Selznick

The Man Who Produced Gone With the Wind

By: Bob Thomas

Narrated by: Carl Reiner

In the days when Hollywood films were cranked out the way Detroit turned out automobiles, one man clung to the belief that a motion picture was like a painting created and signed by a single artist. True to his belief, in 1939 David O. Selznick at age 37 released Gone with the Wind to thunderous accolades. It was the triumph and the tragedy of his life. As a producer he had reached the pinnacle of success; there was nowhere else to go ...

In this biography, Thomas reveals the stormy career of a shrewd, self-confident intellectual whiz kid who today personifies the image of a studio head during the golden age of movies. It tells of the women Selznick loved and the fortunes he amassed and lost; of the great stars he made and the magnificent motion pictures he created - the man who was an entreprenurial genius, an author of endless memos, a compulsive gambler, and a driving perfectionist. Here Selznick's life is a kaleidoscopic reflecting Hollywood's golden era when motion pictures and their stars were glamourous and the word "damn" violated the production code.

For nearly seven decades writing for the AP, Bob Thomas, the gentlemanly, soft-spoken reporter with the wry sense of humor, enjoyed access to the stars that modern journalists rarely attain. Thomas possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of the industry as well as a filing system at his home that rivaled that of any news bureau. At the time of his death in 2014, he had penned nearly three dozen biographies and was considered the last link to the golden age of motion pictures.

©2001 Bob Thomas (P)2014 Phoenix