Allen Rivkin

American screenwriter

Allen Rivkin (20 November 1903 – 17 February 1990) was an American screenwriter.

Rivkin was an advertising copy writer, who went to Hollywood and joined the RKO Pictures publicity department. He formed a film writing team with P. J. Wolfson, who got a writer’s contract on the strength of "Bodies Are Dust".^[1] They started at Universal Pictures the same day.^[1] Through a luncheon conversation that day, they decided to collaborate on a story.^[1] In less than two years the pair wrote ten screen plays.^[1] They later wrote for the B. P. Schulberg company at Paramount Pictures.^[1]

He was one of the co-founders of the Screenwriters Guild, later the Writers Guild of America.^[2] He wrote several of his scripts with his wife, Laura Kerr.

Select credits

Picture Snatcher (1933)
Headline Shooter (1933)
Dancing Lady (1933)
Highway West (1941)
Joe Smith, American (1942)
Kid Glove Killer (1942)
Till the End of Time (1946)
The Farmer's Daughter (1947)
Tension (1950)
Prisoner of War (1954)

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "In Hollywood". San Pedro News Pilot. San Pedro, CA. 29 December 1932. p. 6. Retrieved 5 April 2022 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection. Volume 5, Number 256
^ "Allen Rivkin, 86, Dies; Writer of Screenplays", NY Times February 20, 1990 accessed 8 June 2014