Norman Krasna

Career

Krasna was born in Queens, New York City. He attended Columbia University and St John's University School of Law, 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.

Playwright

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.

Hollywood

Krasna's early credits were on Hollywood Speaks (1932), That's My Boy (1932), So This Is Africa (1933) (with Wheeler and Woolsey), Parole Girl (1933), and Love, Honor, and Oh Baby! (1933).

During the evening he wrote another play, Small Miracle, which was produced on Broadway in 1934. It had a reasonable run and earned good reviews. Film rights were bought by Paramount, who hired Krasna to write the script for what became Four Hours to Kill! (1935) directed by Mitchell Leisen.

For MGM, Krasna worked on Meet the Baron (1933). He went to RKO where he wrote The Richest Girl in the World (1934), which earned him an Oscar. He stayed at that studio to do Romance in Manhattan (1935) then did Hands Across the Table (1935) at Paramount.

Back at MGM, Krasna worked on Wife vs. Secretary (1936) and sold his original story Mob Rule which became Fury (1936), directed by Fritz Lang. He wrote a film for George Raft, You and Me (1938), for Paramount, hoping to direct it, but Raft objected. (The film would be made two years later, Fritz Lang directing.)

At Warners he wrote The King and the Chorus Girl (1937) with good friend Groucho Marx. He moved to Universal to do As Good as Married (1937) and was back to MGM for Big City (1937) and The First Hundred Years (1938).

Krasna had one of his biggest his with Bachelor Mother (1939) at RKO. At Universal he wrote a Deanna Durbin vehicle It's a Date (1940) and the Rene Clair directed The Flame of New Orleans (1940).

For Hitchcock he wrote Mr. & Mrs. Smith (1941) at RKO. That studio also released Krasna's The Devil and Miss Jones (1941), which he co-produced. Also hugely popular was another Durbin vehicle, It Started with Eve (1941).

Krasna wrote The Man with Blond Hair (1941) for Broadway, which he later described as his "attempt to win the Nobel Peace Prize". It only ran seven performances and encouraged Krasna to focus on comedies for the rest of his career.

Turning director

Krasna turned director for Princess O'Rourke (1943), which earned him an Oscar for Best Screen play.

Moss Hart suggested Krasna write something like Junior Miss and Krasna responded with Dear Ruth. This was a massive hit on Broadway in 1944, running for 680 performances; the film rights were sold for over $450,000. (It was the basis of the 1947 film Dear Ruth 1947). He found time to write another movie for Leisen, Practically Yours (1944).

Also enormously popular on stage was the comedy John Loves Mary (1947); it too was made into a film, in 1949, although Krasna did not work on it.

Less successful was the play Time for Elizabeth (1947), co-written with Krasna's friend Groucho Marx which only ran for eight performances, although film rights were sold for over $500,000. (The film was never made).

Krasna directed his second feature, The Big Hangover (1950) for MGM. It was not a success.

Wald-Krasna Productions

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, notably Behave Yourself! (1951), The Blue Veil (1951), Clash by Night (1952), and The Lusty Men (1952). However both Wald and Krasna became frustrated at the meddling of Howard Hughes, who ran RKO at the time. Wald bought Krasna out and he returned to writing.

Return to Broadway

He returned to Broadway, and the comedy play Kind Sir had a decent run in 1953. He co-wrote White Christmas (1954) which was a massive hit. He wrote, produced and directed The Ambassador's Daughter (1956). This starred actor John Forsythe who at one point was under personal contract to Krasna.

Krasna adapted Kind Sir as Indiscreet (1958). He followed this with another Broadway farce, Who Was That Lady I Saw You With? (1958). Krasna then adapted this play for the screen and produced what became Who Was That Lady? (1960). He did this again with Sunday in New York which reached Broadway (with Robert Redford) in 1961 and was filmed, from a Krasna script in 1963. Around this time he also wrote the script for Let's Make Love (1960), the penultimate movie for Marilyn Monroe and wrote the screenplay for My Geisha (1962).

Later years

A comic play Love in E-Flat (1967) had a short run on Broadway. None of his other later plays were hits: Watch the Birdie! (1969), Bunny (1970), We Interrupt This Program... (1975) and Lady Harry (1978).

Krasna spent many years living in Switzerland, but returned to Los Angeles before his death in 1984.

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, moving into the Palm Springs, California, home of Erle and Jolson. They remained married until Krasna's death in 1984. He had six children.

Theatre credits

Unproduced plays

Won

Nominated