Moving Pictures

12

Movie producer Thomas Silverfish is directly modelled on movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn, whose real name was Samuel Gelbfisch, and who spent a short time as Samuel Goldfish before changing his name a second time to Goldwyn.

Goldwyn was responsible for a whole sequence of malapropisms known collectively as Goldwynisms, some of which are so well known now as to have passed into the common parlance. A number of Goldwyn quips are repeated (in one form or another) by Silverfish throughout the book (“you’ll never work in this town again”, “include me out”, “a verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on”, etc.).