Samson Raphaelson - Biography

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 short story Day of Atonement, which he adapted into a play entitled The Jazz Singer in 1925. The play was later made into the film The Jazz Singer (1927), starring Al Jolson, and produced by Warner Brothers in the Vitaphone sound-on-disc process as the first talkie with dialogue. Samson Raphaelson was reportedly 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 the novel Morning Song (1948) 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.

Plays

In April 2009, a production of Raphaelson's play Accent on Youth (1935) opened on Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club's Samuel J. Friedman (formerly Biltmore) Theatre. Cast included David Hyde Pierce, Rosie Benton, and was directed by Tony Award winner Daniel J. Sullivan.

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