S. N. Behrman
Writing
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Samuel Nathaniel Behrman (June 9, 1893 – September 9, 1973) was an American playwright, screenwriter, biographer, and longtime writer for The New Yorker. His son is the composer David Behrman. Behrman's family immigrated from what is now Lithuania to the United States, where Samuel Nathaniel Behrman was born, the youngest of three sons, in a tenement in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1893. From the late 1920s through the 1940s, S. N. Behrman was considered one of Broadway's leading authors of "high comedy," was often produced by the famous Theatre Guild, and wrote for such stars as Ina Claire, Katharine Cornell, Jane Cowl, and the acting team of Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, who became his good friends. In Hollywood, Behrman enjoyed a lucrative second career as a screenwriter. He wrote screenplays for Greta Garbo, including Queen Christina, Conquest, and her final film, Two-Faced Woman. With Sonya Levien, he co-wrote the screen play for the 1930 film version of Ferenc Molnár's Liliom, starring Charles Farrell and Rose Hobart. His experiences in Hollywood found dramatic form in the play Let Me Hear the Melody (1951), a failure that closed in pre-Broadway tryouts. He also collaborated on the screenplays for Anna Karenina (1935), A Tale of Two Cities (1935), and Waterloo Bridge (1940). S. N. Behrman died in 1973 at the age of eighty. He was survived by his wife, Elza Heifetz Behrman, the sister of violinist Jascha Heifetz, whom he had married in his forties, and a son
Known For
The Dick Cavett Show has been the title of several talk shows hosted by Dick Cavett on various television networks.
The Dick Cavett Show
After fierce Roman commander Marcus Vinicius becomes infatuated with beautiful Christian hostage Lygia, he begins to question the tyrannical leadership of the despotic emperor Nero.
Quo Vadis
On the eve of World War II, a British officer revisits Waterloo Bridge and recalls the young man he was at the beginning of World War I and the young ballerina he met just before he left for the front.
Waterloo Bridge
A girl is engaged to the local richman, but meanwhile she has dreams about the legendary pirate Macoco. A traveling singer falls in love with her and to impress her he poses as the pirate.
The Pirate
Set against the conditions leading up to the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror, French doctor Alexandre Manette serves an 18-year imprisonment in the Bastille in Paris, followed by his release to live in London with the daughter he has never met.
A Tale of Two Cities
A Polish countess is dispatched by her country to become Napoleon Bonaparte's mistress at the urging of Polish leaders, who feel she might influence him to support Polish independence.
Conquest
A high living society playboy marries a nightclub singer, and she soon realizes that, though they're genuinely in love, the husband's endless partying completely dominates and is destroying their marriage.
Brief Moment
In Imperial Russia, Anna, wife of the officer Karenin, goes to Moscow to visit her brother. On the way, she meets charming cavalry officer Vronsky, to whom she's immediately attracted. But in St. Petersburg’s high society, a relationship like this could destroy a woman’s reputation.
Anna Karenina
18th century English aristocrat Sir Percy Blakeney leads a double life. He appears to be merely the effete aristocrat, but in reality is part of an underground effort to free French nobles from Robespierre's Reign of Terror.
The Scarlet Pimpernel
A French playboy and an American former nightclub singer fall in love aboard a ship. They arrange to reunite six months later, if neither has changed their mind.
Love Affair
Popular monarch Queen Christina of Sweden must choose between love and loyalty to her nation when she unexpectedly falls for a Spanish envoy.
Queen Christina
Almost 19-year-old Marius feels himself in a rut in Marseille, his life planned for him by his cafe'-owning father, and he longs for the sea. The night before he is to leave on a 5-year voyage, Fanny, a girl he grew up with, reveals that she is in love with him, and he discovers that he is in love with her. He must choose between an exciting life at sea, and a boring life with the woman he loves. And Fanny must choose between keeping the man she loves, and letting him live the life he seems to want.
Fanny
Mary Smith decides after a lifetime of being a shut-in to do something wild while her father is out campaigning for the presidency, so she takes off for the family's home in West Palm Beach and inadvertently becomes romantically entangled with earnest cowboy Stretch Willoughby. Neither the dalliance nor the cowboy fit with the upper class image projected by her esteemed father, forcing her to choose.
The Cowboy and the Lady
A French ballerina falls in love with an American paratrooper on a two day pass in London near the end of World War II.
Gaby
Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell struggles to free his country from English rule, but his relationship with married Katie O'Shea threatens to ruin all his dreams of freedom.
Parnell
Lightnin' and Mary Jones are co-owners of a hotel built right on a state border, used by divorcing wives so they can pretend to be in California while establishing residency in Nevada. When Lightnin' refuses to sell his share of the hotel to a gang of crooks, Mary is coerced into divorcing her husband so that she can sign over the deed herself.
Lightnin'
A carousel barker falls in love with a young woman. Both are fired from their jobs, and when the young woman becomes pregnant, the carousel barker tries to help pull off a robbery, which goes wrong. Because of the robbery, he dies, and after spending time in hell, is sent back to earth for one day to try to make amends. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive.
Liliom
A woman pretends to be her own twin sister to win back her straying husband.
Two-Faced Woman
Story of French prisoner in Germany who falls in love with a German general's daughter. From the novel "Axelle" by Pierre Benoit.
Surrender
Everyweek Newsmagazine editor Richard Kurt pursues famous free-spirited portrait artist Marion Forsythe on her return to the states from Europe, seeking to convince her to write her biography as a feature for his magazine. One of Marion's old beaus, now running for U.S. Senator from their home state, also comes calling.