S. N. Behrman

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 Behrmans 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 Broadways 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 TwoFaced Woman With Sonya Levien he cowrote the screen play for the 1930 film version of Ferenc Molnárs 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 preBroadway 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