Sidney Howard
Writing
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Sidney Coe Howard (June 26, 1891 – August 23, 1939) was an American playwright, dramatist and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1925 and a posthumous Academy Award in 1940 for the screenplay for Gone with the Wind. Sidney Howard was born in Oakland, California, the son of Helen Louise (née Coe) and John Lawrence Howard. He studied playwriting at Harvard University under George Pierce Baker in his legendary "47 workshop." Howard volunteered with Andrew's American Field Service, serving in France and the Balkans during World War I. After the war, Howard made use of his proficiency at foreign languages and translated a number of literary works from French, Spanish, Hungarian, and German. He was a liberal intellectual whose politics became progressively more left-wing over the years. Howard's first success was with his realistic romance They Knew What They Wanted 1924 that established his reputation as a serious writer. The story of a middle-aged Italian vineyard owner who woos a young woman by mail with a false snapshot of himself, marries her, and then forgives her when she becomes pregnant by one of his farm hands. Theater critic Brooks Atkinson called it "a tender, original, merciful drama." They Knew What They Wanted won the 1925 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, was adapted three times into film (1928, 1930, and 1940) and later became the Broadway musical, The Most Happy Fella. One of his greatest successes on Broadway was an adaptation of a French comedy by René Fauchois, The Late Christopher Bean. Yellow Jack, an historical drama about the war against yellow fever, was praised for its high-minded purpose and innovative staging when it premiered in 1934. Hired by Samuel Goldwyn, Howard worked in Hollywood at MGM and wrote several successful screenplays. Despite his well-known left-wing political sympathies he became a shrewd Hollywood insider. In 1932, Howard was nominated for an Academy Award for his adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel Arrowsmith and again in 1936 for Dodsworth. In 1935, Howard wrote the Broadway stage adaptation of Humphrey Cobb's novel Paths of Glory. With its unsparing depictions of battlefield brutality, the play failed at the box office. As a World War I veteran, however, Howard believed it necessary to show the horrors of armed conflict. The film version of the novel, directed by Stanley Kubrick, did not appear until 1957. Howard's screenplay for Gone with the Wind echoed Paths of Glory with an unflinching look at the cost of war. Howard died in the summer of 1939 at the age of forty-eight in Tyringham, Massachusetts while working on his 700-acre farm. He was crushed to death in a garage by his two-and-one-half ton tractor as he was trying to crank it. Howard was the posthumous winner of the 1939 Academy Award for an adapted screenplay for Gone with the Wind. (He was the only writer honored for the writing of that screenplay, despite the fact that his script was revised by several other writers.) This was the first time a posthumous nominee for any Oscar won the award. He was also posthumously inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981. He is buried in the Tyringham Cemetery.
Known For
The spoiled daughter of a Georgia plantation owner conducts a tumultuous romance with a cynical profiteer during the American Civil War and Reconstruction Era.
Gone with the Wind
A kingdom's ascending heir, marked for assassination, switches identities with a lookalike, who takes his place at the coronation. When the real king is kidnapped, his followers try to find him, while the stand-in falls in love with the king's intended bride, the beautiful Princess Flavia.
The Prisoner of Zenda
A retired auto manufacturer and his wife take a long-planned European vacation only to find that they want very different things from life.
Dodsworth
A medical researcher is sent to a plague outbreak, where he has to decide priorities for the use of a vaccine.
Arrowsmith
A European princess jeopardizes her crown when she falls for an American millionaire.
A Breath of Scandal
While courting a young woman by mail, a rich farmer sends a photograph of his foreman instead of his own, which leads to complications when she accepts his marriage proposal.
They Knew What They Wanted
Man about town and First Class cricketer A.J. Raffles keeps himself solvent with daring robberies. Meeting Gwen from his schooldays and falling in love all over again, he spends the weekend with her parents, Lord and Lady Melrose. A necklace presents an irresistible temptation, but also in attendance is Scotland Yard's finest, finally on the trail.
Raffles
A fairly accurate historical account of Walter Reed's search for the cause of "Yellow Jack" or Yellow Fever and those who risked their lives in the pursuit.
Yellow Jack
A trio of money-hungry women rent a luxurious penthouse, spending their dough on drink and debonair clothing, backbiting and catfighting as they steal each other's boyfriends.
The Greeks Had a Word for Them
Set in Paris, this romantic comedy revolves around the beautiful estranged wife of a wealthy banker who hides a handsome and fiery Communist fugitive in her apartment.
He Stayed for Breakfast
Bulldog Drummond is a British WWI veteran who longs for some excitement after he returns to the humdrum existence of civilian life. He gets what he's looking for when a girl requests his help in freeing her uncle from a nursing home. She believes the home is just a front and that her uncle is really being held captive while the culprits try to extort his fortune from him.
Bulldog Drummond
A distinguished English gentleman has a secret life--he is the notorious jewel thief the press has dubbed "The Amateur Cracksman". When he meets a woman and falls in love he decides to "retire" from that life, but an old friend comes to him with a predicament that entails him committing one last job.
Raffles
A domineering matriarch is less than happy when her son brings home his new bride. She immediately sets to work at sabotaging their marriage as well as the engagement of her younger and weaker son.
The Silver Cord
An Elderly fruit grower sends a photo of his foreman, not himself, to a waitress he wishes to marry. She falls in love with the foreman.
The Secret Hour
Suave thief Colman is sent to Devil's Island, where he becomes romantically involved with the wife of sadistic warden Digges.
Condemned!
When the painter Christopher Bean dies, some unscrupulous art dealers try to get several of his paintings cheaply from a family who have no idea of their value.
Christopher Bean
A poor but basically honest flower woman agrees to impersonate a wicked opera star.
One Heavenly Night
A wife's psychiatrist tells her that she is being dominated by her husband. Her solution is to divorce him.
Free Love
Middle-aged Napa Valley grape-grower Tony posts a marriage proposal to San Francisco waitress Lena enclosing a photo of his handsome younger brother Buck. When she gets there she overlooks his duplicity and marries him. Then she falls in love with Buck.
A Lady to Love
Tony, a prosperous Italian vineyardist in California, advertises for a young wife, passing off a photograph of his handsome hired man, Buck, as himself. This film is the alternate German version of A Lady to Love (1930)