Samuel Goldwyn Jr, a film producer and executive and son of movie pioneer Samuel Goldwyn, died Friday in Los Angeles. He was 88. The New York Times reported that Goldwyn’s son John said he died of congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The founder of the Samuel Goldwyn Company earned an Emmy and a Best Picture Oscar nom during a producing career that spanned 65 years through 2013’s The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty; his father producer the original in 1947.
Goldwyn’s credits include 2003’s Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World, which scooped 10 Oscar nominations including Best Picture. He also was a producer on such films as The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn (1960), Mystic Pizza (1985), The Preacher’s Wife (1996) and Tortilla Soup (2001). One of his rare TV credits was producing the 60th Academy Awards in 1988, for which he was rewarded with an Emmy.
Born September 7, 1926, in Los Angeles to Goldwyn and actress Frances Howard, he worked as a theatrical producer in London after serving in World War II and then for CBS News legend Edward R. Murrow back in the States. He founded the Samuel Goldwyn Company in 1979 and later launched indie producer-distributor Samuel Goldwyn Films. Goldwyn also owned exhibitor chain Landmark Theatres for a while during the 1990s. Goldwyn also was a major supporter of the Motion Picture and Television Fund. Through a family foundation, he built a children’s day care center and a behavioral health center at the Woodland Hills facility.
Married and divorced twice, his survivors include sons John, a film and producer whose credits include Dexter and Gracepoint, and Tony, an actor who plays the American president on ABC’s Scandal; two other sons, Francis and Peter; daughters Catherine Goldwyn and Elizabeth Goldwyn; and 10 grandchildren.
Erik Pedersen
