Producer David Selznick, the Last Direct Link to Legendary Hollywood Family, Dies at 88

Producer Daniel Selznick, the last direct link to one of Hollywood’s founding families, died Aug. 1 at the Motion Picture & Television Fund’s Country Home campus in the Woodland Hills area of Los Angeles.

Selznick grew up in Beverly Hills as showbiz royalty. He was the younger of two sons of “Gone With the Wind” producer David O. Selznick and stage producer Irene Mayer Selznick. His grandfather was Louis B. Mayer, the gregarious Canadian immigrant who led Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to the pinnacle of art and commerce during Hollywood’s 1930s and ’40s Golden Age. By the time Daniel Selznick was a young teenager, his parents had divorced and his father was remarried to Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Jones.

In his own career, Selznick worked as a champion of the arts and to preserve his family’s legacy. Daniel Selznick served as a production executive at Universal Studios for four years. He produced the Peabody-winning 1988 documentary “The Making of a Legend: ‘Gone With the Wind” alongside his older brother, Jeffrey Selznick. Jeffrey Selznick was three years older than his brother and died in 1997.

As a producer, Daniel Selznick’s credits include the 1983 TV miniseries “Blood Feud,” directed by Mike Newell and starring Robert Blake as Jimmy Hoffa and Cotter Smith as Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. He also produced the 1987 miniseries “Hoover vs. the Kennedys,” the 1977 TV movie thriller “Night Drive,” starring Valerie Harper, and the 1981 docu-drama “Reagan’s Way: Pathway to the Presidency.”

Selznick served as the longtime director of the Louis B. Mayer Foundation and resident of the MPTF’s Country Home. He helped oversee the construction of the facility’s Louis B. Mayer Theater in 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,” the MPTF noted. Selznick penned a memoir, “Walking With Kings,” recounting his early years as “a young prince of Hollywood” that is set for publication next year by Alfred Knopf.

Selznick was married three times and left no immediate survivors, according to the MPTF.

The family requests that donations be made in Selznick’s memory to the MPTF.