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Gary W. Goldstein

American film producer

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ16729344
Source-derived summary

Gary Wolff Goldstein (born December 24, 1952) is an American author, speaker, consultant and Hollywood film producer, best known for producing Pretty Woman, Under Siege, and The Mothman Prophecies and generating over a billion dollars in worldwide revenue.

He is the author of Conquering Hollywood: The Screenwriter’s Blueprint For Career Success, a successfully funded Kickstarter project, that serves as a road map for transforming talent as a writer into a successful career as a Hollywood screenwriter.

Early life

Goldstein was born in Wantagh, New York and grew up in San Francisco, where he attended Lowell High School, a public magnet school. He went on to receive his undergraduate degree from University of California, Berkeley, followed by a JD at Golden Gate University School of Law.

Career

Early career

As an A&R rep for Columbia Records while still an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, Gary was their youngest music exec at the time. Also, while an undergrad, Goldstein produced all the music concerts and cabarets for the Berkeley campus, featuring artists such as Joni Mitchell, The Steve Miller Band, Chuck Berry, Phil Ochs and others. In 1981, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in Hollywood as a literary manager and film producer.

Mainstream breakthrough

In 1983, after his initial film venture lost $80,000 on its opening weekend, Goldstein met 23-year-old Jonathan Lawton, who was earning a living as a software beta tester and programmer. Goldstein hired Lawton to set-up his Apple MacIntosh computer, which had to be programmed from scratch. For three weeks, Lawton visited Goldstein's Hollywood office and programmed his computer, while Goldstein shared with Lawton the ins and outs of his work as a literary manager.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Gary W. Goldstein” as american film producer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1952, 1981, 1983—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1952-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Gary, Goldstein and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as american film producer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16729344. VIAF identifies the subject as 70223089. The Library of Congress control number is n80036172. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1952, 1981 and 1983.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Gary W. Goldstein”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Gary W. Goldstein primary sources, Gary W. Goldstein archive and Gary research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Gary W. Goldstein”?
  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Gary W. Goldstein” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.