 9, 1909 – May 7, 2000) was an American actor, producer, and decorated naval officer of World War II. He is best-known for starring in such films as The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), Gunga Din (1939), and The Corsican Brothers (1941). The son of Douglas Fairbanks and stepson of Mary Pickford, his first marriage was to actress Joan Crawford.
In 1969, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the International Best Dressed List.
The moving image collection of Douglas Fairbanks Jr., held at the Academy Film Archive, includes over 90 reels of home movies.
[biography (excerpted) from Wikipedia]
Samuel John Goldwyn Jr. (September 7, 1926 – January 9, 2015) was an American film producer.
Samuel Goldwyn Jr. was born on September 7, 1926, in Los Angeles, California, the son of actress Frances Howard (1903–1976) and the pioneer motion picture mogul Samuel Goldwyn (1882–1974). He attended Fountain Valley School in Colorado Springs, Colorado and the University of Virginia. He was raised Catholic like his mother, at her insistence.
After serving in the United States Army during World War II, he worked as a theatrical producer in London and for Edward R. Murrow at CBS in New York. He then followed in his father's footsteps and founded the motion picture production companies Formosa Productions, The Samuel Goldwyn Company and Samuel Goldwyn Films.
In 1950 Goldwyn married actor Jennifer Howard (1925–1993), the daughter of prominent author and screenwriter Sidney Howard. The couple had four children including actor Tony Goldwyn and studio executive John Goldwyn. They divorced in 1968 and he then married Peggy Elliot, with whom he had two children, including Liz Goldwyn. His second marriage also ended in divorce. At the time of his death he was married to his third wife, Patricia Strawn.
John Marcellus Huston (August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor, and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The African Queen (1951), The Misfits (1961), Fat City (1972), The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and Prizzi's Honor (1985).
In his early years, Huston studied and worked as a fine art painter in Paris. He explored the visual aspects of his films throughout his career, sketching each scene on paper beforehand, then carefully framing his characters during the shooting. While most directors rely on post-production editing to shape their final work, Huston instead created his films while they were being shot, with little editing needed. Some of Huston's films were adaptations of important novels, often depicting an "heroic quest," as in Moby Dick, or The Red Badge of Courage. In many films, different groups of people, while struggling toward a common goal, would become doomed, forming "destructive alliances," giving the films a dramatic and visual tension. Many of his films involved themes such as religion, meaning, truth, freedom, psychology, colonialism, and war.
Huston has been referred to as "a titan", "a rebel", and a "renaissance man" in the Hollywood film industry. Author Ian Freer describes him as "cinema's Ernest Hemingway"—a filmmaker who was "never afraid to tackle tough issues head on." During his 46-year career, Huston received 15 Oscar nominations, winning twice. He directed both his father, Walter Huston, and daughter, Anjelica Huston, to Oscar wins.
Description above from the Wikipedia article John Huston, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
William Wyler (July 1, 1902 – July 27, 1981) was a German-born film director, producer, and screenwriter. Notable works include Ben-Hur (1959), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), and Mrs. Miniver (1942), all which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture. He earned his first Oscar nomination for directing Dodsworth in 1936, sparking a 20-year run of almost unbroken greatness.
Film historian Ian Freer calls Wyler a "bona fide perfectionist," whose penchant for retakes and an attempt to hone every last nuance "became the stuff of legend." His ability to direct a string of classic literary adaptations into huge box office and critical successes made him one of Hollywood's most bankable moviemakers during the 1930s and 1940s.
