17 Facts About Fay Kanin

Fay Kanin was an American screenwriter, playwright and producer.

Fay Kanin was encouraged to write for money by supplying small items to the Elmira Star Gazette.

Fay Kanin's mother took her daughter to visit her grandmother in the Bronx, and it was there that she became devoted to the theater when she saw a matinee of Idiot's Delight starring Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne.

Fay Kanin longed to move to Los Angeles to get into pictures and her parents indulged her.

Fay Kanin's father moved to California first to secure a job, then she and her mother packed everything and followed by train.

Fay Kanin spent her senior year at the University of Southern California where she became active in college radio.

Fay Kanin proceeded to teach herself everything she could about the movie industry at RKO's expense.

Fay Kanin wrote the play, Goodbye, My Fancy, which was produced on Broadway by Michael.

Fay Kanin even made an acting appearance in A Double Life, co-written by her brother-in-law Garson Fay Kanin and his wife, actress Ruth Gordon.

At first, Fay Kanin was put off by the lack of an immediate reaction from an audience, but once she realized that more people had seen it in one night than would have seen it in theaters if it played for a year, she was hooked and wrote five more films for television.

For weeks, Fay Kanin interviewed working girls at the Midtown North police station, and after the film aired, she received letters complimenting her on how fairly she had treated them.

Fay Kanin spent five months secluded with Bryan's research tapes adapting the book, and Friendly Fire won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama or Comedy Special that year.

For Norman Lear, Fay Kanin wrote Heartsounds, which starred Mary Tyler Moore and James Garner as a couple coping with heart disease.

Nothing came of it, but in 1985 Fay Kanin adapted her unproduced screenplay for the stage.

Fay Kanin was elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1979, and served four terms until 1983.

Fay Kanin was its second female president, following in the footsteps of earlier president Bette Davis, who left after only one month.

Fay Kanin has served as the president of the Screen Branch of the Writers Guild of America and as Chair of the National Film Preservation Board of the Library of Congress, an officer of the Writers Guild Foundation, a member of the Board of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and a member of the board of directors of the American Film Institute.