Garson Kanin

Garson Kanin , 1912-99, American director and writer, b. Rochester, N.Y.; grad. American Academy of Dramatic Arts, 1933. He worked as a saxophonist, comedian, and actor before becoming (1935) an assistant to director George Abbott . During the following years he wrote or directed more than 30 plays and nearly 30 films. Kanin's Broadway hits included the comedy Born Yesterday (1946), which he also wrote, the drama The Diary of Anne Frank (1955), and the musical Funny Girl (1964). In Hollywood he specialized in light comedy, directing movies that included My Favorite Wife (1940) and such Spencer Tracy -Katherine Hepburn vehicles as Adams Rib (1949) and Pat and Mike (1952), both written with his wife, the actress Ruth Gordon. Kanin also wrote novels, short stories, television scripts, and the memoirs Remembering Mr. Maugham (1966), Tracy and Hepburn (1971), and Hollywood (1974).

Kanin, Garson (1912–99), New York‐born actor, producer, director of plays and motion pictures, whose own stage plays include Born Yesterday (1946), a farce about wartime Washington; and Smile of the World (1949), about a brilliant young lawyer who becomes a pompous, reactionary Supreme Court justice. He also wrote novels: Do Re Mi (1955), Blow Up a Storm (1959), A Thousand Summers (1973), A Hell of an Actor (1977), Moviola (1979), Smash (1980), and Cordelia? (1982), all in some ways bearing on the theater world; Hollywood (1974); memoirs of people he has known, such as Together Again (1978); and his own brief and grudging memoir, It Takes a Long Time To Become Young (1978).