 Shavelson was born to a Jewish family in Brooklyn and graduated from Cornell University in 1937. worked as a writer on comedian Bob Hope's radio show, "The Pepsodent Show Starring Bob Hope".Shavelson came to Hollywood in 1938 as one of Hope's joke writers, a job he held for the next five years.He was responsible for the screenplays of such Hope films as "The Princess and the Pirate" (1944), "Where There's Life" (1947), "The Great Lover" (1949), and "Sorrowful Jones" (1949), which also starred Lucille Ball.