Zelda Sears
Writing
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Zelda Sears (née Paldi; January 21, 1873 — February 19, 1935) was an American stage actress, screenwriter, novelist and businesswoman. Zelda had various odd jobs, including a writer for a Chicago newspaper, before becoming an actress and writer. In New York she played comic roles on stage, learned shorthand, and even opened her own typewriting business. The impetus of her writing career occurred when she began to copy scientific articles for the noted surgeon Dr. William Bull. Sears observed life in his sanitarium and turned what she saw into a fictional story, which she sold to a magazine. Readers became privy to the inner workings of the institution by reading Zelda's The Name Above The Door. Her income grew after several more short stories were accepted for publication. Dissatisfaction led Sears to return to Chicago, where she joined the acting troupe of John Stapleton. Sears' stage career was boosted by her acting in a production of Lovers Lane. Other plays in which she appeared were Women and Wine, Girls, The Blue Mouse, Love Among The Lions, The Girl He Couldn't Leave Behind Him, Keeping Up Appearances, The Nest Egg, Standing Pat, The Truth, The Show Shop, The Scarlet Woman, and Undertow. Playwrights began to trust her to add dialogue to her roles in stage productions. Sears learned to write stage speeches and construct scenes. Over a period of eleven years she read more than one hundred plays. She embellished ten of these for production. As a writer she benefited greatly from her association with Clyde Fitch. Earlier he had cast her in Lovers Lane. Sears wrote dialogue for theatrical shows like Lady Billy, Cornered, The Clinging Vine, and The Magic Ring. She came to Hollywood to be a scenarist for Cecil B. DeMille and MGM in the early 1930s. Sears co-wrote The Divorcee, a 1930 American Pre-Code drama film, along with Nick Grindé and John Meehan. She died, age 62, at her Hollywood home in 1935 and was survived by her second husband, Louis Wiswell, and a sister, Marie Paldi. She had taken her professional name from her first husband, Herbert E. Sears.
Known For
American Civil War, 1862. After the disaster of the Second Battle of Bull Run, Major Allen, chief of the Secret Service of the Union, asks actress Gail Loveless to become one of his operators and infiltrate enemy territory.
Operator 13
After decades of raising the motherless Smith children, housekeeper Emma Thatcher is faced with resentment when she marries their father.
Emma
A maid has romances with a two-timer, a boozing millionaire and the master of the house.
Sadie McKee
A widow's decision to run for mayor kicks off a battle of the sexes in a small town.
Politics
When a woman discovers that her husband has been unfaithful, she decides to pay him back in kind.
The Divorcee
A beautiful woman lands a job at an exclusive salon that deals with the wives of wealthy businessmen. Her contact with these men leads to a series of affairs.
Beauty for Sale
Longtime friends become feuding mothers-in-law when their children marry.
Prosperity
Tugboat, the Narcissus, is owned and captained by Annie Brennan, and among her crew are her alcoholic but good-natured husband, Terry, and her conscientious son, Alec. Annie continually loses business because of Terry's drunken mistakes. Alec wants to quit school to work on the tug full time, but Annie will not sacrifice her son's education. A grown Alec has followed in his mother's footsteps and becomes a mariner, but a more upscale one as the captain of a luxury liner. Alec returns home with his fiancée, Pat - the boss' daughter - with a grand plan to save Annie from the life that drunkard Terry has provided her. But ultimately, it's Annie and Terry that need to be Alec's savior, and by their move show him the meaning of true commitment.
Tugboat Annie
A woman and her children escape severe poverty and abuse. She successfully betters her family's condition while living with the secret that she killed her abusive husband in order to protect her children from him.
A Wicked Woman
Yvonne is a beautiful model who loves frequenting the Parisian bohemian life, because she loves hobnobbing with artists.
Inspiration
A young woman runs away from an abusive home and pre-arranged marriage only to be frustrated in her attempts to find happiness with a handsome engineer.
Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise)
When a hardened businesswoman who goes by the initials A.B. overhears someone calling her an “Amazon” because of her butch ways, she agrees to a more “feminine” makeover. In the end she learns that no matter how she looks she’s still the smartest person in any room.
The Clinging Vine
Loretta Young plays dual roles in this 1930 crime drama about a young thief planning to steal jewels from a wealthy socialite.
Road to Paradise
When the Stack family suffers some financial setbacks, daughter Mary Ellen suggests they buy a car and relocate to California. Unbeknownst to them, their used car is worth more than they ever could have imagined.
Rubber Tires
A family man becomes innocently involved in an embezzlement.
This Side of Heaven
Becky Warder constantly indulges in the telling of little white lies. In an innocent effort to ease the troubled marriage of her quarreling friends Eve and Fred Lindon, Becky meets secretly with Fred, thereby constructing a web of deceit that leads Eve to suspect Becky of trifling with her husband's affections. Eve informs Becky's husband Tom of these meetings and Tom, suspicious, accuses his wife of infamy. ....
The Truth
John Blaisdell, a stolid businessman married for 10 years, concludes that romantic love is a thing of the past for him. His wife, Helen, a very domestic and conservative woman, invites Jenny Lou, a young southern girl, as her houseguest, and the girl flirts with John; she is conspicuously unsuccessful until she pretends to faint on the golf course and the unsuspecting victim finds her in his arms.
The Wise Wife
The film stars actor Rod La Rocque as Jerry Cleggert, a good-natured descendant of an infamous clan of pirates who resides aboard the rickety ship Jasper B. Cleggert is informed that in order to inherit a large inheritance, he must marry by his twenty-fifth birthday-- otherwise he would relinquish all claims to his impending fortune. Jerry soon meets his ideal would-be bride Agatha Fairhaven and the two immediately fall in love. Complications arise when Jerry's cousin, the dastardly lawyer Reginald Maltravers claims Agatha as his own. The courting couple suffer a series of mishaps on the way to altar; they are waylaid en route by a trio of bandits, escape from a runaway taxi cab, and outrun a mob of unscrupulous state authorities.
The Cruise of the Jasper B
A pair of professional thieves discover that their accomplice, Mary Brennan, is a dead-ringer for wealthy heiress Margaret Waring. They wait until Margaret is absent from the house, then place Mary there to make their heist easier. Unfortunately, Margaret returns before they've finished the job and gets shot. When the police get there, both women claim to be Margaret Waring and accuse the other of being the thief--and they look so much alike that no one can tell the difference.
Cornered
Society miss Sally Raeburn is left penniless and is helped out by an older woman. The woman makes it clear that to repay her, Sally must marry wealth, so when the very well-heeled Lester comes to her village, Sally goes after him. Lester has been traveling incognito in the hopes that no one will discover him, so when Sally wins him she feels guilty and confesses that she knew who he was all along.