Robert Riskin - Stroke and Death

Stroke and Death

In 1950, Robert Riskin suffered a debilitating stroke that prevented him from writing additional scripts. His last screenplays, still in the pipeline, were produced between 1950 and 1951. Ironically, Frank Capra was assigned to Riskin's last original story, Here Comes the Groom, which he directed in 1951. Years after Riskin's death in 1955, Capra directed a remake of the 1933 film "Lady for a Day," which Riskin had written from a short story by Damon Runyon and Capra had directed. The 1961 version, with a screenplay by Hal Kanter and Harry Tugend from the Riskin-Runyon material was titled "A Pocketful of Miracles". The film became Capra's last.

Upon his death on September 20, 1955, Riskin was in the 13th year of marriage to actress Fay Wray. Riskin had two children and one adopted daughter with Wray, including Susan (born 1936, adopted 1942), Robert (born 1943), and Victoria (born 1946). Interment Inglewood Park Cemetery, Inglewood California.

A biography by Ian Scott, In Capra's Shadow: The Life and Career of Screenwriter Robert Riskin, was published in 2006 by the University Press of Kentucky.