Herman Raucher

Herman Raucher (April 13, 1928 – December 28, 2023) was an American author and screenwriter who penned the autobiographical screenplay and novel Summer of '42, which became one of the highest-grossing films and one of the best selling novels of the 1970s. Raucher began his writing career during the Golden Age of Television, when he moonlighted as a scriptwriter while working for a Madison Avenue advertising agency. He effectively retired from writing in the 1980s after a number of projects failed to come to fruition, though his books remain in print and a remake of one of his films, Sweet November, was produced in 2001.

Life and career Herman Raucher was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 13, 1928, His family was Jewish. His father was a World War I veteran whom Raucher recalled as having a bayonet wound across his forehead. The family's financial situation fluctuated according to the success of the elder Raucher's career. During more profitable years, the family vacationed on Nantucket. During one such trip, when he was fourteen, Raucher developed a friendship with an older woman he identified as "Dorothy", whose husband was fighting in Europe, an event which formed the basis for Summer of '42. During this time, Raucher's best friend was a boy named Oscar "Oscy" Seltzer, who became a United States Army medic and who died during the Korean War while tending to a wounded soldier.

After graduating from high school, Raucher attended New York University, where he studied advertising and worked as a cartoonist for $38 per week, drawing comic strips. After graduating he became an office boy at 20th Century Fox and eventually worked his way into advertising; Raucher was known for his hobby of writing plays, which several ad executives believed to be the mark of a creative genius. Raucher proved successful as an ad man, and was part of the advertising team that developed the ad campaign for the opening of Disneyland.

Raucher died in Stamford, Connecticut, on December 28, 2023, at the age of 95.

The Great Santini Raucher is often credited as a ghostwriter for the film The Great Santini. However, Raucher did not work on the film, but instead was hired to write the pilot for a failed television adaptation of the film in the 1980s. Nonetheless, Raucher said that he continued to receive fan mail for The Great Santini, second only to letters for Summer of '42. ) Harold (play) A Glimpse of Tiger (novel) Published in Spanish as Requiem por una secretaria (Requiem of a Secretary) Remember When (screenplay) Ode to Billy Joe (novel and screenplay) Published in Spanish as Sublime Amor Juvenile The Other Side of Midnight (screenplay) Maynard's House (novel) Ginger (play) Kitty Hawk: The Musical (play)