Book, Guys and Dolls

Born in Berdichev, Ukraine, in what was Czarist Russia, Swerling emigrated with his family to New York City’s Lower East Side. He worked as a journalist in the 1920s and began to write plays. After writing a stage show and a screenplay for the Marx Brothers, Swerling scored a major success with the book and lyrics for the musical revue The New Yorkers and the play The Kibitzer, which he co-wrote with actor Edward G. Robinson.

After the Wall Street crash in 1929, Swerling left for Hollywood. He wrote dozens of screenplays in the 1930s and 1940s, including some scenes for It’s a Wonderful Life and some uncredited work on Gone with the Wind. He received his sole Oscar nomination for The Pride of the Yankees. Swerling’s greatest professional success came when he returned to Broadway, co-writing the book for Guys and Dolls with Abe Burrows, for which he shared the Tony and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Awards for Best Musical. The show was a smash, running from November 1950 to November 1953 for 1,200 performances.