Screenwriter Mann Rubin, who penned 1959 drama “The Best of Everything,” starring Hope Lange, Stephen Boyd and Joan Crawford, and 1980 police thriller “The First Deadly Sin,” starring Frank Sinatra and Faye Dunaway, died after a long illness in West Hills, Calif., on Oct. 12. He was 85.
Rubin also wrote episodes for dozens of TV series, starting with the pioneering “Studio One in Hollywood” and “Tales of Tomorrow” and ending with a new iteration of “Dragnet” in 1990.
Most recently he had penned two film shorts, co-writing 2012’s “A Nice Touch,” starring Dougray Scott, with director Richard Jones. “A Lasting Impression,” starring Tanna Frederick, will play film festivals next year.
For director Jean Negulesco’s 1959 feature “The Best of Everything,” Rubin and Edith R. Sommer shared credit for adapting the Rona Jaffe novel. For “The First Deadly Sin,” Rubin adapted Lawrence Sanders’ novel.
The writer’s other TV credits include episodes of “Perry Mason,” “The Fugitive,” “The F.B.I.,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Mod Squad,” “Mannix,” “The Six Million Dollar Man,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “Quincy M.E.,” “The Rockford Files” and “Dynasty.”
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Born in Brooklyn, Rubin served in the U.S. Army from 1945-47 and earned his B.A. from NYU in 1952. He began as a writer penning sci-fi stories for DC Comics’ “Strange Adventures” and “Mystery in Space”; later stories were published in the Alfred Hitchcock magazine and elsewhere. (He also wrote an episode of TV’s “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.”)
He later taught screenwriting at USC.
