Daniel Mayer Selznick, the last instant member of a family who produced some of Hollywood’s most iconic films, died Thursday of natural causes. He was 88.
Selznick died at the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, where he was “a longtime and much-loved resident,” according to a statement from the Motion Picture & Television Fund on Friday.
Selznick was the son of David O. Selznick, who produced “Gone with the Wind” when his son was 3; and Irene Mayer Selznick, a Broadway producer and daughter of movie magnate Louis B. Mayer.
Raised in Beverly Hills, Selznick graduated from Harvard University and later studied at Brandeis University and the University of Geneva. He also pursued a career in entertainment, holding a production manager role at Universal Studios for four years. He and his older brother Jeffrey, who died in 1997, produced a documentary called “The Making of a Legend: ‘Gone with the Wind'” about their father’s greatest work.
Selznick also produced several television films and miniseries and served as director of a foundation in his grandfather’s memory. In his final years, he wrote a memoir, “Walking with Kings,” about coming of age in one of Hollywood’s first families. The book will be published next year by Alfred Knopf, according to the statement.
At the Motion Picture Country Home, where Selznick helped build a theater named for his grandfather, he will be remembered for “his intelligence, charm, sweetness and generosity,” the statement said.
Selznick, who was married three times, left no immediate survivors or close family members.