Casey Robinson

Casey Robinson
Born	Kenneth Casey Robinson October 17, 1903 (1903-10-17) Logan, Utah, U.S.
Died	December 6, 1979 (1979-12-07) (aged 76) Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation(s)	Screenwriter, film director, producer

Kenneth Casey Robinson (October 17, 1903 – December 6, 1979) was an American producer and director of mostly B movies and a screenwriter responsible for some of Bette Davis' most revered films. Film critic Richard Corliss once described him as "the master of the art – or craft – of adaptation."^[1]

Life and Career

Born in Logan, Utah, the son of a Brigham Young College^[2] music/drama instructor, Robinson graduated from Cornell University at the age of 19 and briefly taught English before turning to journalism.^[1] In 1927, he began his Hollywood career writing the titles for silent movies.^[3] He graduated to directing in the early 1930s, but after six films he abandoned that field in order to concentrate on writing. The films with Davis included It's Love I'm After, Dark Victory, The Old Maid, All This, and Heaven Too, Now, Voyager, and The Corn Is Green.

Robinson's production credits include Days of Glory, Under My Skin, and Two Flags West, all of which he scripted as well.^[4] He also worked on three weeks of re-writes for Casablanca, but was uncredited.^[5] In 1935, Robinson was a write-in candidate for what was then called the Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay for his work on Captain Blood.^[6]

After spending the better part of the 1930s and the early 1940s working at Warner Bros., Robinson moved to MGM in the mid-'40s, then to 20th Century Fox in the 1950s.^[3] He retired in 1962 and eventually emigrated to Sydney, Australia (his wife was Australian). While in Sydney he came out of retirement to write and produce Scobie Malone, in 1975.^[7][8]

His second wife was prima ballerina Tamara Toumanova; they were wed from 1944 until their divorce in 1955. He died in Sydney, Australia in 1979, aged 76.^[9]

Selected filmography

• Bare Knees (1928)
• Out of the Ruins (1928)
• The Head of the Family (1928)
• Companionate Marriage (1928)
• United States Smith (1928)
• Times Square (1929)
• The Squealer (1930)
• The Last Parade (1931)
• Renegades of the West (1932)
• I Found Stella Parish (1935)
• Captain Blood (1935)
• It's Love I'm After (1937)
• Tovarich (1937)
• Four's a Crowd (1938)
• Dark Victory (1939)
• The Old Maid (1939)
• All This, and Heaven Too (1940)
• One Foot in Heaven (1941)
• Kings Row (1942)
• Now, Voyager (1942)
• This Is the Army (1943)
• Passage to Marseille (1944)
• The Racket Man (1944)
• Days of Glory (1944) (also producer)
• The Corn Is Green (1945)
• Father Was a Fullback (1949)
• The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952)
• The Egyptian (1954)
• While the City Sleeps (1956)
• Scobie Malone (1975) (also producer)

References

1. "Casey Robinson - Biography - Movies & TV - NYTimes.com". The New York Times. May 19, 2011. Archived from the original on May 19, 2011.
2. Garr, Arnold (May 1973). A History of Brigham Young College, Logan, Utah (Thesis). p. 53. doi:10.26076/8b34-8935.
3. "Casey Robinson | Biography, Movie Highlights and Photos". AllMovie.
4. "Casey Robinson". BFI. Archived from the original on July 24, 2017.
5. Dave Kindy (January 23, 2022). "'Casablanca' had a rocky start. Its stars never expected it to become a classic". The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. ISSN 0190-8286. OCLC 1330888409.
6. "The 8th Academy Awards | 1936". Oscars.org | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
7. Johnson, Molly (July 20, 1975). "Casey Now at Bat Down Under: Casey Still Producing Films in Australia". Los Angeles Times. p. t33. ProQuest 157728327.
8. Vagg, Stephen (September 29, 2019). "Ten Stories About Australian Screenwriters You Might Not Know". Filmink.
9. Casey Robinson at IMDb

External links

• Casey Robinson at IMDb