After initial involvement with World Film at Fort Lee, New Jersey, he established Selznick Pictures in California.

Selznick was born in 1870 in Anyksciai,[2] Kovno Governorate, Russian Empire (now in Lithuania),[3] to Ida (Ringer) and Joseph Zeleznick of a poor Jewish family.

[2]: 8–9  He opened a large jewelry store,[3] the Knickerbocker, at Sixth Avenue and 23rd Street in Manhattan, but by 1907 he had left the business.

During this period, the family resided at 530 44th Street, a 1908 limestone/brownstone-clad Renaissance Revival row house in Brooklyn's Sunset Park district.

[5] In the year 1910 or 1911, the family moved to Manhattan, where Selznick worked as a patent promoter and sold electrical supplies.

[2]: 10–11 Through an old acquaintance from Pittsburgh, Selznick became involved with the Universal Film Manufacturing Company in 1913[2]: 13  but was soon dismissed by Carl Laemmle.

[6] Selznick continued in film on the East Coast until 1920 when he moved to Hollywood, where he teamed up with Zukor and Jesse L. Lasky.

Selznick died at his home in Los Angeles on January 25, 1933, from a heart attack,[14] with his wife and sons at his bedside.