I was yesterday years old when I learned this bit of Hollywood trivia. I got it from the book, Hollywood: Stars and Starlets, Tycoons and Flesh-Peddlers, Moviemakers and Moneymakers, Frauds and Geniuses, Hopefuls and Has-Beens, Great Lovers and Sex Symbols by Garson Kanin. For a long time, I have known there was a film producer named Samuel Goldwyn and a film company Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM). Thus, I always assumed that the G in MGM was Samuel Goldwyn, but that is not the case, well, not really. The following story is the way Garson Kanin tells it, as he heard it from Goldwyn himself and as I remember it from reading it yesterday. Some of the details differ from what I just read on Wikipedia, but I think the Kanin/Goldwyn version is more colorful.
Samuel Goldwyn was born in Warsaw as Szmuel Gelbfisz, an orphan he came to America by way of Canada to bypass American immigration quotas for Europe. He Americanized his name to Samuel Goldfish and became an apprentice at a company that made gloves, but soon realized that the job he wanted was salesman, as salesmen made good money, wore nice clothes, and got to travel. He asked the owner of the glove company to make him a salesman, but the owner refused as he was too young and didn't speak English well enough. The young Samuel Goldfish went to night school to improve his English, and eventually talked his boss into making him a salesman for the worst territory in the company's market. He was a natural salesman and turned that worst territory into the most lucrative, and soon was made head of sales. He moved to New York and continued to work in sales, but he knew he want to have a business of his own. He decided that he should go into a new business. That way his lack of experience and lack of money would be less of a detriment.
Eventually, Samuel Goldfish settled on motion pictures and formed a partnership with his his brother-in-law Jesse L. Lasky, Cecil B. DeMille, and Arthur Friend to produce feature-length motion pictures. A couple of years later he partnered with Edgar and Archibald Selwyn form Goldwyn Pictures, taking the name Goldwyn from a combination of the two surnames, Goldfish and Selwyn. Goldwyn was the only way it worked; the other way, it would be Selfish. Samuel Goldfish liked the name Goldwyn, as it sounded more American, and to American ears, Goldfish was a somewhat silly name. A couple years later he legally changed his name to Samuel Goldwyn. Now, Archie Selwyn was good at raising money, and Goldwyn Pictures prospered. However, more money also meant more partners, and Samuel Goldwyn wanted to call the shots, so he left to form Samuel Goldwyn Productions. He had to sue Goldwyn Pictures for the right to use the name Samuel Goldwyn Productions. After a year-long legal battle, the judge granted him the right to use Samuel Goldwyn Presents, but had to include in the same size type a disclaimer that Samuel Goldwyn Productions was not affiliated with Goldwyn Pictures. At about the same time, Metro Pictures merged with Goldwyn Pictures and Louis B. Mayer Pictures to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, MGM. This allowed Samuel Goldwyn to operate as Samuel Goldwyn Productions without the disclaimer, since Goldwyn Pictures had ceased to exist as its own entity.
