Photoplay Magazine · Public domain

Robert Riskin wrote eight films with director Frank Capra between 1931 and 1938, a partnership that produced It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and You Can't Take It with You and earned 29 Academy Award nominations. He won the Oscar for It Happened One Night outright, then during World War II ran the overseas division of the Office of War Information. Riskin married actress Fay Wray in 1942; when he and Capra split after 1941's Meet John Doe amid disputes over screen credit, Capra never visited him through his final illness.