Samson Raphaelson Popular Books

Samson Raphaelson Biography & Facts

Samson Raphaelson (March 30, 1894 – July 16, 1983) was an American playwright, screenwriter and fiction writer. While working as an advertising executive in New York, he wrote a short story based on the early life of Al Jolson, called The Day of Atonement, which he then converted into a 1925 play, The Jazz Singer. In 1927 this would become the first talking picture, with Jolson as its star. He then worked as a screenwriter with Ernst Lubitsch on sophisticated comedies like Trouble in Paradise, The Shop Around the Corner, and Heaven Can Wait and with Alfred Hitchcock on Suspicion. His short stories appeared in The Saturday Evening Post and other leading magazines, and he taught creative writing at the University of Illinois. Career on Broadway Raphaelson was born to a Jewish family in New York, the son of Anna (Marks) and Ralph Raphaelson. After graduating from the University of Illinois, he lived for varying periods in Chicago, San Francisco, and New York, working as a journalist and an advertising writer, while trying to establish himself as writer of short stories. He had become a successful advertising executive in New York when his secretary encouraged him to convert his short story “The Day of Atonement” into a play. Showing him the manuscript of a play, she pointed out how few words were on each page, adding that he had dictated more than that in two hours the previous afternoon. She volunteered to take dictation over the weekend. The result, by Sunday evening, was a complete draft of The Jazz Singer. Raphaelson's second play, Young Love, was banned in Boston when authorities found it too racy. It starred Dorothy Gish, one of the leading actresses of the day. Three of his subsequent six plays produced on Broadway were chosen for publication in the annual Ten Best Plays of the Season, compiled by Burns Mantle, the widely read critic of the New York Daily News, at the time the largest circulation daily in the U.S. They were Accent On Youth (1934), Skylark (1939) and Jason (1941). Accent On Youth was a critical and popular success both on Broadway and in London's West End, where the young Greer Garson played the leading role. Skylark, another substantial hit, starred Gertrude Lawrence. Jason was less successful commercially but won high praise from the New York critics. One called it “the best play of the season” and added that it contained “some of the finest writing to grace a stage in several years.” Another, commenting on one main character inspired by the colorful writer William Saroyan, wrote: “Many authors have tried to put into their plays characters that possess the picturesque qualities attributed to Saroyan, but Mr. Raphaelson is the first to do the thing successfully.” Other writing and activities In 1948, Raphaelson taught a master class in “creative writing with an emphasis on the drama” at the University of Illinois. He recorded the experience in a book, The Human Nature of Playwriting. The introduction expresses Raphaelson's deep regard for language so visible in his writing: This course does not aim directly to teach writing. Whether you write or not after you finish school means nothing to me as a teacher. In fact, I don’t think it is important from any viewpoint. But whether you live or not is important; and how you live. You may become businessmen or women, office workers, farmers, or wives, and as such you will be, whether you know it or not, deeply related to the culture of your age. That culture is largely expressed by creative writers through the written word. And if from this course you get a notion of how that written word comes into being, of the connection between a writer and his own life and between his life and all lives, then this course will be successful indeed. In the 1940s many Raphaelson short stories appeared in Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and The Saturday Evening Post, in that period the nation's highest-paying publishers of short fiction. In later years, as a result of Raphaelson's newly found passion for photography, he wrote a variety of articles for the leading photographic magazines. Some of his thousands of photos ran in the magazines, both as accompaniments to his articles and independent of them. In 1983, the University of Wisconsin Press published Three Screen Comedies by Samson Raphaelson with an introduction by Pauline Kael. All directed by Lubitsch, the three were Trouble in Paradise, Heaven Can Wait, and Raphaelson's favorite, The Shop Around the Corner; this last had starred James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, and Pauline Kael, the eminent film critic of The New Yorker, called it “as close to perfection as a movie made by mortals is ever likely to be; it couldn’t be the airy wonder it was without the structure Raphaelson built into it.” (The story was remade in 1998 as You've Got Mail, with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.) Of his screenplays in general, Kael declared:Raphaelson took the giddiest inspirations and then polished his dialogue until it had the gleam of appliquéd butterfly wings on a Ziegfeld girl’s toque, but the skeletal strength of his screenplays was what made it possible for the ideas and the words to take flight. Three Screen Comedies also included a reprint of Freundschaft, Raphaelson's wry and affectionate reflection on his working relationship with Lubitsch that had originally appeared in The New Yorker in 1982. In 1977, Raphaelson received the Laurel Award for lifetime achievement in screenwriting from the Writers Guild of America. In an interview series entitled "Creativity with Bill Moyers," an episode that aired in 1982 profiled Raphaelson's career and included an extended interview with him by Moyers. This program is among the extras included on the Criterion Collection DVD of "Heaven Can Wait." In his seventies and early eighties Raphaelson became an adjunct professor at Columbia University in New York, where he taught a course in screenwriting. In 1976 Columbia awarded him an honorary degree. Raphaelson died on July 16, 1983, at the age of eighty-nine. Family His first wife was Rayna Simon from Chicago, who also studied at the University of Illinois. She became a legendary figure, Rayna Prohme, thanks to Vincent Sheean's bestselling book Personal History in the 1930s. She played a role in the Chinese Revolution, and died in Moscow in 1927. Raphaelson was married for 56 years to Dorothy Wegman, known to friends and family as Dorshka. The name was given to her by her friend Marion Benda, a fellow dancer in the Ziegfeld Follies in the early 1920s. Dorshka Raphaelson published two novels: Glorified, an account of her life in the Follies, and Morning Song, a highly praised story about growing up in New York's Washington Heights. Raphaelson's son, Joel (1928-2021), became a senior ad executive and close associate of advertising legend David Ogilvy. Joel edited The Unpublished David Ogilvy: His Secrets of Management, Creativity, and Success - from Private Papers and Public Fulmin.... Discover the Samson Raphaelson popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Samson Raphaelson books.

Best Seller Samson Raphaelson Books of 2024

  • Hot Off the Press synopsis, comments

    Hot Off the Press

    Lexy Timms

    "This is what really happened… reported by a free press, for a free people…" Wes Shaw leads a secret double life. As the secret owner of a billion dollar newspap...

  • His Girl Next Door synopsis, comments

    His Girl Next Door

    Khardine Gray

    From USA Today Bestselling author Khardine Gray comes a sizzling hot single dad romance you won't want to miss. No strings attached fun with the ubergorgeous single d...

  • Silver Santa synopsis, comments

    Silver Santa

    Lacey Silks

    Trapped together on Christmas, their unintended onenight stand becomes a lifechanging encounter amidst the snow. Laura Young's professional role as a security guard at the Sil...

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    Man In The Water

    Jon Hill

    An attempted murder. A missing spouse. And an international conspiracy that could change the world. Jack Green has always been skeptical of socalled facts. Though he's forced ...

  • A Christmas Carol synopsis, comments

    A Christmas Carol

    Charles Dickens

    An Apple Books Classic edition. It’s Christmas Eve in Victorian England. While some families don’t know where their next meal will come from, Ebenezer Scrooge sits in his large hom...

  • Dream Psychology synopsis, comments

    Dream Psychology

    Sigmund Freud

    An Apple Books Classic edition. Written by the founding father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud’s 1899 book is the definitive text on learning to interpret dreams. Freud’s groundbr...

  • Holy Bible synopsis, comments

    Holy Bible

    The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

    The 2013 edition of the Holy Bible contains all of the study aids contained in the 1979 edition and includes revisions to the study aids, several new photos, updated maps, and adju...

  • My Paper Heart synopsis, comments

    My Paper Heart

    Magan Vernon

    One piece of paper can change everything After my parents received the letter I failed out of college, they didn't ask questions. They just sent me to work for my great aunt i...

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    Noxious

    Lexy Timms

    Stop setting yourself on fire to keep someone else warm. Brady and Levi have been together since high school, since before he became famous and started thinking only about himself....

  • The Honeymoon Homicide synopsis, comments

    The Honeymoon Homicide

    J. R. Mathis & Susan Mathis

    Enjoy this SmallTown Murder Mystery Featuring A Unique Sleuthing Couple I'm Father Tom Greer, a Catholic Priest in a smalltown parish who never expected this . . . When I came...

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    The Icing on the Cake

    Linda Seed

    She’s a baker without a kitchen. He’s got a double oven to spare. It’s a recipe for success, until his mother starts stirring up trouble … Cassie Jordan has a sweet dream to open a...

  • The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes synopsis, comments

    The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

    Arthur Conan Doyle

    An Apple Books Classic You get not one, not two, but 25 gripping mysteries in Arthur Conan Doyle’s first of five collections of Sherlock Holmes short stories. Follow the brilliant ...

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    Inception of Gold

    Lexy Timms

    Things are not as bad as they seem. They are worse. Being the personal assistant to a narcissistic actress who just happens to own the key to my family's undoing isn't ex...

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    Caught Up with the Captain

    Kait Nolan

    Can a retired naval commander and the love he left behind overcome a 34yearold secret to find their way to a second chance? Captain Mitchell Greyson is a man who believes in duty. ...

  • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz synopsis, comments

    The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

    L. Frank Baum

    An Apple Books Classic edition. You’ve seen the iconic 1939 movie, but do you know about the talking field mice, the Winkies, and the Witch of the North that appear in the original...

  • A Green Kind of Witch synopsis, comments

    A Green Kind of Witch

    Sierra Cross

    Cinderella crossed with Mean Girls.   That's what Hazel's daily existence feels like. Born to a family of elegant yet shallow Beige Witches, seventeen y...

  • His Own Heaven synopsis, comments

    His Own Heaven

    Jennie Kew

    Winner of the 2021 Passionate Plume Award for BDSM Romance Finalist in the 2021 Stiletto Contest for Contemporary Romance He taught her to trust, she taught him to love. ​ Lucy Bar...

  • Tempting the King synopsis, comments

    Tempting the King

    Jessa York

    An escaped Mafia Queen, hiding from her past. A Mafia King who wants to claim her… Giselle They think I'm lostbut I know better. I can never be found. The path I've creat...

  • Always Yours synopsis, comments

    Always Yours

    Claire Raye

    Some things are just meant to be... Ellen Somerville and Will McIntyre met by accident and under unusual circumstances. Getting sprayed by a skunk in a parking lot wouldn’t normall...

  • Pride and Prejudice synopsis, comments

    Pride and Prejudice

    Jane Austen

    An Apple Books Classic edition. Jane Austen’s beloved classic opens with this witty and very memorable line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possessio...

  • Nothing to Hide synopsis, comments

    Nothing to Hide

    Scarlett Finn

    Prize of a lifetime: travel the world with a celebrity billionaire. Come to LA with us, Roxie… It will be so much fun! We have tickets for a latenight talk show! What could possibl...

  • The Holy Bible - King James Version synopsis, comments

    The Holy Bible - King James Version

    King James

    Holy Bible King James Version Few Sample Paragraphs from The Holy Bible eBook, Genesis (OT) 1 Gen. 1 IN the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was with...

  • Never Enough synopsis, comments

    Never Enough

    Lexy Timms

    Be good enough never is... Anthony Accardi is a man on a mission: make his father's watch company a success while bringing in millions of dollars. To do that, he needs an assi...

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    All Fired Up

    Kathryn Shay

    Captain Jarek Zenko, a war veteran and firefighter, meets Lacey Roth at a bar one night. They don’t share their real identities, even when they retreat to a hotel. When they meet t...

  • The Great Gatsby synopsis, comments

    The Great Gatsby

    F. Scott Fitzgerald

    An Apple Books Classics edition. The Roaring Twenties are in full effect in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s riveting classic. Manabouttown Jay Gatsby seems to have it all, including loads of...

  • A Bookshop to Die For synopsis, comments

    A Bookshop to Die For

    M.P. Black

    Ditching her fiancé at the altar, Alice Hartford bolts to her childhood hometown to reconnect with the last, happy remnant of her past: her mom's old bookstore. But the bookst...

  • The Three Little Pigs synopsis, comments

    The Three Little Pigs

    Mark Lesky

    Classic fairy tales, legends and folk stories in short version without violence retold with lovely illustrations in simple language. Perfect for reading aloud to small chi...

  • Coffee Girl synopsis, comments

    Coffee Girl

    Sophie Sinclair

    Mackenzie "Kiki" Forbes finds herself in a pickle. Either become her snarky sister's nanny, or move halfway across the country to work as assistanttothestylist of a ...

  • Get Lucky synopsis, comments

    Get Lucky

    Lila Monroe

    Fall for the hot and hilarious romcom spin on 'The Hangover', perfect for fans of Tessa Bailey, Ali Hazelwood, and Emily Henry! What happens when you wake up in a hotel s...

  • Think and Grow Rich synopsis, comments

    Think and Grow Rich

    Greg Habstritt & Napoleon Hill

    Think and Grow Rich is one of the most popular success book of alltime, having sold more than 60 million copies since it was first published more than 70...

  • The Scarlet Letter synopsis, comments

    The Scarlet Letter

    Nathaniel Hawthorne

    An Apple Books Classic edition. Hester Prynne lives in infamy. After committing adultery and bearing a child with a man whose name she refuses to divulge, the heroine of Nathaniel ...

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    School of Potential

    W.J. May

    USA Today Bestselling author, W.J. May brings you a continuation of the international bestselling series, The Chronicles of Kerrigan! Come back and enjoy the famous characters, or ...

  • Rogue Alpha synopsis, comments

    Rogue Alpha

    Kimber White

    One touch made her crave him. But the pull of fate could be the path to ruin. College student Laura Prince lands a plum internship deep in the Michigan wilderness. When she discove...

  • The Odyssey synopsis, comments

    The Odyssey

    Homer

    An Apple Books Classic edition. Homer’s eighthcentury epic poem is a companion to The Iliad . It tells the story of Odysseus, who journeys by ship for 10 years after the Trojan War...

  • The Art of War synopsis, comments

    The Art of War

    Sun Tzu

    An Apple Books Classic edition. It’s believed that Sun Tzu wrote this Chinese military primer during the 5th century BChundreds of years before the Bible. The book’s 13 chapters ex...

  • Teased by Fire synopsis, comments

    Teased by Fire

    Molly O'Hare

    From USA Today bestselling author Molly O’Hare comes an enemiestolovers, older brother’s best friend, romantic comedy with a curvy, antisocial, supernaturalobsessed, allyearround h...

  • Masters of Restraint synopsis, comments

    Masters of Restraint

    Ines Johnson

    My new boss is good at giving orders. But his latest demand is NSFW. Especially when his two business partners want in on our deal. My new boss My boss’s boss Their investor &#...

  • Become A Better Version of Yourself synopsis, comments

    Become A Better Version of Yourself

    Ben Leighton

    This ebook contains golden nuggets on how to motivate, inspire and improve your current situation. It encompasses the holistic view of self improvement from mental& emotion...

  • Assisting the Bosshole synopsis, comments

    Assisting the Bosshole

    Kristin MacQueen

    No hot water? Check Missed the train? Check Broke my heel? Check Dropped my coffee? Check My first day of my new job can’t possibly go worse, right? Wrong. When I meet Parker Scott...

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    Finding Cinderella

    Colleen Hoover

    #1 New York Times bestselling author of It Starts with Us and It Ends With Us writes a free novella about the search for happily ever after. A chance encounter in the dark leads ei...

  • Death at Hazel House synopsis, comments

    Death at Hazel House

    Betty Rowlands

    ‘Riveting, can't put it down! I love this story… a wonderfully twisted tale of a crime that has more twists than I thought possible... fantastic.’ Goodreads Reviewer, 5 stars ...

  • Meditations synopsis, comments

    Meditations

    Emperor of Rome Marcus Aurelius

    Meditations is a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor 161–180 CE, setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.

  • Once Upon A One-Night Stand synopsis, comments

    Once Upon A One-Night Stand

    Zoey Locke

    At first sight, there was electrifying chemistry.  So why not go for it? After all, Lynx Grove, the city's most eligible bachelor, wants to claim her, at least for th...

  • You Are Kind synopsis, comments

    You Are Kind

    Michael Gordon

    A little kindness goes a long way. How can you help encourage your kids to be kind from a young age? Teach kindness to preschoolers Acts of kindness can be fun, easy, and make a ...

  • The Seduction Series Boxset synopsis, comments

    The Seduction Series Boxset

    Roxy Sloane

    “Sensual, thrilling and wild!”   Discover the bestselling series in one collection: THE SEDUCTION, THE BARGAIN, and THE INVITATION. Perfect for fans of Ana Huang, Sierra S...

  • Alpha synopsis, comments

    Alpha

    Sybil Bartel

    Billionaire. Mercenary. Navy SEAL. The Teams trained me to be a killer. War taught me to be ruthless. Then an illfated mission proved I was human. Combat wounded, cut loose by the ...

  • Just Me synopsis, comments

    Just Me

    Lexy Timms

    We all need somewhere where we feel safe… After leaving her abusive husband, Katherine Marshall is out on her own for the first time. She's hopped from city to city to avoid t...

  • Enemies With Benefits synopsis, comments

    Enemies With Benefits

    Roxie Noir

    I don’t love him. I don’t even like him. I just want him. Eli Loveless was my nemesis from the first day of kindergarten until we graduated high school. Everything I did, he had to...

  • Christmas in Sweetbriar Cove synopsis, comments

    Christmas in Sweetbriar Cove

    Melody Grace

    Celebrate the holidays in Sweetbriar Cove with this festive romance collection, containing two sizzling smalltown holiday stories perfect for fans of Tessa Bailey, Sophie Kinsella...

  • Teach Me synopsis, comments

    Teach Me

    Cassandra Dean

    From awardwinning author Cassandra Dean comes a tale where lessons of pleasure between a curious, sunshine widow and a dissolute, grumpy earl leads to passion and allconsuming love...