Daniel Selznick, producer who hailed from Hollywood royalty, dies at 88

Daniel Mayer Selznick, the last immediate member of a family that 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 dearly beloved resident,” according to a statement issued Friday by the Motion Picture & Television Fund.

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 the daughter of the 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 too made a career in entertainment, holding a production executive 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 movies 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,” that recounted 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 after 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 surviving close family members.