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| Fay Kanin obituary | |
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| Tscreenwriter Fay Kanin, who has died aged 95, was the only female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in its 86-year history (apart from Bette Davis, who resigned after two months in 1941). She served as president from 1979 to 1983, for the maximum of four consecutive one-year terms. Kanin, who committed herself to the preservation of early Hollywood movies, was first elected president by a board consisting of 34 men and one woman. | Tscreenwriter Fay Kanin, who has died aged 95, was the only female president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in its 86-year history (apart from Bette Davis, who resigned after two months in 1941). She served as president from 1979 to 1983, for the maximum of four consecutive one-year terms. Kanin, who committed herself to the preservation of early Hollywood movies, was first elected president by a board consisting of 34 men and one woman. |
| "I'm a big feminist," she declared at the time that her play Goodbye, My Fancy opened on Broadway in 1948. "I've put into my play my feeling that women should never back away from life." The serious comedy, with Madeleine Carroll as a powerful congresswoman revisiting her alma mater to receive an honorary degree, ran for more than a year and was made into a 1951 film starring Joan Crawford. The play, which was written against the sinister background of the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigations, made a plea for complete freedom of ideas in college education. | "I'm a big feminist," she declared at the time that her play Goodbye, My Fancy opened on Broadway in 1948. "I've put into my play my feeling that women should never back away from life." The serious comedy, with Madeleine Carroll as a powerful congresswoman revisiting her alma mater to receive an honorary degree, ran for more than a year and was made into a 1951 film starring Joan Crawford. The play, which was written against the sinister background of the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigations, made a plea for complete freedom of ideas in college education. |
| In 1952, Fay and her husband, Michael Kanin, who wrote seven screenplays together, were put on the infamous blacklist, found guilty by association, barring them from working in Hollywood for almost two years. "It was ridiculous, but it was very real, and there was nothing we could do about it," she recalled. "We took a larger mortgage on the house and started writing a play." The play, performed on Broadway, was His and Hers (1954) with Celeste Holm and Robert Preston as divorced playwrights who are each writing a new play and sue each other for plagiarism. | In 1952, Fay and her husband, Michael Kanin, who wrote seven screenplays together, were put on the infamous blacklist, found guilty by association, barring them from working in Hollywood for almost two years. "It was ridiculous, but it was very real, and there was nothing we could do about it," she recalled. "We took a larger mortgage on the house and started writing a play." The play, performed on Broadway, was His and Hers (1954) with Celeste Holm and Robert Preston as divorced playwrights who are each writing a new play and sue each other for plagiarism. |
| Born Fay Mitchell in New York, she won the state spelling championship at 12 and was presented with the award by the then governor, Franklin Roosevelt. While attending the private Elmira college in New York (at the time, an all-female institution), she wrote stories, acted and edited the yearbook. She then moved to Los Angeles where, after graduating from the University of California, she managed to get a job as a story editor at RKO. It was there that she met Michael Kanin, older brother of the more famous writer Garson Kanin. They married in 1940. | Born Fay Mitchell in New York, she won the state spelling championship at 12 and was presented with the award by the then governor, Franklin Roosevelt. While attending the private Elmira college in New York (at the time, an all-female institution), she wrote stories, acted and edited the yearbook. She then moved to Los Angeles where, after graduating from the University of California, she managed to get a job as a story editor at RKO. It was there that she met Michael Kanin, older brother of the more famous writer Garson Kanin. They married in 1940. |
| Fay and Michael's first screenplay, Sunday Punch (1942), based on a New Yorker short story about a boarding house for novice boxers, was bought by the B-unit of MGM. In the same year, Fay came up with the story for Blondie for Victory (1942). Based on the adventures of the dizzy comic-strip heroine created by Chic Young, it had Blondie organising the Housewives of America to perform wartime duties on the home front, leaving their husbands looking after the kids. This echoed Kanin's own work promoting women's participation in the war effort. | Fay and Michael's first screenplay, Sunday Punch (1942), based on a New Yorker short story about a boarding house for novice boxers, was bought by the B-unit of MGM. In the same year, Fay came up with the story for Blondie for Victory (1942). Based on the adventures of the dizzy comic-strip heroine created by Chic Young, it had Blondie organising the Housewives of America to perform wartime duties on the home front, leaving their husbands looking after the kids. This echoed Kanin's own work promoting women's participation in the war effort. |
| After Goodbye, My Fancy closed on Broadway, the Kanins wrote the screenplay of My Pal Gus (1952), an entertaining romantic comedy with Richard Widmark leaving aside his giggling tough-guy persona to play a caring father. It was the last film before they were blacklisted, until MGM offered them a co-writing job on Rhapsody (1954), a soap opera vehicle for Elizabeth Taylor's beauty, attractive European locales and classical music. | After Goodbye, My Fancy closed on Broadway, the Kanins wrote the screenplay of My Pal Gus (1952), an entertaining romantic comedy with Richard Widmark leaving aside his giggling tough-guy persona to play a caring father. It was the last film before they were blacklisted, until MGM offered them a co-writing job on Rhapsody (1954), a soap opera vehicle for Elizabeth Taylor's beauty, attractive European locales and classical music. |
| For MGM, the Kanins did their best to write a musical remake of George Cukor's scorching all-female classic The Women (1939) as The Opposite Sex (1956), but the men and the song-and-dance numbers subtracted from, rather than added to, the original. Much better was their Oscar-nominated screenplay for Teacher's Pet (1958), an acerbic comedy duel well played by Clark Gable, as a hard-bitten newspaperman, and Doris Day, who teaches journalism, something the former believes can't be taught. | For MGM, the Kanins did their best to write a musical remake of George Cukor's scorching all-female classic The Women (1939) as The Opposite Sex (1956), but the men and the song-and-dance numbers subtracted from, rather than added to, the original. Much better was their Oscar-nominated screenplay for Teacher's Pet (1958), an acerbic comedy duel well played by Clark Gable, as a hard-bitten newspaperman, and Doris Day, who teaches journalism, something the former believes can't be taught. |
| On Broadway again, the Kanins had a successful five-month run with Rashomon, adapted from stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (the same source as Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film), starring Claire Bloom and Rod Steiger. The play had an extended life through a 1961 BBC television version, and was used as the basis for a western, The Outrage (1964). | On Broadway again, the Kanins had a successful five-month run with Rashomon, adapted from stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (the same source as Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film), starring Claire Bloom and Rod Steiger. The play had an extended life through a 1961 BBC television version, and was used as the basis for a western, The Outrage (1964). |
| After a corny youth-oriented musical, The Right Approach (1961), featuring British crooner Frankie Vaughan, and an Italian-made swashbuckler, Swordsman of Siena (1962) with Stewart Granger, Fay concentrated on writing solo for television. Among her superior scripts were Hustling (1975), about prostitution in New York City, and Friendly Fire (1979), which won a Primetime Emmy. The latter, the peak of her writing achievements, told of a couple's attempts to discover how their son was accidentally killed by American troops in Vietnam. The subject of losing a child was meaningful to Kanin: her son Joel died of leukaemia aged 13 in 1958. | After a corny youth-oriented musical, The Right Approach (1961), featuring British crooner Frankie Vaughan, and an Italian-made swashbuckler, Swordsman of Siena (1962) with Stewart Granger, Fay concentrated on writing solo for television. Among her superior scripts were Hustling (1975), about prostitution in New York City, and Friendly Fire (1979), which won a Primetime Emmy. The latter, the peak of her writing achievements, told of a couple's attempts to discover how their son was accidentally killed by American troops in Vietnam. The subject of losing a child was meaningful to Kanin: her son Joel died of leukaemia aged 13 in 1958. |
| Michael died in 1993. Kanin is survived by her son Josh. | Michael died in 1993. Kanin is survived by her son Josh. |
| • Fay Kanin, screenwriter, born 9 May 1917; died 27 March 2013 | • Fay Kanin, screenwriter, born 9 May 1917; died 27 March 2013 |