Hailed as a champion of the independent film movement, Samuel Goldwyn Jr. passed away on Friday, January 9, 2014 at the age of 88. According to his son, Peter, the cause of death was heart failure.
Goldwyn was born to Hollywood movie royalty. His father was mogul Samuel Goldwyn Sr., his mother was actress Frances Howard. After his father’s death in 1974, Goldwyn Jr. founded The Samuel Goldwyn company, one of the largest producers of independent films. The company was behind films such as Mystic Pizza and Cotton Comes to Harlem. In 2014 he was nominated for an Oscar for the film Master and Commander. In 1988 he won an Emmy for his production of the 60th Annual Academy Awards. His most recent production was the film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.
The film producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr, who has died aged 88, shared with his father a name and a career in Hollywood, but he struck out on his own in favouring cerebral subjects, encouraging independent film-making and backing new directors, such as Ang Lee and Anthony Minghella.
He was born in Los Angeles, the son of the man originally known as Szmuel Gelbfisz and his second wife, Frances (nee Howard). Sam Sr was, in many ways, the man who invented Hollywood: with his brother-in-law, Jesse L Lasky, he had made the first film produced there, The Squaw Man (1913), and used his own money to make such box-office hits as Guys and Dolls (1955).
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Goldwyn is survived his wife, Patricia, three sons (John, Francis, and Tony) and a daughter, Catherine from his marriage to Jennifer Howard, a son, Peter, and daughter, Elizabeth, from his marriage to Peggy Elliott.
