It shouldn’t come as a surprise that a glitzy TV show with Steven Spielberg behind it is a success. But the Hollywood pedigree behind the success of NBC’s “Smash” goes even further back. The show is based on the novel, Smash, written by Garson Kanin who is best remembered as co-writer (with his wife, Oscar-winning actress Ruth Gordon) of the Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn film comedies, which were based on their own marriage.
Similar to the TV show, the book (now an e-book) moves quickly with deception, jealousy, ambition, abuse and sex, and witty and petty characters who relish in all. Kanin wrote Smash in 1980, when he was 68 years old. He died five years later.
