Background
Morrie Ryskind was born on October 20, 1895, in Brooklyn, New York, United States. He was the son of Abraham Ryskind, a storekeeper, and Ida (Ettelson) Ryskind.
New York, NY 10027, United States
In 1917, Ryskind received a Bachelor of Letters from Columbia University.
Morrie Ryskind
Bottom, left to right: George S. Kaufman, Morrie Ryskind, (top) Ira Gershwin, George Gershwin.
Morrie Ryskind
(The zany Marx Brothers turn an operatic performance into ...)
The zany Marx Brothers turn an operatic performance into chaos in their efforts to promote their protégé's romance with the leading lady.
https://www.amazon.com/Night-at-Opera-Groucho-Marx/dp/B004SCR70W/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Morrie+Ryskind%2C+A+Night+at+the+Opera&qid=1594739692&sr=8-1
1972
Morrie Ryskind was born on October 20, 1895, in Brooklyn, New York, United States. He was the son of Abraham Ryskind, a storekeeper, and Ida (Ettelson) Ryskind.
By high school age, Ryskind had already begun contributing to musical revues and Franklin P. Adams' column, "The Conning Tower". He attended Columbia University while helping out George Kaufman with the drama desk at the New York Times. In 1917, Ryskind received a Bachelor of Letters from Columbia University.
Ryskind contributed to musical revues and occasionally wrote poetry for journals. In 1925, Kaufman asked him to assist in a new musical play starring the Marx Brothers, The Cocoanuts. The play became a huge hit, and Ryskind adapted it for the screen in 1929; there, it was more successful. As the Marx Brothers became a sensation, Ryskind's comic talents were in greater demand. Ryskind worked again with the Marx Brothers on Animal Crackers and A Night at the Opera, which Groucho Marx named his favorite of all the Marx Brothers movies. Marx also called Ryskind and Kaufman "the best writers we ever had." In 1929, he began to work primarily as a screenwriter, but also composed musicals for the Broadway stage, including the successful Of Thee I Sing, with music by the Gershwins. Throughout the thirties, Ryskind continued to make popular musicals and screenplays. During this period, Ryskind created some of his best-known screenplays, including My Man Godfrey with William Powell and Carole Lombard. He also adapted a play by Kaufman and Edna Ferber, Stage Door, starring Katharine Hepburn.
In the 1940s, Ryskind's politics landed him in a jam. He headed organizations that supported McCarthy, such as the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. He testified at the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which, he complained, led to a loss of work in Hollywood. Instead, Ryskind turned to journalism. During the 1960s, he had a second wind of success with his syndicated "Morrie Ryskind Column" in the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Star.
Turning away from film work, he later concentrated on writing political columns for The National Review, The Los Angeles Times Syndicate, and the Los Angeles Examiner. He retired in 1978.
(The zany Marx Brothers turn an operatic performance into ...)
1972Morrie Ryskind was very visible in the political world at different times in his life, working for the two extremes - the pacifist left in the '30s, and the far right in the '50s and '60s.
At the end of the '30s, Ryskind participated heavily and publicly in Socialist Party-sponsored antiwar activities, signing his name to advertisements and performing sketches at events in support of this cause. In 1960, he began an 11-year stint writing a right-wing opinion column for the Los Angeles Times. Ironically, even as he was railing against the direction of the United States government and American society in the '60s, a new generation of American students were discovering the Marx Brothers' movies and finding inspiration in their nihilist, anti-establishment ideals - a good portion of which came from Ryskind. Ryskind's writing in the '60s didn't have nearly the impact and influence that it did in the '30s. When he died in 1985 at age 89, his last 35 years of politicking was largely overlooked, and his youthful triumphs remain his enduring legacy.
Ryskind explained that his job was simply to construct the best possible dialogue and story.
Quotations: "I could argue about scenes and their content, but never the best camera angles to put them over. And sometimes a brilliant angle, that only a director could think of, makes even the best-written dialogue doubly effective."
Morrie Ryskind was a funny man whose politics often got him into trouble. Occasionally, Ryskind combined his politics and humor to create wittily satiric plays.
On December 19, 1929, Ryskind married Mary House. They had two children: Ruth and Allan.