Myron Selznick — The Youngest Movie Magnate (1920) 🇺🇸

Myron Selznick is just twenty-one

by Frederick James Smith

Myron Selznick is just twenty-one. Which makes him by long odds the youngest magnate in the screen world. While other young men of his age are freshmen and sophomores at college, with their business debut some years ahead, Selznick is guiding every detail of the destinies of a big producing organization. which, incidentally, he created himself.

Because the young Mr. Selznick is a son of Lewis J. Selznick, it is commonly assumed that he is but a juvenile figurehead for his father. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Myron Selznick really directs every item of the production of Selznick Pictures. In other words, the making of Olive Thomas, Elaine Hammerstein, Louise Huff, William Faversham, Eugene O’Brien and Owen Moore productions. “And I am going to take on two or three more stars this year,” he adds.

It is interesting to note the daily routine of the youthful Myron Selznick.

At 10 o’clock he arrives by motor at his office in the Selznick Fort Lee studios.

Between ten and one o’clock he goes over the multitude of details of his production, scenario and business departments. He is here, there and everywhere; one moment conferring with a director on a stage, at another checking up production charts with a chief of that department.

At one o’clock he has lunch in his office.

Until six o’clock he handles further details.

At six o’clock he usually motors to his New York offices to glance over any problems that may arise there.

Then he goes home, most of the time with two or three scenarios under his arm.

He admits that he is so occupied with business all week that he finds little time to devote to scenario reading. He usually goes to the Gedney Farms in Westchester County over the week-end and there reads script after script.

It is interesting to note that Myron Selznick has more producing units working under his personal direction than any other man in the whole film field. Today his activities keep four studios in and near New York busy: the Selznick, the old Biograph, the Peerless and the Solax studios. Until recently he was producing on the coast also. But he came to the conclusion that the cross-country distance prevented intelligent and adequate team work.

Myron Selznick exhibits no particular pride over his achievements. He is a son of his father, that’s all. And his father is, as we have just related, Lewis J. Selznick, one of the screen world’s foremost sales organizers.

“I heard photoplays talked all my life,” smiles Myron Selznick. “I guess my father has marketed some five hundred pictures. What was more natural than that I should enter the game? My dad wanted me to go to college and I did — to Columbia for two months. But I couldn’t contain my restlessness any longer and I told my father I wanted him to give me a chance.

“He smiled — and I guess he decided to cure me. At least he put me to work the following morning in the film-examining room at World Film. The work-day began at seven a. m. and I received five dollars a week. It was a strenuous job, for it meant carefully looking over film in a dark room, watching for flaws and defects. At the end of a week I could hardly move my fingers, they had been so cut by film.

“I stuck,” laughed Myron. (Which rather sums up his character.) “Father moved me thru his purchasing and advertising departments. ‘You’ll learn the whole game,’ he grimly told me.

“Then business changes came about and father disposed of his interests. The post of managing Norma Talmadge’s studio was offered me. That instilled an idea. I wanted to carry on the name of Selznick. I resolved to produce and I signed Olive Thomas. That’s all, for I have been steadily adding stars ever since.

“Please make it clear that I direct Selznick Pictures. Dad hasn’t been over to our studios twice in a year. True, I frequently talk over things at night with him, as is quite natural, but I manage my own companies in every sense of the word.

“My methods?” Myron Selznick paused. “Nothing more or less than to make entertaining photoplays and to build up and maintain the best organization with that end in view.”

Here we pause to note the youthful atmosphere of camaraderie about the Selznick studios. Nearly every one — from star to carpenter — is young. “I believe in youth,” says Myron, whose twenty-second birthday comes next October.

“We’re one big family and there is no red tape about our organization,” he went on. “Anyone can get to see me at any time. That’s why I have my office in my studio rather than in Times Square. We’re all working together, and I’m here to be seen.”

All of which is true. For instance, they have a baseball team at the studio and Myron plays short-stop upon it. There is nothing up-diamond about him, for chauffeurs and electricians who play with him talk to him forcibly and naturally about his playing without thinking of him as their employer. It’s all part of the spirit of the Selznick studios.

“I’ve made something like fifty productions so far,” Myron Selznick concluded. “I know their faults. But I’m learning and I think we are steadily working ahead. Anyway, it’s great fun!”

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Because the young Myron Selznick is a son of Lewis J. Selznick, it is commonly assumed that he is but a juvenile figurehead for his father. Nothing could be further from the truth. Myron Selznick really directs every item of the production of Selznick Pictures

Photo by: Lumière

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Collection: Motion Picture Classic Magazine, September 1920