Michael Kanin

The older brother of "boy wonder" writer/producer/director Garson Kanin, Michael Kanin was a fine talent in his own right. After serving a creative apprenticeship writing and acting in Catskill resort shows with his brother, Kanin worked as a commercial artist and musician. In 1939 he was signed to a screenwriting contract at RKO, where he met his future wife and frequent collaborator Fay Mitchell. With another collaborator, Ring Lardner Jr., Kanin won an Academy Award for his work on MGM's Woman of the Year (1941); he would later receive a best screenplay Oscar nomination for the 1958 Clark Gable-Doris Day comedy Teacher's Pet. Kanin went on to co-produce (with his wife) the popular 1948 Ronald Colman melodrama A Double Life (1948), and made a once-only stab at directing with the 1951 seriocomedy When I Grow Up. After 1960, Michael Kanin's work showed signs that he was a bit out of touch with contemporary audiences; he retired in 1969, after working on the anachronistic Bob Hope vehicle How to Commit Marriage (1969).

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide