I arrived in El Paso Monday, guest of the Plaza Classic Film Festival, as part of my book tour. The airport was like a ghost town, with not a soul in sight. Families were home, grieving. It was my first time in this city. A lovely woman, Kathrin Berg, from the El Paso Community Foundation, […]
A grave injustice has occurred. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary has failed to identify the etymology of the verb “to doodle.” They correctly define the word, “to scribble mindlessly,” but trace the origin to a 16th century noun, a doodle or dolt, or other roots. Poppycock. “To doodle” was the invention of Robert Riskin and comes from the […]
A little more than a year ago, as I was completing my manuscript, a fire – the largest in California history – swept the hills immediately above my Santa Barbara home. The authorities ordered mandatory evacuation and taking time only to put into the car the family dog, my manuscript and computer, and a few […]
Barbara Stanwyck said Carole Lombard was “…so alive, modern, frank, and natural that she stands out like a beacon on a lightship in this odd place called Hollywood.” My father agreed. I first learned of my father’s romance with Carole as I was doing research for my book. She had just lost her great love […]
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) is the quintessential Robert Riskin film and one of my favorites. Written with warmth and humor, not to mention romance, it’s steeped in my father’s philosophy that we should all help each other and especially those in need — the so-called “little people,” an expression my father never would […]
When my mother, actress Fay Wray of King Kong fame, was a little girl growing up in the rough-and-tumble mining town of Lark, Utah, she could not have imagined one day she would come to Hollywood and star in one of the most enduring films of cinema history. Although most people remember her best for […]
Meet John Doe – which airs December 8th on Turner Classic Movies – represents a departure from usual Riskin-Capra films in several respects. John Doe was made after my father had gone on vacation to Europe in 1939. On his trip, he had seen first-hand evidence of the euphoria Hitler had created in Germany and the […]
“Pulitzer Prize plays do not grow on bushes, a circumstance which is bound to complicate their grafting to the cinema.” Frank Nugent, New York Times, 1938. The fact that You Can’t Take It With You, the George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart madcap smash hit, was made into a film at all by Columbia Pictures was […]