In the golden age of Hollywood—a time when stars were larger than life and scripts were golden tickets to silver screens—Fay and Michael Kanin were busily crafting standout, human, funny, and thought-provoking stories in American entertainment. Together, they formed one of the most dynamic husband-wife teams in show business, leaving their fingerprints on Broadway stages, Hollywood scripts, and even the foundations of major film institutions. Their story is not just about writing—it’s about resilience, partnership, and the belief that storytelling matters.

Their meeting was pure Hollywood. Fay Mitchell, a young New Yorker with degrees in English and Theatre from the University of Southern California, had just scored a job as a script reader at RKO. Michael Kanin, a visual artist-turned-writer and a fellow New Yorker, was already under contract with RKO as a screenwriter. The two crossed paths in California on the RKO lot—and Michael was immediately smitten. His first words to Fay were, “How do you do, will you marry me?” Fay wasn’t looking for a husband, but she later recalled “Michael was that rare bird who would not only support my ambitions but would enrich my life.” ​

They married in 1940. As Michael recounted, “For our honeymoon, I splurged on a house for the summer in the ritzy Malibu Colony… it was the ‘Hollywood’ thing to do.” Fay and Michael immediately started writing together. The project? A boxing boarding house story called Sunday Punch, adapted from a New Yorker short story. They spent six months working on it, sold it to MGM, and just like that, the Kanin’s writing partnership was off and running​.

The Kanins had a creative chemistry based on trust, compromise, and an honest appraisal of each other’s strengths. Fay once explained their method: “We would make a story outline together with rather detailed descriptions of the scenes. Then we divided up the writing, each taking the scenes we felt strongly about… As an artist, Michael brought a great visual sense to the process. I was a people person who loved the characters and the dialogue.”​

They weren’t just two writers in the same room; they were collaborators who grew and learned from one another. But, as with any marriage, even the most fruitful creative partnerships require space. They were also regularly writing separately. “We find it healthy to do work apart every so often,” Fay said – wisdom forged not just in love, but in the furnace of deadlines and dialogue rewrites.

At RKO, Michael wrote furiously, churning out as many as four screenplays in six months. Then in 1941, he joined with Ring Lardner, Jr. on a script written specifically for Katharine Hepburn. The resulting movie, Woman of the Year was nominated for two Academy Awards—one for Best Original Screenplay and a second for Best Actress. Michael recounted, “During the writer’s awards, when the one for Best Original Screenplay was announced, I suddenly hear the names Michael Kanin and Ring Lardner, Jr., for Woman of the Year and was flabbergasted.” It was an amazing accomplishment for a newcomer to the film industry.

Fay, meanwhile, was trying her hand at writing for radio. NBC hired her as a writer-producer for a program called The Woman’s Angle which encouraged women to support the war effort. Fay also acted with the Hollywood Actors’ Laboratory Theatre.

Despite their growing list of credits, the early 1950s were a time of turmoil. The Kanins were swept up in the tide of McCarthyism. Their association with the Hollywood Actors’ Lab, where Fay had taken classes, and the Hollywood Writers Mobilization organization, was enough to land them on the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) blacklist. “We found out when we were traveling in Europe,” Fay said. When they returned to California, they consulted their lawyer who asked them flatly, “Are you communists?” They weren’t. But guilt by association was enough to sink careers. They didn’t work for two years. Eventually, the head of production at MGM broke the silence, hiring them to write the script for the film Rhapsody in 1953.

Hollywood was once again benefiting from the Kanins’ wit and style. Teacher’s Pet (1958), their Oscar-nominated comedy starring Clark Gable and Doris Day, remains one of their most well-known works. A gruff, street-smart newspaper editor (Gable) clashes with an idealistic journalism professor (Day). Bringing a newsroom to the silver screen had its challenges. “We were forced to use all our ingenuity to invent phrases and expletives… that sounded strong but were, according to Code, inoffensive,” Fay recounted.

The Kanins weren’t just screenwriters; they were also playwrights. Fay’s Goodbye, My Fancy, a Broadway hit, produced by Michael, ran for two years. It centered on a trailblazing congresswoman returning to her alma mater. The story was inspired after Fay’s own return to Elmira College, where she had spent three years as an undergraduate. Countering existing gender roles, Goodbye, My Fancy made a strong statement about working women and freedom of speech in education. Fay’s feminism came out boldly in her writing.

The production of Goodbye, My Fancy was a labor of love. The Kanins mortgaged their home to fund the play and moved to New York with their young son. Their gamble paid off: audiences loved it, and, several years later, Fay even took the lead role in a Pasadena Playhouse production of the show. “The year and a half I spent working on Goodbye, My Fancy was the hardest work I ever did in my life,” she later said. Writing it “was like playing a game of tennis in a telephone booth.”​

The Kanins’ collaboration spanned decades. Together, they wrote Rashomon for Broadway, inspired by the iconic Akira Kurosawa film and the stories of Ryunosuke Akutagawa. They also co-wrote His and Hers, a comedy about a divorced playwright couple falling back into both love and collaboration—partly a mirror of their own life, perhaps. What held their partnership together? Civility. Patience. And ground rules. “It’s all right to argue, even heatedly,” Fay said, “but couples should be human about it. No insults, no name-calling. You have to learn not to hit below the belt, no matter how angry you are.”​

In the 1970s, Fay Kanin found a new canvas: television. While Michael retired from producing and screenwriting in 1969 to pursue painting and sculpting—Fay pivoted into the world of made-for-TV movies. She wrote hard-hitting dramas like Heat of Anger, Tell Me Where It Hurts, Hustling, and the searing Vietnam-era Friendly Fire.

“You cannot get a play on Broadway that’s about contemporary problems. I cannot do it in the movies… I have found a place in television,” she said. Friendly Fire was based on a real Iowa family’s loss of their son in Vietnam and aired to an audience of 60 million. Fay co-produced it and earned an Emmy for her work. “It’s long and it’s arduous, this writing from your own gut,” she said, “but I’m grateful that it was my background.”​

Fay’s contributions extended far beyond scripts. She became president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1979 to 1983 and later joined the Board of Governors. She was also deeply involved with the Writers Guild of America, the American Film Institute, and the Library of Congress’s National Film Preservation Board.

Michael, meanwhile, having decided to focus on sculpture in his later years, created bronze tributes to cultural icons like Louis Armstrong and Charlie Chaplin. “Personal homages,” he called them—evidence of his enduring love for artists and storytelling in all forms. He also established the Michael Kanin Original Playwriting Awards to support emerging playwrights through the Kennedy Center’s American College Theater Festival.

Michael Kanin passed away in 1993. Fay followed two decades later in 2013. But their work—and their story—remains. They were often hyphenated in the public’s mind: “Fay-and-Michael Kanin.” But they each stood strong on their own. In the end, their legacy is more than a collection of credits. It’s a testament to the power of collaboration, the strength of resilience, and the enduring belief that stories can change the world—even if it means writing them during your honeymoon.

Post contributed by AHC Writer Kathryn Billington.