Lewis J. Selznick (May 2, 1870 or 1869 – January 25, 1933) was an American producer in the early years of the film industry. After initial involvement with World Film at Fort Lee, New Jersey, he established Selznick Pictures in California. Biography Selznick was born in 1870 in Anyksciai, Kovno Governorate, Russian Empire (now in Lithuania), to Ida (Ringer) and Joseph Zeleznick of a poor Jewish family. Later in his life he claimed that he was born in Kyiv (now in Ukraine). Selznick arrived in the United States in 1888 and became a naturalized citizen on September 29, 1894. He settled in Pittsburgh and built up a successful jewelry retail business. In 1896, he married Florence "Flossie" Sachs. They had three sons: Howard Selznick (1897–1980), who suffered some undiagnosed mental disability; Myron Selznick (1898–1944), who worked as a producer and studio executive before establishing a talent agency; and David O. Selznick (1902–1965), a Hollywood filmmaker who produced Gone with the Wind (1939). A daughter, Ruth, was born in 1904 but died before the age of one. Retaining his jewelry stores in the Pittsburgh area, Selznick moved his family to Brooklyn in 1903. He opened a large jewelry store, the Knickerbocker, at Sixth Avenue and 23rd Street in Manhattan, but by 1907 he had left the business. The family surname changed from Seleznick to Selznick sometime in 1908 or 1909. 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. In the year 1910 or 1911, the family moved to Manhattan, where Selznick worked as a patent promoter and sold electrical supplies. Through an old acquaintance from Pittsburgh, Selznick became involved with the Universal Film Manufacturing Company in 1913 but was soon dismissed by Carl Laemmle. In February 1914, he and Chicago mail-order magnate Arthur Spiegel organized the World Film Corporation, a distributor of independently produced films located in Fort Lee, New Jersey, with general offices in New York City. Company directors included Jules Brulatour, Briton N. Busch (secretary and treasurer), Van Horn Ely (president), Lee Shubert, and Selznick (vice president and general manager). Film historian David Thomson describes World Film as "a loose gathering of companies and interests engaged in producing films, with a nationwide system of exchanges and theaters where they could be shown". Within a year the company showed a profit of $329,000 — more than