David rayfiel

David Rayfiel was born on September 9, 1923. His father, Leo F. Rayfiel, was a Democratic congressman and district judge. After fighting in Europe during World War II, he graduated from Yale with a degree in playwriting in 1950. In 1962 he premiered the play “PS 193” with James Earl Jones playing a war veteran who takes classes with a liberal professor.

From that moment he dedicated himself to writing television series such as Norby . He was also the author of several installments of Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theater , where plays were performed. One of them, “Something About Lee Wiley” was directed by a very young Sydney Pollack , who after a long season in the field of television, was preparing his landing in the cinema.

Rayfiel became a regular collaborator with Pollack after Pollack asked him to help out with the screenplay for Life Is Worth More , his film debut, although Rayfiel does not appear in the credits. They then worked together on two small films, The Fortress and Condemned Property – an adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play from a script by Francis Ford Coppola – starring Robert Redford .

“Rayfield was the unseen hero in every movie I did with Sydney Pollack,” Robert Redford said. Rayfield made unseen arrangements in memorable films alongside these two movie greats: The Three Days of the Condor , The Adventures of Jeremiah Johnson , The Way We Were , The Electric Horseman, and Havana . He also collaborated on other Pollack films, without Redford, such as Absence of Malice , The Cover and Sabrina (and her love) .

Rayfield also assisted Bertrand Tavernier with the script for Death Live , and Around Midnight , and Sidney Lumet , with The Morning After , among others. Curiously, he was more satisfied with all these films than with Lipstick , one of the few scripts he wrote alone. “I’ve done my best work as a secondary”, he went on to declare himself.

Divorced from actress Maureen Stapleton , he had lived with Lynne Schwarzenbek-Rayfiel since 1987.