Morris "Morrie" Ryskind (October 20, 1895 – August 24, 1985) was an American dramatist, lyricist and writer of theatrical productions and movies, who became a conservative political activist later in life. Life and career Ryskind was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Ida (Edelson) and Abraham Ryskind. He attended Columbia University but was suspended shortly before he was due to graduate after he called university president Nicholas Murray Butler "Czar Nicholas" in the pages of the humor magazine Jester in 1917. Ryskind was criticizing Butler for refusing to allow Ilya Tolstoy speak on campus. From 1927 to 1945, Ryskind was author of numerous scripts and musical lyrics for Broadway productions and Hollywood movies and later directed a number of such productions as well. He collaborated with George S. Kaufman on several Broadway hits. In 1933, he earned the Pulitzer Prize (receiving the prize from the same Nicholas Murray Butler who had suspended him from Columbia University) for Drama for the Broadway production Of Thee I Sing, a musical written in collaboration with composer George Gershwin. Ryskind wrote or co-wrote several Marx Brothers theatrical and screenplays, including the book for the Broadway musical Animal Crackers (1929) (with Kaufman), and he wrote the screenplays for the film versions of The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930). Later he co-wrote, again with Kaufman, the screenplay for A Night at the Opera (1935), which helped revive interest in the Marx Brothers and was selected by the American Film Institute as among the top 100 comedy films. In working on that script, Ryskind was heavily involved in the "cleanup process," watching the Brothers repeatedly perform sections of the play before live audiences to determine which lines worked and which did not. In an interview with Richard J. Anobile in The Marx Brothers Scrapbook, Groucho said he was so appalled by an early draft of the script, which was reportedly written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, that he screamed "Why fuck around with second-rate talent, get Kaufman and Ryskind [to write the screenplay]!" Ryskind also rewrote the stage version of Room Service (1938), the original of which did not have the Marx Brothers, reworking the plot to make the movie suitable for the three distinctive performers. During that period, Ryskind was twice nominated for an Academy Award for his part in writing the films My Man Godfrey (starring Carole Lombard,