[9] To make films under the new system, Selznick recruited prize behind-the-camera personnel, such as director George Cukor and producer/director Merian C. Cooper, and gave producer Pandro S. Berman, aged twenty-six, increasingly important projects.

[10] Selznick discovered and signed a young actress who was quickly counted as one of the studio's big stars, Katharine Hepburn.

[11] Selznick spent a mere fifteen months as RKO production chief, resigning over a dispute with new corporate president Merlin Aylesworth concerning creative control.

[12] One of his last acts at RKO was to approve a screen test for a thirty-three-year-old, balding Broadway song-and-dance man named Fred Astaire.

[14] Selznick's tenure was widely considered masterful: In 1931, before he arrived, the studio had produced forty-two features for $16 million in total budgets.

[15] He backed several major successes, including A Bill of Divorcement (1932), with Cukor directing Hepburn's debut, and the monumental King Kong (1933)—largely Merian Cooper's brainchild, brought to life by the astonishing special effects work of Willis H.

Selznick's unit output included the all-star cast movie Dinner at Eight (1933), David Copperfield (1935), Anna Karenina (1935), and A Tale of Two Cities (1935).

When Selznick later announced his departure from MGM, Garbo asked him to stay, offering to allow him the exclusive right to produce her films.

In 1935 he realized that goal by leasing RKO's Culver City studios and back lot, forming Selznick International Pictures, and distributing his films through United Artists.

His successes continued with classics such as The Garden of Allah (1936), The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), A Star Is Born (1937), Nothing Sacred (1937), The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938), The Young in Heart (1938), Made for Each Other (1939), Intermezzo (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939), which remains the highest-grossing film of all time (adjusted for inflation).

The following year he produced his second Best Picture Oscar winner, Rebecca (1940), the first Hollywood production of British director Alfred Hitchcock.

A major effort to was Duel in the Sun (1946), which featured future wife Jennifer Jones in the role of the primary character Pearl.

With a huge budget, the film is known for causing moral upheaval[citation needed] because of the then risqué script written by Selznick.

In 1930, Selznick married Mayer and after living in a series of rented houses they moved into an estate in Beverly Hills, California.

Daniel, who died in August 2024, would serve as an executive at Universal Pictures for four years and also produced the television mini-series Blood Feud and Hoover vs.

[23] Selznick was an amphetamine user, and often dictated long, rambling memos to his directors, writers, investors, staff and stars.

Selznick died on June 22, 1965, at age 63 following several heart attacks, and was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.