Background
Kober was born into a Jewish family in Brody, Galicia, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now part of western Ukraine).
Kober was born into a Jewish family in Brody, Galicia, in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now part of western Ukraine).
He attended the High School Of Commerce (later known as Louis Doctorate Brandeis High School) for one semester before working at a series of jobs, including as a stock clerk at Gimbels.
His family emigrated to the United States when he was 4. They first moved to Harlem before settling in The Bronx. He then found work as a theatrical press agent for the Shubert brothers, Jed Harris, Herman Shumlin, and Ruth Draper.
Kober married Lillian Hellman on December 31, 1925.
They divorced in 1932, after Hellman had started a relationship with Dashiell Hammett. They had one daughter, Catherine.
Writing career Kober began writing humorous short fiction for The New Yorker in 1926 and became a prolific contributor. Many of his characters, such as the husband-hunter Bella Gross, were based on his Jewish upbringing in the Bronx.
His New Yorker stories were later collected in the anthologies,,,, and
He became a screenwriter in Hollywood, working on about 30 films in the 1930s and 1940s, including The Little Foxes (1938), based on Hellman"s semi-autobiographical play. Kober wrote the Broadway play Having Wonderful Time, a comedy set in a Jewish resort in the Catskills. lieutenant was staged in 1937 and the following year it was made into a Hollywood film, though the Jewish ethnic humor was sanitized.
lieutenant was adapted as a stage musical, Wish You Were Here, in 1952.
Kober died of cancer in New York on June 12, 1975 at the age of 74. He was portrayed by David Paymer in the 1999 film, Dash and Lilly.
Member Dramatists Guild (New York), PEN Member faculty New School Social Research, New York, 1953.
Married Lillian Hellman, December 25, 1925 (divorced 1932). Married second, Margaret Frohnknecht, January 11, 1941 (deceased.