Fay Kanin
Encyclopedia
Fay Kanin is an American screenwriter, playwright and producer. Kanin was President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1979 to 1983.
starring Lunt and Fontaine.
who thought she was much too young to hire; but her next interview was with story editor Bob Sparks at RKO who sent her to producer Al Lewis, who then hired her as a story editor at $75 a week. RKO released Al Lewis, but luckily Sparks kept her on as a script reader, reading scripts and writing one-page summaries, but for $25 a week. Nonetheless, Kanin proceeded to teach herself everything she could about the movie industry at RKO's expense. During the lunch hour she would take to anyone she happened to find – whether they were art directors, editors, or cinematographers.
's Bury the Dead
, she came to the attention of Michael Kanin, who had just been hired as a writer in the B unit. Michael was trained as an artist and had turned to commercial art and painting scenery for burlesque houses to help support his parents during the Depression. They were introduced by a mutual friend, and Michael practically asked Kanin to marry him right then and there, but it took her a little while to come around to the idea.
The Kanins rented a house in Malibu for their honeymoon, and after buying an A.J. Liebling New Yorker
short story about a boarding house for boxers, they spent the next six months writing the adaptation, Sunday Punch. They knew they were on the track to a partnership when MGM bought the screenplay.
Michael took a job working with Ring Lardner Jr.
to work on the Tracy
/ Hepburn
project Woman of the Year
, and Kanin took the time to write a play, Goodbye My Fancy, about a female congressional representative renewing past loves. It would be a Broadway smash starring Madeleine Carroll
, Conrad Nagel
, and Shirley Booth
, and would eventually be filmed by Vincent Sherman
in 1951 with Joan Crawford
and Robert Young
.
During World War II, Kanin came up with an idea to promote women's participation in the war effort, and presented the idea for a Woman's Angle radio show to the heads of NBC Radio for which Kanin would write the scripts and do the network commentary. Along those lines, she contributed to the story Blondie For Victory
, one of the low-budget series based on the popular comic strip, where Blondie
organizes Housewives of America to perform homefront wartime duties much to the dismay of Dagwood
. Kanin even made an appearance as an actor in A Double Life
(1947), co-written by her brother-in-law Garson Kanin
and his wife Ruth Gordon
.
in 1952 in which Richard Widmark
becomes a good father and falls in love with Joanne Dru
, the Elizabeth Taylor
film Rhapsody in 1954 and The Opposite Sex
in 1956, a musical remake of The Women. But it would be the Oscar-winning script for Teacher's Pet
in 1958 for which they would be best remembered; a film about a self-made newspaper editor Clark Gable
who has a love-hate relationship with journalism teacher Doris Day
. The film almost did not get made since the Kanins were not under any studio contract, and having shopped the script around without attracting any interest, it was only after a rewrite inspired by Garson Kanin
's Born Yesterday
that producer Bill Perlberg and director George Seaton
purchased it.
.
insisted that MGM hired the couple, needing them for the film Rhapsody in 1953.
for the Broadway play of the same name
; with a further adaptation for the screen, in Martin Ritt
s The Outrage
.
, and a younger male lawyer. At first Kanin was put off by the lack of an immediate reaction from an audience, but once she realized that more people had seen it in one night than would have ever seen it in theaters if it played for a year, she was hooked and would write five more films for television.
Tell Me Where it Hurts started from a small newspaper article about a group of women in Queens
who got together to just talk, and that little film starring Maureen Stapleton
would win two Emmys
. The following year, she wrote and co-produced Hustling based on Gail Sheehy
's non-fiction book. The film was about a prostitute recounting her life to a reporter, and would star Jill Clayburgh
and Lee Remick
. For weeks Kanin would interview arrested working girls at the Midtown North police station, and after the film aired, she even received letters complimenting her on how fairly she had treated them.
The television movie Friendly Fire
would be seen by an estimated sixty million people in 1979. Written and co-produced by Kanin, it starred Carol Burnett
as a mother who challenges the military's "official story" of how her son died in Vietnam. The non-fiction book by C. D. B. Bryan was about the Mullen family and their discovery that their son had been accidentally killed by American troops. Kanin spent five months secluded with Bryan's research tapes adapting the book, and Friendly Fire would win the Emmy for Best Outstanding Drama that year. In 1980 Kanin and producer of Hustling Lillian Gallo formed a production company which produced Fun and Games for Valerie Harper
, a tale of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the workplace. For Norman Lear
, Kanin wrote Heartsounds
, which starred Mary Tyler Moore
and James Garner
as a couple coping with heart disease.
is a portrait of a largely African-American burlesque house in Chicago in the Thirties. Directed by Hal Prince
with choreography by Lester Wilson
, the cast included Ben Vereen
as a song-and-dance man, Stubby Kaye
as a slapstick comic, and Leilani Jones
as a stripper named Satin. The production was a disaster; the show lost its entire $4.75 million investment, and Prince and three other members of the creative team were suspended by the Dramatists Guild of America
for signing a "substandard" contract.
in 1979, and would serve four terms until 1983. She was its second female president, following in the footsteps of earlier president Bette Davis
, who left after only one month. She has also served as the president of the Screen Branch of the Writers Guild of America
and as Chair of the National Film Preservation Board
of the Library of Congress
, an officer of the Writers Guild Foundation, a member of the Board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute
. She was the vice president of the Academy's 1999–2000 Board of Trustees, and a member of the steering committee of the Caucus for Producers, Writers and Directors, which formed in 1974, and of the National Film Preservation Board
in Washington, D.C.
Fay Kanin is on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Board of Governors 2007–2008.
Biography
Born Fay Mitchell to Bessie Kaiser Mitchell and David Mitchell in New York City, she was raised in Elmira, New York, where she won the New York State Spelling Championship at twelve and was presented with a silver cup by then Governor Franklin Roosevelt. She was encouraged to write for money by supplying small items to the Elmira Star Gazette. In high school she wrote and produced a children's radio show; then on full scholarship, she attended the private, all-female Elmira College where she divided her studies between writing and acting as well as editing the yearbook. Her mother would take her to visit Kanin's grandmother who lived in the Bronx, and it was there that she became devoted to the theater when she saw a matinée of Idiot's DelightIdiot's Delight (play)
Idiot's Delight is a 1936 play written by American playwright Robert E. Sherwood. The original Broadway production was presented by The Theatre Guild and starred Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne. It was awarded the 1936 Pulitzer Prize for drama, the first of three that Sherwood received...
starring Lunt and Fontaine.
Hollywood
Kanin longed to move to Los Angeles to get into pictures and her parents indulged her. Her father moved to California first to secure a job, then she and her mother packed everything and followed by train. Kanin spent her senior year at University of Southern California where she became active in college radio. After graduating with a bachelor's degree, she wangled an interview with Sam MarxSam Marx
Samuel Marx, born Simon Marx , was the husband of Minnie Marx, and father of the Marx Brothers.He was born in Mertzwiller, Alsace, France in 1859, and he died on May 10, 1933 in Los Angeles, California. He met Minnie in New York where he was working as a dance teacher. They married in 1884 and had...
who thought she was much too young to hire; but her next interview was with story editor Bob Sparks at RKO who sent her to producer Al Lewis, who then hired her as a story editor at $75 a week. RKO released Al Lewis, but luckily Sparks kept her on as a script reader, reading scripts and writing one-page summaries, but for $25 a week. Nonetheless, Kanin proceeded to teach herself everything she could about the movie industry at RKO's expense. During the lunch hour she would take to anyone she happened to find – whether they were art directors, editors, or cinematographers.
Michael Kanin
There was a small theater at the studio where contract players would put on plays. While Kanin was acting in Irwin ShawIrwin Shaw
Irwin Shaw was a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best-known for his novel, The Young Lions about the fate of three soldiers during World War II that was made into a film starring Marlon...
's Bury the Dead
Bury the Dead
Bury the Dead is an expressionist anti-war drama by the American playwright Irwin Shaw. It dramatises the refusal of six dead soldiers during an unspecified war—who represent a cross-section of American society—to be buried...
, she came to the attention of Michael Kanin, who had just been hired as a writer in the B unit. Michael was trained as an artist and had turned to commercial art and painting scenery for burlesque houses to help support his parents during the Depression. They were introduced by a mutual friend, and Michael practically asked Kanin to marry him right then and there, but it took her a little while to come around to the idea.
The Kanins rented a house in Malibu for their honeymoon, and after buying an A.J. Liebling New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
short story about a boarding house for boxers, they spent the next six months writing the adaptation, Sunday Punch. They knew they were on the track to a partnership when MGM bought the screenplay.
"We would make a story outline together with rather detailed descriptions of the scenes. Then we divided up the writing, each taking the scenes we felt strongly about. Then one or the other of us would put it all together into a single draft. We did find a common voice, though we had different strengths. As an artist, Michael brought a great visual sense to the process. I was a people person who loved the characters and the dialogue. Through the collaboration, we learned a lot from each other and about each other. But the time came when I felt as if we were together 48 hours a day. Writing with someone else always requires some degree of compromise, as does marriage. When it came down to the question of which would survive, the marriage or the writing partnership, it was a pretty easy decision. But I remember that it was a challenge convincing the powers that be that we had been successful writers individually and would be again. We were hyphenated in people's minds: Fay-and-Michael Kanin. To again become Fay Kanin and Michael Kanin took some doing."
Michael took a job working with Ring Lardner Jr.
Ring Lardner Jr.
Ringgold Wilmer "Ring" Lardner, Jr. was an American journalist and screenwriter blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios during the Red Scare of the late 1940s and 1950s.-Early life:...
to work on the Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
/ Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn
Audrey Hepburn was a British actress and humanitarian. Although modest about her acting ability, Hepburn remains one of the world's most famous actresses of all time, remembered as a film and fashion icon of the twentieth century...
project Woman of the Year
Woman of the Year
Woman of the Year is a romantic comedy film. The movie is about an emancipated woman, chosen "Woman of the Year", and her colleague-turned-husband and their efforts to negotiate a path to marital bliss....
, and Kanin took the time to write a play, Goodbye My Fancy, about a female congressional representative renewing past loves. It would be a Broadway smash starring Madeleine Carroll
Madeleine Carroll
Edith Madeleine Carroll was an English actress, popular in the 1930s and 1940s.-Early life:Carroll was born at 32 Herbert Street in West Bromwich, England. She graduated from the University of Birmingham, England with a B.A. degree...
, Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel
Conrad Nagel was an American screen actor and matinee idol of the silent film era and beyond. He was also a well-known television actor and radio performer.-Biography:...
, and Shirley Booth
Shirley Booth
Shirley Booth was an American actress.Primarily a theatre actress, Booth's Broadway career began in 1925. Her most significant success was as Lola Delaney, in the drama Come Back, Little Sheba, for which she received a Tony Award in 1950...
, and would eventually be filmed by Vincent Sherman
Vincent Sherman
Vincent Sherman was an American director, and actor, who worked in Hollywood. His movies include Mr. Skeffington , Nora Prentiss , and The Young Philadelphians ....
in 1951 with Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
and Robert Young
Robert Young (actor)
Robert George Young was an American television, film, and radio actor, best known for his leading roles as Jim Anderson, the father of Father Knows Best and as physician Marcus Welby in Marcus Welby, M.D. .-Early life:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Young was the son of an Irish immigrant father...
.
During World War II, Kanin came up with an idea to promote women's participation in the war effort, and presented the idea for a Woman's Angle radio show to the heads of NBC Radio for which Kanin would write the scripts and do the network commentary. Along those lines, she contributed to the story Blondie For Victory
Blondie (radio)
Blondie is a radio situation comedy adapted from the long-run Blondie comic strip by Chic Young. The radio program had a long run on several networks from 1939 to 1950....
, one of the low-budget series based on the popular comic strip, where Blondie
Blondie (comic strip)
Blondie is an American comic strip created by cartoonist Chic Young. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, the strip has been published in newspapers since September 8, 1930...
organizes Housewives of America to perform homefront wartime duties much to the dismay of Dagwood
Dagwood Bumstead
Dagwood Bumstead is a main character in comic artist Chic Young's long-running comic strip Blondie. He first appeared sometime prior to 17 February 1933....
. Kanin even made an appearance as an actor in A Double Life
A Double Life
A Double Life is a 1947 film noir which tells the story of an actor whose mind becomes affected by the character he portrays. The movie starred Ronald Colman and Signe Hasso...
(1947), co-written by her brother-in-law Garson Kanin
Garson Kanin
Garson Kanin was a prolific American writer and director of plays and films.-Film and stage career:...
and his wife Ruth Gordon
Ruth Gordon
Ruth Gordon Jones , better known as Ruth Gordon, was an American actress and writer. She was perhaps best known for her film roles such as Minnie Castevet, Rosemary's overly solicitous neighbor in Rosemary's Baby, as the eccentric Maude in Harold and Maude and as the mother of Orville Boggs in the...
.
Teacher's Pet
The Kanin's wrote My Pal GusMy Pal Gus
My Pal Gus is a 1952 comedy-drama film which follows Gus who is the young son of divorced industrialist Dave Jennings . Unable to cope with Gus' mischievous streak, Jennings places the boy in a day-care center. Gus' teacher Lydia Marble manages to curb the boy's prankishness, and along the way...
in 1952 in which Richard Widmark
Richard Widmark
Richard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage and television actor.He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death...
becomes a good father and falls in love with Joanne Dru
Joanne Dru
Joanne Dru was an American film and television actress, known for such films as Red River and All the King's Men.-Career:...
, the Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
film Rhapsody in 1954 and The Opposite Sex
The Opposite Sex
The Opposite Sex is a 1956 musical film.It is a remake of the 1939 classic comedy The Women. Both films are based on Claire Boothe Luce's original play...
in 1956, a musical remake of The Women. But it would be the Oscar-winning script for Teacher's Pet
Teacher's Pet (1958 film)
Teacher's Pet is a 1958 romantic comedy film starring Clark Gable and Doris Day. It was directed by George Seaton and co-starred Gig Young and Mamie Van Doren-Characters:The main characters include:...
in 1958 for which they would be best remembered; a film about a self-made newspaper editor Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
who has a love-hate relationship with journalism teacher Doris Day
Doris Day
Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...
. The film almost did not get made since the Kanins were not under any studio contract, and having shopped the script around without attracting any interest, it was only after a rewrite inspired by Garson Kanin
Garson Kanin
Garson Kanin was a prolific American writer and director of plays and films.-Film and stage career:...
's Born Yesterday
Born Yesterday
Born Yesterday is a play written by Garson Kanin which premiered on Broadway in 1946, starring Judy Holliday as Billie Dawn. The play was adapted intoa successful 1950 film of the same name.- Plot :...
that producer Bill Perlberg and director George Seaton
George Seaton
George Seaton was an American screenwriter, playwright, film director and producer, and theatre director.Born George Stenius in South Bend, Indiana, Seaton moved to Detroit after graduating from college to work as an actor on radio station WXYZ. John L...
purchased it.
Blacklist
It was while the couple were on holiday in Europe that the Kanins learned they had been blacklisted by the HUACHouse Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
.
"What they had against us was that I had taken classes at the Actors Lab in Hollywood where some of the teachers were from the Group Theater and therefore suspect, and we had been members of the Hollywood Writers Mobilization, an organization in support of World War II to which almost all of Hollywood's writers belonged. It was ridiculous, but it was very real, and there was nothing we could do about it. We took a larger mortgage on the house and started writing a play, but we didn't work in films for almost two years."They were unable to find work again until director Charles Vidor
Charles Vidor
Charles Vidor was a film director.-Biography:Born Károly Vidor to a Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary, he served in the Hungarian Army during World War I...
insisted that MGM hired the couple, needing them for the film Rhapsody in 1953.
Rashomon
In 1961 the couple adapted Akira Kurasawa's RashomonRashomon (film)
The bandit's storyTajōmaru, a notorious brigand , claims that he tricked the samurai to step off the mountain trail with him and look at a cache of ancient swords he discovered. In the grove he tied the samurai to a tree, then brought the woman there. She initially tried to defend herself with a...
for the Broadway play of the same name
Rashomon (play)
Though Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon is the most famous instance, Akutagawa's stories have also been adapted for the stage.- Source material :...
; with a further adaptation for the screen, in Martin Ritt
Martin Ritt
Martin Ritt was an American director, actor, and playwright who worked in both film and theater. He was born in New York City.-Early career and influences:...
s The Outrage
The Outrage
The Outrage is a remake of the 1950 Japanese film Rashomon, reformulated as a Western. Like the original Akira Kurosawa film, four people give contradictory accounts of a rape and murder. Kurosawa is credited with the screenplay. It was directed by Martin Ritt and is based on stories by Ryūnosuke...
.
Television
In the early 1970s, Kanin began solo writing in earnest with Heat of Anger, about a strong, older woman lawyer played by Susan HaywardSusan Hayward
Susan Hayward was an American actress.After working as a fashion model in New York, Hayward travelled to Hollywood in 1937 when open auditions were held for the leading role in Gone with the Wind . Although she was not selected, she secured a film contract, and played several small supporting...
, and a younger male lawyer. At first Kanin was put off by the lack of an immediate reaction from an audience, but once she realized that more people had seen it in one night than would have ever seen it in theaters if it played for a year, she was hooked and would write five more films for television.
Tell Me Where it Hurts started from a small newspaper article about a group of women in Queens
Queens
Queens is the easternmost of the five boroughs of New York City. The largest borough in area and the second-largest in population, it is coextensive with Queens County, an administrative division of New York state, in the United States....
who got together to just talk, and that little film starring Maureen Stapleton
Maureen Stapleton
Maureen Stapleton was an American actress in film, theater and television.-Early life:Stapleton was born Lois Maureen Stapleton in Troy, New York, the daughter of Irene and John P. Stapleton, and grew up in a strict Irish American Catholic family...
would win two Emmys
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
. The following year, she wrote and co-produced Hustling based on Gail Sheehy
Gail Sheehy
Gail Sheehy is an American writer and lecturer, most notable for her books on life and the life cycle. She is also a contributor to Vanity Fair magazine....
's non-fiction book. The film was about a prostitute recounting her life to a reporter, and would star Jill Clayburgh
Jill Clayburgh
Jill Clayburgh was an American actress. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles in An Unmarried Woman and Starting Over.-Personal life:...
and Lee Remick
Lee Remick
Lee Ann Remick was an American film and television actress. Among her best-known films are Anatomy of a Murder , Days of Wine and Roses , and The Omen .-Early life:...
. For weeks Kanin would interview arrested working girls at the Midtown North police station, and after the film aired, she even received letters complimenting her on how fairly she had treated them.
The television movie Friendly Fire
Friendly Fire (1979 film)
Friendly Fire is an American television movie first broadcast on the ABC network on April 22, 1979. Watched that night by an estimated 64 million people, Friendly Fire went on to win four Emmy awards, including Outstanding Drama Special....
would be seen by an estimated sixty million people in 1979. Written and co-produced by Kanin, it starred Carol Burnett
Carol Burnett
Carol Creighton Burnett is an American actress, comedian, singer, dancer and writer. Burnett started her career in New York. After becoming a hit on Broadway, she made her television debut...
as a mother who challenges the military's "official story" of how her son died in Vietnam. The non-fiction book by C. D. B. Bryan was about the Mullen family and their discovery that their son had been accidentally killed by American troops. Kanin spent five months secluded with Bryan's research tapes adapting the book, and Friendly Fire would win the Emmy for Best Outstanding Drama that year. In 1980 Kanin and producer of Hustling Lillian Gallo formed a production company which produced Fun and Games for Valerie Harper
Valerie Harper
Valerie Harper is an American actress, known for her role as Rhoda Morgenstern on the 1970s television show The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and for her starring roles on the sitcoms Rhoda and Valerie.-Early life and career:Harper was born at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Suffern, Rockland County,...
, a tale of sexual harassment and gender discrimination in the workplace. For Norman Lear
Norman Lear
Norman Milton Lear is an American television writer and producer who produced such 1970s sitcoms as All in the Family, Sanford and Son, One Day at a Time, The Jeffersons, Good Times and Maude...
, Kanin wrote Heartsounds
Heartsounds
Heartsounds is an autobiographical book written by Martha Weinman Lear and first published in 1980 by Simon and Schuster....
, which starred Mary Tyler Moore
Mary Tyler Moore
Mary Tyler Moore is an American actress, primarily known for her roles in television sitcoms. Moore is best known for The Mary Tyler Moore Show , in which she starred as Mary Richards, a 30-something single woman who worked as a local news producer in Minneapolis, and for her earlier role as...
and James Garner
James Garner
James Garner is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades...
as a couple coping with heart disease.
Grind
In 1975, two Universal Studio producers asked Kanin for a screenplay about a tacky, biracial burlesque theater in 1933 Chicago. Nothing ever came of it. But in 1985 Kanin adapted her unproduced screenplay for the stage. GrindGrind (musical)
Grind is a musical with a book by Fay Kanin, music by Larry Grossman, and lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh. Grind is a portrait of a largely African-American burlesque house in Chicago in the Thirties.The reviews were mixed at best...
is a portrait of a largely African-American burlesque house in Chicago in the Thirties. Directed by Hal Prince
Hal Prince
Harold Smith Prince is an American theatrical producer and director associated with many of the best-known Broadway musical productions of the past half-century...
with choreography by Lester Wilson
Lester Wilson
Lester Wilson was an American dancer and choreographer. Wilson attended the Juilliard School. Bob Fosse cast him in a 1963 revival of Pal Joey at the New York City Center. Wilson toured London with Sammy Davis, Jr. in "Golden Boy". Lester's best known choreography was the 1977 movie Saturday...
, the cast included Ben Vereen
Ben Vereen
Ben Vereen is an American actor, dancer, and singer who has appeared in numerous Broadway theatre shows. Vereen graduated from Manhattan's High School of Performing Arts.- Early years :...
as a song-and-dance man, Stubby Kaye
Stubby Kaye
Stubby Kaye was an American comic actor. He was born Bernard Kotzin in New York City on the last day of the First World War, at West 114th Street in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan to first generation Jewish-Americans originally from Russia and Austria...
as a slapstick comic, and Leilani Jones
LeiLani Jones
LeiLani R. Jones is a pageant titleholder from Tacoma, Washington who competed in the Miss USA pageant in 2007....
as a stripper named Satin. The production was a disaster; the show lost its entire $4.75 million investment, and Prince and three other members of the creative team were suspended by the Dramatists Guild of America
Dramatists Guild of America
The Dramatists Guild of America is a professional organization for playwrights, composers, and lyricists working in the U.S. theatre market.Membership as an Associate Member is open to any person having written at least one stage play. Active Members are playwrights who have had at least one play...
for signing a "substandard" contract.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Kanin was elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
in 1979, and would serve four terms until 1983. She was its second female president, following in the footsteps of earlier president Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
, who left after only one month. She has also served as the president of the Screen Branch of the Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
and as Chair of the National Film Preservation Board
National Film Preservation Board
The United States National Film Preservation Board is the board selecting films for preservation in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry. It was established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988...
of the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, an officer of the Writers Guild Foundation, a member of the Board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Board of Directors of the American Film Institute
American Film Institute
The American Film Institute is an independent non-profit organization created by the National Endowment for the Arts, which was established in 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act...
. She was the vice president of the Academy's 1999–2000 Board of Trustees, and a member of the steering committee of the Caucus for Producers, Writers and Directors, which formed in 1974, and of the National Film Preservation Board
National Film Preservation Board
The United States National Film Preservation Board is the board selecting films for preservation in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry. It was established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988...
in Washington, D.C.
Fay Kanin is on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Board of Governors 2007–2008.
Filmography
- Sunday Punch (1942, screenplay, story)
- Blondie for Victory (1942, story)
- Goodbye, My FancyGoodbye, My FancyGoodbye, My Fancy is a 1951 Warner Bros. film starring Joan Crawford, Robert Young, and Frank Lovejoy in a light tale about a woman and her old flame. The screenplay by Ivan Goff was based upon a 1948 play by Fay Kanin. The film was directed by Vincent Sherman and produced by Henry Blanke...
(1951, play) - My Pal GusMy Pal GusMy Pal Gus is a 1952 comedy-drama film which follows Gus who is the young son of divorced industrialist Dave Jennings . Unable to cope with Gus' mischievous streak, Jennings places the boy in a day-care center. Gus' teacher Lydia Marble manages to curb the boy's prankishness, and along the way...
(1952, original screenplay) - Rhapsody (1954, screenplay)
- The Opposite SexThe Opposite SexThe Opposite Sex is a 1956 musical film.It is a remake of the 1939 classic comedy The Women. Both films are based on Claire Boothe Luce's original play...
(1956, screenplay) - Teacher's PetTeacher's Pet (1958 film)Teacher's Pet is a 1958 romantic comedy film starring Clark Gable and Doris Day. It was directed by George Seaton and co-starred Gig Young and Mamie Van Doren-Characters:The main characters include:...
(1958, screenplay) - RashomonRashomon (play)Though Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon is the most famous instance, Akutagawa's stories have also been adapted for the stage.- Source material :...
(1959, adaptation) - The Right ApproachThe Right ApproachThe Right Approach is a 1961 film directed by David Butler. It stars Frankie Vaughan and Martha Hyer.-Cast:*Frankie Vaughan as Leo Mack*Martha Hyer as Anne Perry*Juliet Prowse as Ursula Poe*Gary Crosby as Rip Hullet*David McLean as Bill Sukolovic...
(1961, screenplay) - Play of the Week: RashomonRashomon (play)Though Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon is the most famous instance, Akutagawa's stories have also been adapted for the stage.- Source material :...
(1961, teleplay adaptation) - Congiura dei dieci, La (1962, screenplay)
- The OutrageThe OutrageThe Outrage is a remake of the 1950 Japanese film Rashomon, reformulated as a Western. Like the original Akira Kurosawa film, four people give contradictory accounts of a rape and murder. Kurosawa is credited with the screenplay. It was directed by Martin Ritt and is based on stories by Ryūnosuke...
(1964, adaptation) - Heat of Anger (1972, teleplay)
- Tell Me Where It Hurts (1974, teleplay)
- Hustling (1975, teleplay, associate producer)
- Friendly FireFriendly Fire (1979 film)Friendly Fire is an American television movie first broadcast on the ABC network on April 22, 1979. Watched that night by an estimated 64 million people, Friendly Fire went on to win four Emmy awards, including Outstanding Drama Special....
(1979, teleplay, co-producer) - Fun and Games (1980, TV producer)
- Heartsounds (1984, teleplay, producer)
Stage Productions
- Goodbye, My FancyGoodbye, My FancyGoodbye, My Fancy is a 1951 Warner Bros. film starring Joan Crawford, Robert Young, and Frank Lovejoy in a light tale about a woman and her old flame. The screenplay by Ivan Goff was based upon a 1948 play by Fay Kanin. The film was directed by Vincent Sherman and produced by Henry Blanke...
(1947) - His and Hers (1954) w/ Michael Kanin
- RashomonRashomon (play)Though Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon is the most famous instance, Akutagawa's stories have also been adapted for the stage.- Source material :...
(1959) w/ Michael Kanin - The Gay LifeThe Gay LifeThe Gay Life is a musical with a book by Fay and Michael Kanin, lyrics by Howard Dietz, and music by Arthur Schwartz.Based on a cycle of seven short plays by Arthur Schnitzler, published in 1893 and first staged in 1910, The Gay Life focuses on womanizing playboy Anatol Von Huber...
(1961) w/ Michael Kanin later retitled, The High Life - GrindGrind (musical)Grind is a musical with a book by Fay Kanin, music by Larry Grossman, and lyrics by Ellen Fitzhugh. Grind is a portrait of a largely African-American burlesque house in Chicago in the Thirties.The reviews were mixed at best...
(1985)
Awards
| Year | Group | Award | Result | Recipient |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 | Academy Award | Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen | Nominated | Teacher's Pet w/ Michael Kanin |
| 1959 | WGA Award (Screen) | Best Written American Comedy | Nominated | Teacher's Pet w/ Michael Kanin |
| 1972 | American Bar Association | The Gavel Award for Best Movie of 1972 devoted to the Law | Heat of Anger | |
| 1974 | EMMY | Best Writing in Drama – Original Teleplay | Nominated | Tell Me Where It Hurts |
| 1974 | EMMY | Writer of the Year – Special | Won | Tell Me Where It Hurts |
| 1975 | Writers Guild of America | Valentine Davies Award | ||
| 1976 | Edgar Allan Poe Awards | Edgar Best Television Feature or Miniseries | Nominated | Hustling |
| 1976 | EMMY | Outstanding Writing in a Special Program – Drama or Comedy – Original Teleplay | Nominated | Hustling |
| 1978 | EMMY | Outstanding Writing in a Limited Series or a Special | Nominated | Friendly Fire |
| 1978 | EMMY | Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special | Won | Friendly Fire |
| 1979 | Humanitas Prize | 90 Minute Category | Nominated | Friendly Fire |
| 1980 | Writers Guild of America | Morgan Cox Award | ||
| 1980 | Women in Film Crystal Awards Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards First presented in 1977, Women in Film Crystal + Lucy Awards are presented to honor women in communications and media. The awards include the Crystal Award, the Lucy Award, the Dorothy Arzner Directors Award, the MaxMara Face of the Future Award, and the Kodak Vision Award... |
Crystal Award | Recipient | for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry. |
| 1985 | EMMY | Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special | Nominated | Heartsounds |
| 1985 | TONY | Book (Musical) | Nominated | Grind |
| 1993 | American Society of Cinematographers | Board of the Governors Award | ||
| 1993 | PGA Awards | PGA Hall of Fame – Television Programs | Won | Friendly Fire |
| 2003 | Humanitas Prize | Kieser Award | ||
| 2005 | Writers Guild of America | Edmund J. North Award | ||