Martin Rackin

Martin Rackin was the son of a silk-mill owner who died when Rackin was 11. To make ends meet, young Rackin took on several jobs, including delivery boy for a hat store. While thus employed, he made the acquaintance of humorist Damon Runyon, who encouraged Rackin to give writing a try. Still in his teens, Rackin became a copy boy for the New York Mirror, working his way up to assistant nightclub columnist. He also toiled away as a publicist and speech writer before heading to Hollywood in 1941. As an MGM contract screenwriter, he wrote extensively for comedian Red Skelton, and later in the 1950s produced and directed Skelton's TV show. His upward mobility in Hollywood interrupted only by four years' service with the USAF, Rackin spent several years at RKO, then freelanced as a producer/writer throughout the 1950s. After maintaining his own production company in partnership with screenwriter John Lee Mahin, Rackin became head of production at Paramount, a post he held from 1960 to 1964. Martin Rackin spent the rest of his screen career as an independent producer; he died of a heart attack during a business trip to London in 1976, four years after the completion of his final production, Two Mules for Sister Sara.