Philip G. Epstein
Philip G. Epstein was an influential American screenwriter, best known for his collaborations with his identical twin brother, Julius J. Epstein. Born in 1909 in New York City, Philip grew up in a family that valued education, eventually earning a bachelor's degree from Pennsylvania State College. After moving to Hollywood in 1933, he began his career in the film industry, initially producing less notable detective films. However, the brothers garnered significant acclaim with their screenplay for the iconic film Casablanca in 1943, which won them an Academy Award for Best Screenplay and solidified their place in film history.
Throughout their careers, the Epsteins worked on numerous films, including Four Daughters and its sequels, as well as Broadway plays. While they had some unsuccessful ventures, such as the adaptation of J.D. Salinger's "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut," their later works like Forever Female and The Last Time I Saw Paris showed their continued relevance in the film industry. Philip G. Epstein's legacy is marked by his contributions to American cinema, particularly through his lasting collaboration with his brother, culminating in both celebrated successes and challenging projects until his passing in 1954.
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Philip G. Epstein
Screenwriter
- Born: August 22, 1909
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: February 7, 1952
- Place of death: Los Angeles, California
Biography
Philip G. Epstein and his brother and frequent collaborator, Julius J. Epstein, were identical twins. Their father, Henry, owned a livery stable in New York City, where the twins were born in 1909 and received their early education. Their mother, Sarah Gronenberg Epstein, was a housewife. Following graduation from high school, the twins enrolled in Pennsylvania State College (now University), where Philip received a bachelor’s degree in 1932, a year after Julius completed his studies there.
Following college, Epstein became an actor in New York. In 1933, the brothers moved to Hollywood, bent on pursuing careers as screen writers. Epstein produced several detective films, basically inconsequential, second-rate films that, if nothing else, helped him develop a fluency that would serve him well in his future writing.
Fortune smiled on the brothers when Julius was assigned to work with Lenore Coffee on the screenplay for Four Daughters. This film brought its authors an Academy Award nomination as Best Screenplay and resulted in Julius’s writing subsequent films with the same cast of characters. He collaborated with Philip on two such films, Daughters Courageous and Four Wives, the latter a sequel to Four Daughters. The two declined an offer to write the third screenplay to grow out of Four Daughters, a film called Four Mothers.
The careers of both brothers reached its acme in their screenplay for Casablanca in 1943. This film, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, brought the brothers an Academy Award for Best Screenplay and is an icon in American film history. During the period between Four Wives and Casablanca, the twins collaborated on seven films, including such popular productions as The Man Who Came to Dinner and The Male Animal.
The brothers had written a play, And Stars Remain, produced on Broadway in 1936, and they turned their efforts to writing for Broadway again in the early 1940’s. These collaborations, Rufus and His Wife, Chicken Every Sunday, and That’s the Ticket, were poorly received by both critics and audiences. Chicken Every Sunday later was adapted for film by Valentine Davies and George Seaton and released in 1949. That same year, the brothers adapted J. D. Salinger’s short story, “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut,” for the screen, producing the film My Foolish Heart, which was generally considered a total failure. Salinger was so distressed about the film that he never again permitted any of his work to be adapted for the screen.
More successful were the brothers’ screenplays for Forever Female and The Last Time I Saw Paris, both released in 1954, two years after Philip died of cancer. The brothers were also working on a screenplay based on Fyodor Dostoevski’s novel, The Brothers Karamazov, during the final months of Philip’s life. This film was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1958.