Herman Raucher, the Oscar-nominated screenwriter for the coming-of-age drama ‘Summer of ’42’ has died at the age of 95. He took his last breath on Thursday at Stamford Hospital in Stamford, Connecticut, as informed by his daughter, Jenny Raucher.
Raucher, who initiated his career in the realm of live television, authored screenplays for two Anthony Newley films: Sweet November (1968), helmed by Robert Ellis Miller and featuring Sandy Dennis, and Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969), where Joan Collins also starred.
In crafting the script for Ode to Billy Joe (1976), a romantic drama with Robby Benson and Glynis O’Connor directed by Max Baer Jr., Raucher drew inspiration from Bobbie Gentry’s 1967 hit song.
While Summer of ’42 (1971), directed by Robert Mulligan and starring Jennifer O’Neill, Gary Grimes, and Jerry Houser, was still in postproduction, Raucher was urged to write a book to promote the Warner Bros. film. The resulting book, completed in a “stream of consciousness” in three or four weeks, became a national best-seller even before the film hit theaters. Both the book and the film recount events from Raucher’s own life at the age of 14 during a summer in Nantucket.
Describing that time, Raucher reminisced, “There were no cars. There were ferryboats.” He recalled how people would leave wagons on the ferryboats, and he befriended an older woman by helping carry her bags.
Raucher gained recognition with the groundbreaking and racially charged Watermelon Man (1970), directed by Melvin Van Peebles. The film featured Godfrey Cambridge as a white bigot who wakes up one morning in his suburban house transformed into a black man.
Born on April 13, 1928, and raised in Brooklyn, Raucher attended Erasmus High School and NYU. He commenced his writing career with one-hour dramas for prestigious network anthology series, including Studio One, Goodyear Playhouse, and The Alcoa Hour. He also worked for Walt Disney during the company’s transition from animated to live-action projects, landing a job after the inauguration of Disneyland in 1955.
Raucher remained a creative director and board member at various New York advertising agencies before focusing on his writing. His works included the 1962 Broadway comedy Harold, six novels such as A Glimpse of Tiger, There Should Have Been Castles, and Maynard’s House. He authored the Summer of ’42 sequel, Class of ’44, and co-wrote The Other Side of Midnight with Sidney Sheldon.
Despite successes in film, television, and stage, Raucher expressed a strong affinity for novels. His daughter highlighted, “Despite his successes on both the big and small screen as well as the stage, Raucher always felt most at home with novels, the one medium in which no one could change as much as a comma without his approval, a condition to which every writer aspires but very few achieve.”
Survived by his grandchildren Samantha and Jamie, along with another daughter, Jacqueline, Raucher’s wife Mary Kathryn, a Broadway dancer and a student of George Balanchine at the School of American Ballet, passed away in 2002.