Samuel Goldwyn

Samuel Goldwyn, born Szmuel Gelbfisz in Warsaw, produced the first major American motion picture and founded or co-founded several studios; the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer name is half his. He is also the twentieth century’s most productive magnet for invented quotations, and the reason is documented rather than mysterious. Wikipedia ↗ states it plainly: “Goldwynisms were the inventions of humorists and newspaper editors,” and “many famous Goldwynisms predate Goldwyn’s career.” He was amused at first and irritated later. Boller and George quote his own final verdict on the genre: “None of them are true. They’re all made up by a bunch of comedians and pinned on me.”