Melville Shavelson
Encyclopedia
Melville Shavelson was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 film director, producer, screenwriter, and author. He was President of the Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....

, West (WGAw) from 1969 to 1971, 1979 to 1981, and 1985 to 1987. He came to Hollywood in 1938 as one of comedian Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...

's joke writers, a job he held for the next five years. He is responsible for the screenplays of such Hope films as The Princess and the Pirate
The Princess and the Pirate
The Princess and the Pirate is a 1944 American comedy film released by Samuel Goldwyn, starring Bob Hope and Virginia Mayo. This was the only appearance in a Goldwyn film by Paramount Pictures star Hope.-Plot:...

(1944), Where There's Life
Where There's Life
Where There's Life is a 1947 comedy film. The film's title derives from a line in Don Quixote .-Plot:...

(1947), The Great Lover
The Great Lover (1949 film)
The Great Lover is a 1949 comedy film starring Bob Hope, Rhonda Fleming, and Roland Young. A scout leader takes his troop on an ocean cruise, pursues a beautiful duchess and is stalked by a murderer.-Cast:*Bob Hope as Freddie Hunter...

(1949), and Sorrowful Jones
Sorrowful Jones
Sorrowful Jones is a 1949 film directed by Sidney Lanfield. The film stars Lucille Ball and Bob Hope.Sorrowful Jones was a remake of a 1934 Shirley Temple film, Little Miss Marker. In the film, a young girl is left with the notoriously cheap Sorrowful Jones as a marker for a bet...

(1949), which also starred Lucille Ball
Lucille Ball
Lucille Désirée Ball was an American comedian, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here's Lucy and Life With Lucy...

.

Shavelson was nominated twice for Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

 for Best Original Screenplay -- first for 1955's The Seven Little Foys
The Seven Little Foys
The Seven Little Foys is a 1955 film starring Bob Hope as Eddie Foy. James Cagney reprises his role as George M. Cohan for an energetic tabletop dance showdown sequence. In addition to the famous film, the story of Eddie Foy, Sr...

, starring Hope in a rare dramatic role, and then for 1958's Houseboat
Houseboat (film)
Houseboat is a 1958 romantic comedy film starring Cary Grant, Sophia Loren, Martha Hyer, Paul Petersen, Charles Herbert and Mimi Gibson. The movie was directed by Melville Shavelson, who also directed the original 1968 version of Yours, Mine and Ours....

. He shared both nominations with Jack Rose
Jack Rose (screenwriter)
Jack Rose was an American screenwriter and producer born on November 4, 1911, in Warsaw, Russian Empire. He died on October 21, 1995, in Los Angeles, California....

. He also directed both films.

Other films he wrote and directed include Beau James
Beau James
Beau James is a 1957 film based on a non-fiction book of the same name by Gene Fowler.The movie stars Bob Hope as Jimmy Walker, the colourful but controversial Mayor of New York City from 1926-32. American prints of this film are narrated by Walter Winchell; in Britain, the film was narrated by...

(1957), The Five Pennies
The Five Pennies
The Five Pennies was a semi-biographical 1959 film starring Danny Kaye as cornet player and bandleader Red Nichols. Other cast members included Barbara Bel Geddes, Harry Guardino, Bob Crosby, Louis Armstrong, Susan Gordon, and Tuesday Weld...

(1959) for which he won a Screen Writers Guild Award, It Started in Naples
It Started in Naples
It Started in Naples is an American romantic comedy film made by Paramount Pictures and released in August 1960. It was directed by Melville Shavelson and produced by Jack Rose from a screenplay by Suso Cecchi d'Amico based on the story by Michael Pertwee and Jack Davies...

(1960), On the Double (1961), The Pigeon That Took Rome (1962), A New Kind of Love
A New Kind of Love
A New Kind of Love is a 1963 American romantic comedy film directed by Melville Shavelson and starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.-Plot:A journalist mistakes a woman for a prostitute...

(1963), Cast a Giant Shadow
Cast a Giant Shadow
Cast a Giant Shadow is a 1966 big budget, action movie based on the life of Colonel Mickey Marcus starring Kirk Douglas and Senta Berger. Yul Brynner, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, and Angie Dickinson also appear in supporting roles...

(1966), and Yours, Mine and Ours
Yours, Mine and Ours (1968 film)
For the remake of this film starring Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo see Yours, Mine and Ours Yours, Mine and Ours is a 1968 film, directed by Melville Shavelson and starring Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda and Van Johnson...

(1968), which starred Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda
Henry Jaynes Fonda was an American film and stage actor.Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins...

 and again with Lucille Ball. The film, a comedy about a widow (Lucille Ball) and a widower (Henry Fonda) raising 18 children together. When Ms. Ball later asked Mr. Shavelson how he enjoyed directing her, The Associated Press reported, he replied, “Lucy, this is the first time I ever made a film with 19 children.” Ms. Ball was not amused. In addition to his film work, Shavelson created two Emmy award-winning television series and wrote for a dozen Academy Award shows.

He also wrote,produced and co-directed the six-hour ABC screenplay to the 1979 television miniseries
Miniseries
A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...

 Ike
Ike (TV miniseries)
Ike is a 1979 television miniseries about the life of Dwight D. Eisenhower. The screenplay by Melville Shavelson was based on Kay Summersby's 1948 memoir Eisenhower Was My Boss and her 1975 autobiography, Past Forgetting: My Love Affair. Directed by Boris Sagal and Melville Shavelson, the...

about Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...

, based on the World War II exploits of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower. He also wrote, miniseries Ike, The War Years.

Shavelson's autobiography, published by BearManor Media in April 2007, is entitled How to Succeed in Hollywood Without Really Trying, P.S. - You Can't! Shavelson wrote several other books, including, with Mr. Hope, “Don’t Shoot, It’s Only Me: Bob Hope’s Comedy History of the United States” (Putnam, 1990), and How to Make a Jewish Movie (1971), a memoir of his experiences while producing and directing Cast a Giant Shadow
Cast a Giant Shadow
Cast a Giant Shadow is a 1966 big budget, action movie based on the life of Colonel Mickey Marcus starring Kirk Douglas and Senta Berger. Yul Brynner, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, and Angie Dickinson also appear in supporting roles...

, and the Hollywood-themed novel Lualda (1973).

Shavelson was a noted instructor at USC's Master of Professional Writing Program from 1998-2006. He taught screenwriting, who often cracked to his students, "I'm a writer by choice, a producer by necessity and a director in self-defense."

Shavelson's first wife, Lucille, died in 2000. He was married to his second wife, Ruth Florea, from 2001 until his death in 2007. He had two children, Lynne Joiner and Richard Shavelson
Richard Shavelson
Richard J. Shavelson is an educational psychologist who has published over 100 research articles and books in the fields of educational assessment, cognitive psychology, and science education. He is a professor in the Stanford University School of Education and a past president of the American...

.

Death

Mel Shavelson, a noted screenwriter, producer and director who worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest, brightest and most temperamental stars, died of natural causes on Wednesday, August 8, 2007, at his home in Studio City, Calif. He was 90. Besides his wife, the former Ruth Florea, whom he married in 2001, he was survived by a sister, Geraldine Youcha of Manhattan and New City, N.Y.; two children from his first marriage, Richard, of Menlo Park, Calif., and Lynne Joiner of Washington; and three grandchildren.

The Shavelson Film Awards, given annually at Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

 for promising filmmakers, were established and named in his honor.

Before his death, Shavelson was quoted as saying of his long life, "When people want to talk to me or invite me to something these days, it's usually because I'm 90 years old. I don't want to be loved just for being 90, although I guess you can't prevent it."

Son Rich Shavelson, of Menlo Park, Calif., in 2007, recalled growing up in a home where famous screenwriters such as Ernest Lehman and television producers such as Sherwood Schwartz were regular visitors. His father at the time was one of Hollywood’s busiest writers. But there was another side to him. He enjoyed nature and shared it with his family. “One of my favorite, early memories with my father was when we went backpacking together in the Sierras on a fishing trip,” Shavelson recounted. “I was about nine and he usually didn’t have time for that sort of thing. It was a very special time. We really got to know each other. I remember we laughed a lot and caught a lot of trout.”

External links

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