by Hal Erickson
biography
A former New York press agent, Paul Yawitz turned to screenwriting in the mid-'30s. From 1937 to 1938, Yawitz worked at RKO, collaborating on such budget-minded comedies as Joe Penner's Go Chase Yourself (1938) and Lucille Ball's The Affairs of Annabel (1938), the latter film featuring Jack Oakie as a bombastic press agent (art imitates life?). At Columbia in the 1940s, Yawitz penned several of the studio's Boston Blackie entries. Paul Yawitz's last-known screen assignment was the 1957 Willis O'Brien fantasy effort The Black Scorpion (1957).
