Bella Cohen Spewack
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Samuel and Bella Spewack, photo courtesy The Billy Rose Theater Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, the Astor, Lennox and Tilden Foundation | | |
STAGE & SCREEN ARTIST
BORN: March 24, 1899, Bucharest, Romania
DIED: April 27, 1990, New York, New York
Bella Spewack was a playwright, screenwriter, and journalist. She began her career as a journalist for socialist and pacifist papers such as The New York Call. Her work drew attention from a young reporter for The World, Samuel Spewack, whom she married in 1922. Shortly afterwards, the Spewacks, both of Eastern European descent, worked for four years as news correspondents in Moscow. After returning to New York, they wrote plays and movies involving slapstick humor and stereotypically comic characters, the most notable of which was Kiss Me Kate, a take-off of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew Cole Porter provided the music for this popular production. When she wasn't writing plays and movie scripts, Bella Spewack was a successful publicist for the Camp Fire Girls and Girl Scouts.
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