Screenwriter of 'Seven Year Itch' and 'Manchurian Candidate' d

LOS ANGELES -- Playwright George Axelrod, who anticipated the sexual revolution with "The Seven Year Itch" and "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter" and later wrote screenplays for such films as "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and "The Manchurian Candidate," died Saturday. He was 81.

Axelrod died in his sleep of heart failure, said his daughter, Nina Axelrod.

"He ended his life very peacefully in his home overlooking Los Angeles," she said. "He was very happy."

A radio and television writer, Axelrod hit the jackpot in 1952 with "The Seven Year Itch." It was a laugh-filled play about a man whose wife and children had gone to the country, and who pursues the luscious young beauty who lives above his apartment.

The play lasted almost three years on Broadway and was filmed by 20th Century Fox as a vehicle for Marilyn Monroe, with Tom Ewell repeating his role in the play. The movie was a box-office hit, aided by the classic photo of Monroe's skirt being blown into the air.

His next play, "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" a satire on Hollywood, lasted more than a year on Broadway and was also filmed by Fox, with Tony Randall and Jayne Mansfield as stars. Axelrod steadfastly refused to see it. "They didn't use my story, my play or my script," he said.

"The Manchurian Candidate," in 1962, based on Richard Condon's novel about wartime brainwashing and subversive politics, may have been Axelrod's best achievement.

Critics, audiences and pressure groups were offended by the tale of an American POW in Korea who returns home and kills a powerful politician. After President Kennedy's assassination, it was shelved. When the film was rereleased in 1987, critics proclaimed it a classic.

Another of Axelrod's plays, "Goodbye, Charlie," became a movie starring Debbie Reynolds and Tony Curtis. His other films as writer include "Phffft," "Paris When It Sizzles," "How to Murder Your Wife," "Lord Love a Duck" (also directed), "The Secret Life of an American Wife" (also directed). He also wrote three novels.

In 1987, Axelrod was saluted at the New York Film Festival. He told the admiring crowd: "I always wanted to get into the major leagues, and I knew my secret: luck and timing. I had a small and narrow but very, very sharp talent, and inside it, I'm as good as it gets."

Axelrod's second wife, Joan, died in 2001. He is survived by four children, seven grandchildren and a sister. A private service was planned.