Hy Kraft

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Hyman Solomon Kraft, (April 30, 1899 - July 29, 1975), also known as Hy Kraft or H.S. Kraft, was an American writer, screenwriter, playwright, producer, and director.

Among the notable comedy plays that he wrote were Ten Per Cent (1932), Poppa (1929), Cafe Crown (1942), and Top Banana (1952). In 1964 Cafe Crown was revised as a Broadway musical produced by Philip Rose and Swanlee with music by Albert Hague and lyrics by Marty Brill. The musical plot is set in the early 1930's in and around the Cafe Crown at the corner of Second Avenue and 12th Street in New York City. It had one Broadway revival in 1989.^[1]

Hy Kraft's 1954 musical play Top Banana was filmed for the screen and released as a movie in 1954, starring Phil Silvers as a television comic trying to regain his ratings on TV. Feeling the show was a personal swipe at him, Milton Berle wrote of it, "The only public attack I got any pleasure from was the one dreamed up by Hy Kraft and Johnny Mercer, and starring Phil Silvers. It was a big Broadway musical called Top Banana, in which Phil played an egomaniac named Jerry Biffle who had a top-rated television show and who directed his rehearsals with a whistle. It was a vicious and funny swipe at me, and I loved it so much, I offered to sue Hy Kraft for the publicity value. Anything to help. After all, I had put some money into the show."^[2]

In 1950 Hy Kraft was made part ot the Hollywood blacklist by the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Kraft's screenwriting credits include Stormy Weather (1943) with Lena Horne and short story credit for Smartest Girl In Town (1936) and Champaign Waltz (1937), in the latter case collaborating with Billy Wilder. He also contributed writing (uncredited) to Mark of the Vampire (1935) with Lionel Barrymore and Bela Lugosi.

Kraft also wrote an autobiography, On My Way to the Theater, Macmillan, 1971. The jacket reads, "A lifetime's stroll from New York's Lower East Side to Broadway, with side trips to Hollywood, London, and Washington, D.C., and singular associations with Victor Herbert, Theodore Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, and the House Un-American Activities Committee." Kraft was born and died in New York City. He was married to Reata Kraft, who was the costume designer on Three Husbands (1951).