Michael Kanin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Kanin

Michael Kanin, 83, Film Writer For Hepburn and Tracy, Is Dead

Michael Kanin, a director, producer, playwright and screenwriter who shared an Academy Award in 1942 for writing the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy film comedy "Woman of the Year," died on Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 83 and lived in Santa Monica.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said John Pavlik, a spokesman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which made the announcement for the family.

The younger brother of the writer Garson Kanin, Michael Kanin shared the Oscar for best original screenplay with Ring Lardner Jr. just three years after arriving in Hollywood. "Woman of the Year" chronicled the marital mismatch of a distinguished foreign-affairs columnist played by Ms. Hepburn and a rugged sportswriter played by Tracy.

Mr. Kanin went on to write many films and Broadway plays, most frequently with his wife, Fay Mitchell Kanin. The Kanins met in the late 1930's on the RKO lot where he was a writer and she a reader. They sold their first collaboration, "Sunday Punch," to M-G-M not long after their marriage in 1940.

Their film credits also include "Rhapsody" (1954), starring Elizabeth Taylor, and "Teacher's Pet" (1958), starring Clark Gable and Doris Day, which was nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay.

Their Broadway shows include "Rashomon" (1959), "His and Hers" (1954) and the musical "The Gay Life" (1961). Of "Rashomon," Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times wrote in his review that "no one need despair of a commercial theater that can deal in elusive materials with so much delicacy, expertness and charm."

Mr. Kanin's career was intertwined with that of his brother. He produced "A Double Life," starring Ronald Colman and written by Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon. The 1947 film received four Oscar nominations and won two Oscars.

Born in Rochester on Feb. 1, 1910, Mr. Kanin moved to New York City with his family as a child. He studied at the Art Students League and the New York School of Design while working summers with his brother, writing, producing and singing in shows at hotels in the Catskill Mountains.

During the Depression he painted stage scenery for burlesque shows but an eye injury caused him to switch to writing. After selling some radio sketches, Mr. Kanin moved with his family to Hollywood, where he was initially under contract to RKO.

He returned to art in his later years, creating bronze sculptures of many of his favorite entertainers, including Louis Armstrong, Charlie Chaplin and Groucho Marx. His work was exhibited at the Heritage Gallery in Los Angeles.

Mr. Kanin founded the Michael Kanin Original Playwriting Awards for the American College Theater Festival, in which college writers' works were produced at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

He was a charter member of the Writers Guild of America West and also was active on committees of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

He is survived by his wife and a son, Josh, both of Santa Monica; his brother, of New York City, and two granddaughters.

-- The New York Times, March 16, 1993