Robert Riskin
| Robert Riskin | |
|---|---|
| Born |
March 30, 1897 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Died | September 20, 1955 (aged 58) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Spouse(s) | Fay Wray (m. 1942) |
| Awards |
Best Adapted Screenplay 1934, It Happened One Night |
Robert Riskin (March 30, 1897 – September 20, 1955) was an American Academy Award-winning screenwriter and playwright, best known for his collaborations with director-producer Frank Capra.
Robert Riskin was born on New York City's Lower East side to Jewish parents, Bessie and Jakob, who had emigrated from Czarist Russia to escape conscription. He and his two brothers and two sisters grew up speaking Yiddish. An enthusiast of the vaudeville stage, the teen-age Riskin took every opportunity to sneak into the theatre and catch the shows. He was a particular fan of the comedians who performed there and he habitually transcribed their jokes into a notebook he carried with him. While still a teen-ager, Riskin took a job with a shirt-manufacturing firm, Heidenheim and Levy. The partners of this firm had a sideline business, investing in the new film industry. They sent the seventeen-year-old Riskin to Florida to run a production company for them. Riskin turned out one- and two-reel films until his enlistment in the Army during World War I.
At the end of the war Riskin returned to New York City where in partnership with a friend, he found some success in producing plays for Broadway. Riskin began his career as a playwright, writing for many local New York City playhouses. Two of his plays, Bless You, Sister and Many a Slip, had successful runs. Riskin continued his Broadway career until the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression caused many theatres to close.
Motion pictures had just adopted sound, and writers were needed who could write dialogue and were experienced with stage work. Riskin recognized he had the credentials and seized the opportunity by relocating to Hollywood. He moved to Hollywood in 1931 after Columbia Pictures bought the screen rights to several of his plays. His first collaboration with director Frank Capra was the Barbara Stanwyck vehicle The Miracle Woman (1931).
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