Charles MacArthur

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Charles Gordon MacArthur (born November 5, 1895 in Quincy , Michigan , † April 21, 1956 in New York City , New York ) was an American playwright and one of the highest paid screenwriters in Hollywood in the 1930s .

biography

Charles MacArthur was a reporter in Chicago before he became a playwright. He wrote several successful pieces together with Ben Hecht . The best known is The Front Page , which records his experiences as a reporter in Chicago and was filmed several times, for example as The Front Page in 1931 and as His Girl Friday in 1940 . The piece The Twentieth Century was brought to the screen with success in 1934 . MacArthur was a member of the Algonquin Round Table in New York and had a brief affair with Dorothy Parker . In early 1930, Charles MacArthur went to Hollywood as a screenwriter and quickly managed to become the highly paid star among the writers. For a script, he could sometimes ask for fees of up to 150,000 US dollars. Charles MacArthur was often called in to put the finishing touches on scripts. He asked for and received daily rates of $ 15,000. MacArthur managed, for example, to complete the script for the Hedy Lamarr film I Take This Woman , on which a total of 25 authors had failed by then.

Charles MacArthur was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Story at the 1934 Academy Awards for his work on Rasputin: The Demon of Russia . Together with Ben Hecht , Charles Mac Arthur won this category for The Scroundel at the 1936 Academy Awards . He received a third nomination, this time in the Oscar category in the best adapted screenplay category , together with Ben Hecht at the 1940 Oscar ceremony for Sturmhöhe .

Charles MacArthur's second marriage was to actress Helen Hayes , who accompanied him to Hollywood in 1931. MacArthur wrote the screenplay for Hayes' sound film debut The Sin of Madelon Claudet , for which Helen Hayes won an Oscar for Best Actress. The actor James MacArthur (1937-2010) was their adopted son together.

Scripts (selection)

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personal data
SURNAME MacArthur, Charles
ALTERNATIVE NAMES MacArthur, Charles Gordon (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Quincy , Michigan
DATE OF DEATH April 21, 1956
Place of death New York City , New York