- Raymond Abrashkin
Raymond Abrashkin (
March 09 1911 -August 25 1960 ) was an American writer best known for writing, co-producing, and co-directing the acclaimed movie, "The Little Fugitive ", and for co-creating and co-authoring the highly successful "Danny Dunn " series of science fiction books for children with Jay Williams.Family
Raymond's parents were Harry Abrashkin, born in what is now
Dnipropetrovsk ,Ukraine , and Bertha Kornfeld, born in England. Raymond was born inBrooklyn, New York .He graduated from the
City College of New York and taught inNew York City public schools. His writing career began as the education editor of "PM Newspaper". He became the principal writer for Young People's Records. He wrote the syndicated comic strip "Timmy", drawn by Howard Sparber.Around 1935, he married Evelyn Kurinski. They had two children, John Michael (West) Abrashkin, an artist (1941-1992), and William Henry (Hank) Abrashkin, a Trial Court Judge in Massachusetts (b. 1944). There are two grandchildren, Karen Anna Abrashkin (b. 1981) and John Raymond Abrashkin (b. 1983).
During
World War II Abrashkin served in the United States Maritime Service on supply ships in the Atlantic. During and after the war, he lived inGreenwich Village , New York. In 1951 he and his family moved to a converted barn inWeston, Connecticut , where he lived for the remainder of his life."Little Fugitive"
In 1952 Abrashkin wrote the screenplay for "
Little Fugitive " under the name "Ray Ashley", which he co-produced and co-directed with Morris Engel and Ruth Orkin. The movie, which came out in 1953, was nominated for an Academy Award, and won acclaim and praise fromFrançois Truffaut as setting the stage for theFrench New Wave movement.While working on the movie at
Coney Island , Abrashkin was stricken with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, (ALS, also known asLou Gehrig's Disease ), from which he died, aged 49.External links
*imdb title|id=0046004|title=The Little Fugitive
*iblist name|id=5092|name=Raymond Abrashkin
*isfdb name|id=Raymond_Abrashkin|name=Raymond Abrashkin
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