Samuel Goldfish, after losing a power struggle in the newly formed Famous Players-Lasky merger, teamed up with the Selwyn Brothers (Edgar and Archibald), who were broadway producers to form Goldwyn Pictures Corp. in December of 1916.

With Goldfish, who soon afterwards changed his name to Goldwyn, as president, the company began organizing and expanding.

Goldwyn acquired a studio in Culver City that had been built by Thomas Ince and set up their own distribtion company, Goldwyn Distributing opening several distributing offices.

Goldwyn signed numerous actors and directors, and had started acquiring several theaters, but in 1922, battles in the boardroom left Samuel Goldwyn so frustrated that he resigned forming an independent company without any partners.

Besides leaving the company with his name, Samuel Goldwyn also left his logo that he had developed that would later evolve into a logo of major recognition. Shown on the right is an early shot of Leo the lion from the 1921 Will Rogers hit Boys Will Be Boys.

F. J. Godsol became president but didn't have the expertise to manage the company and it began a downward spiral. By late 1923, Goldwyn Pictures was in trouble.

One negotiation that became a benefit for Goldwyn; Randolph Hearst, the advertising mogul, became disgruntled with Paramount and moved Cosmopolitan Productions to Goldwyn Studios. Godsol took advantage of that association and created Goldwyn-Cosmopolitan Distributing.

Lee Scubert, who owned a large number of theaters, happened to be a board member of Goldwyn Pictures ...AND a board member of Loew's Inc. Scubert knew that Loew's had acquired Metro to provide films for their chain of theaters but was in need of more production.

Goldwyn Pictures was acquired in 1924 by Loew, Inc to form Metro-Goldwyn Pictures