About the Author

Robert Riskin, who arrived in Hollywood in 1930, was one of the industry's greatest screenwriters. He won an Academy Award for the screenplay of It Happened One Night and Oscar nominations for Lady for a Day, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It with You, and Here Comes the Groom (story only). The Writers Guild honored him with its Laurel Award for Lifetime Achievement. Pat McGilligan, a resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has written acclaimed biographies of James Cagney, Robert Altman, George Cukor, Jack Nicholson, and a new biography of director Fritz Lang called Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast. His Backstory series for the University of California Press, like the Nicholson biography, has been translated into several foreign languages.