Norman Krasna

Norman Krasna (November 7, 1909 – November 1, 1984) was an American screenwriter, playwright, producer, and film director. He is best known for penning screwball comedies which centred around a case of mistaken identity. Krasna also directed three films during a forty-year career in Hollywood. He garnered four Academy Award screenwriting nominations, winning once for 1943's Princess O'Rourke, a film he also directed.

Career
Krasna was born in Queens, New York City. He attended Columbia University and St John's University Law School, working at Macy's Department Store during the day. He wanted to get into journalism and talked his way into a job as a copy boy for the Sunday feature department of the New York World in 1928. He quit law school, worked his way up to being a drama critic, at first for The World then the New York Evening Graphic and Exhibitors Herald World. He was offered a job with Hubert Voight in the publicity department of Warner Bros and moved to Hollywood.

He decided to become a playwright after seeing The Front Page. To learn the craft, he retyped the Ben Hecht-Charles MacArthur classic more than twenty times. Then while at Warners, at nights he wrote a play, Louder, Please!, based on his job and heavily inspired by The Front Page. He tried to sell it to Warners who were not interested but it was picked up by George Abbott who produced it on Broadway. The play had a short run, and Krasna was then offered a contract at Columbia Pictures as a junior staff writer.

He stayed at Columbia for five years, earning an Oscar nomination for The Richest Girl in the World. He also wrote a second play Small Miracle, which was very successful and really established him. He would continue to alternate between Broadway and Hollywood throughout his career.

By the mid-1930s he was working at other studios, such as MGM and Universal, and had turned producer. By the 1940s he also began to direct. During this decade he wrote two enormously popular plays, Dear Ruth and John Loves Mary.

In 1950 he and Jerry Wald formed Wald-Krasna Productions which worked out of RKO Studios for the next few years, announcing a $50 million slate of pictures. They made a number of films but both Wald and Krasna became frustrated at the influence of Howard Hughes, who ran RKO at the time, so Wald bought him out and he returned to writing.

At one stage Krasna had John Forsythe under contract.

He moved to Switzerland but returned to Los Angeles before his death of a heart attack.

Personal Life
From 1940 to 1950 Krasna was married to Ruth Frazee, with whom he had two children. He married Al Jolson's widow Erle in 1951, and they remained married until Krasna's death. He had six children.

Selected filmography

 * Hollywood Speaks (1932) - story, co-dialogue
 * That's My Boy (1932) - script
 * So This Is Africa (1933) - story
 * Parole Girl (1933) - uncredited contribution to script
 * Love, Honor, and Oh Baby! (1933) - uncredited contribution
 * Bombshell (1933, screenplay)
 * Meet the Baron (1933) - co-author of screenplay with Herman J. Mankiewicz
 * The Richest Girl in the World (1934) - story, script
 * Romance in Manhattan (1935) - co-story
 * Hands Across the Table (1935) - co-script
 * Four Hours to Kill! (1935) - script, adaptation of his play Small Miracle
 * Wife vs. Secretary (1936) - script
 * Fury (1936) - story
 * The King and the Chorus Girl (1937, co-writer with Groucho Marx)
 * As Good as Married (1937) - story
 * Big City (1937) - story, producer
 * The First Hundred Years (1938) - story, producer
 * You and Me (1938) - story, co-script
 * Bachelor Mother (1939) - script
 * It's a Date (1940) - script
 * The Flame of New Orleans (1941) - story, script
 * Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) - story, script
 * The Devil and Miss Jones (1941) - story, script, producer
 * It Started with Eve (1941) - co-script
 * Princess O'Rourke (1943) - story, script, director
 * Bride by Mistake (1944) - story (remake of The Richest Girl in the World)
 * Practically Yours (1944) - story, script
 * The Big Hangover (1950) - story, script, director, producer
 * Two Tickets to Broadway (1951)
 * Behave Yourself! (1951) - producer
 * The Blue Veil (1951) - producer
 * Clash by Night (1952) - producer
 * The Lusty Men (1952) - producer
 * White Christmas (1954) - co-story/script
 * Bundle of Joy (1956) - co-script (remake of Bachelor Mother)
 * The Ambassador's Daughter (1956) - script, director, producer
 * Indiscreet (1958) - script, based on his play
 * Who Was That Lady? (1960) - script, based on his play
 * Let's Make Love (1960) - story, script
 * My Geisha (1962) - story, script
 * Sunday in New York (1963) - script based on his play
 * I'd Rather Be Rich (1964) - co-story/script

Unmade Scripts

 * Wonderful (circa 1936) - film for George Raft
 * Hello, Russky! (mid-1950s) - a comedy about the Moiseyev Ballet with director Rene Clair
 * Speak to Me of Love (1954)
 * High Dive (circa 1959) - film for Jerry Wald about a water clown at a water carnival
 * French Street (early 1960s)

Theatre Credits

 * Louder, Please (1932)
 * Small Miracle (1935)
 * The Man with Blond Hair (1941) - also directed
 * Dear Ruth (1945)
 * John Loves Mary (1947)
 * Time for Elizabeth (1949) - written with Groucho Marx, also directed
 * Kind Sir (1954)
 * Who Was That Lady I Saw You With? (1958)
 * Sunday in New York (1962)
 * Love in E-Flat (1967)
 * Watch the Birdie! (1969) (originally written in 1961)
 * Bunny (1970)
 * We Interrupt This Program (1975)
 * Off Broadway aka Full Moon (1976)

Unproduced Plays

 * Night Action (1940s) - film rights sold to Warner Bros as a vehicle for Helmut Dantine
 * Stars on My Shoulders (1948) - musical with Irving Berlin
 * French Street (circa 1962) based on Jacques Deval play Roman Saro about a priest and prostitute

Won

 * Best Original Screenplay (Princess O'Rourke, 1943)

Nominated

 * Best Original Story (The Richest Girl in the World, 1934)
 * Best Original Story (Fury, 1936)
 * Best Original Screenplay (The Devil and Miss Jones, 1941)