Biography:
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Samson Raphaelson (March 30, 1894 in New York City – July 16, 1983 in New York
City) was an American screenwriter and playwright.
Born in New York City, Raphaelson worked on nine films with Ernst Lubitsch,
including Trouble in Paradise (1932), The Shop Around the Corner (1939), Heaven
Can Wait (1943), and That Lady in Ermine (1948). He also collaborated with
Alfred Hitchcock on Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941). He is the author of the play
Day of Atonement, which was made into The Jazz Singer (1927), the first talking
picture, produced by Warner Brothers in the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process.
Samson Raphaelson was also Ernst Lubitsch's favorite screenwriter.
Samson Raphaelson considered Suspicion to be "in many ways my best screenplay."
Raphaelson also co-wrote Lubitsch's only sound-era drama Broken Lullaby (The Man
I Killed, 1932). Though praised by playwright Robert E. Sherwood as "the best
talking picture that has yet been seen and heard," the film was a box office
flop. Aside from his more popular work, Raphaelson also wrote the college fight
song for the University of Illinois in 1921. Titled, "Fight, Illini!: The
Stadium Song" the music was composed by Rose J. Oltusky.
In 1977 the Writers Guild of America Awards granted him the "Laurel" for
lifetime achievement. He taught playwriting at Columbia University until the
last years of his life. His wife Dorshka (Dorothy Wegman) (1904-2005) was the
author of 'Morning Song' and, until her death in 2005, was the second oldest
surviving Ziegfeld Follies dancer. His nephew is filmmaker Bob Rafelson, and his
grandson is photographer Paul Raphaelson.
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