William H. Wright (producer)

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William H. Wright (also William Wright or Will Wright ; born April 25, 1902 in Lawrenceburg , Indiana , † July 23, 1980 in Santa Monica , California ) was an American film and television producer and screenwriter .

Life

William H. Wright began his professional career as a newspaper reporter . From 1925 he worked for the film company Paramount Pictures , where he was initially responsible for public relations in their agency in Columbus , Ohio , then in the following year in the Paramount studio in Long Island and from 1927 to 1932 in the publicity department of the Hollywood studio was active. He then learned the manufacturing trade as an assistant to David O. Selznick and BP Schulberg . In 1935 he left Paramount and followed Selznick as a production assistant at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . Later that year he was given a post as assistant to Harry Cohn , head of Columbia Pictures , whose screenwriting department in New York he reorganized.

He returned to the now independently operating Selznick middle of the year 1936 and worked as his production assistant on the film classics The Prisoner of Zenda ( The Prisoner of Zenda , 1937), Toms Adventure ( The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , 1938) and The Young in Heart (1938) with. In 1938 he went back to Paramount, where in 1939 he made his first independent production: Night Work (1939), a comedy with Mary Boland and Charles Ruggles .

In 1939 he left Paramount again to pursue a career as a freelance writer. He wrote a number of short stories for the weekly magazine The Saturday Evening Post and adapted the novel Adventure by Clyde Brion Davis for a screenplay with Anthony Veiller . MGM bought the design and filmed it in 1945 under the direction of Victor Fleming as a man without a heart ( Adventure ) with Clark Gable and Greer Garson in the lead roles. Wright got a permanent job as a screenwriter at MGM in 1941 and wrote Her Cardboard Lover (1942) and Assignment in Brittany (1943) together with Veiller .

Shortly afterwards he was promoted to producer and within a good ten years headed the production of 15 MGM films. His first production was Blonde Fever (1944), a drama starring Philip Dorn , Mary Astor , Felix Bressart and Gloria Grahame . Among the most famous films made under Wright's production line in subsequent years, including the early Fred Zinnemann film act of violence ( Act of Violence , 1948), the court drama The murder trial O'Hara ( The People Against O'Hara , 1951) with Spencer Tracy , the light-weight comedy Die süßefallen ( Love Is Better Than Ever , 1952) with Elizabeth Taylor and the drama The Clown ( The Clown , 1953) with Red Skelton in the title role.

After the classic, of Anthony Mann staged Western Naked Violence ( The Naked track , 1953) with James Stewart in the lead role Wright MGM left. In late 1954 he got a producer position at Columbia under Jerry Wald , but when the studio did not implement any of his projects, he turned his back in early 1956. In the same year he was the production manager of the approximately half-hour documentary short film Williamsburg - The Story of a Patriot , which was also shown in the cinema, but was mainly intended for screenings in Colonial Williamsburg, the historic district of Williamsburg (Virginia) , where it was up to is seen annually by thousands of visitors to this nationally known tourist attraction today.

Wright then turned to television for nearly a decade . The most successful television series he produced during this time was The Adventures of Jim Bowie with Scott Forbes in the title role, which ran from 1956 to 1958 and revolved around the adventures of the famous Alamo hero Jim Bowie . The series was a successful attempt to attach to the incredible success of the Walt Disney series Davy Crockett (1954 to 1956). From 1960 to 1961, Wright produced The Barbara Stanwyck Show . He also played a key role in developing the Kentucky Jones series (1964 to 1965).

William H. Wright had a close artistic relationship with the author Albert Beich (1919–1996). After first collaborating on the feature film The Bride Goes Wild (1948), Beich also wrote the books for several episodes of The Adventures of Jim Bowie . Together they wrote the scripts for several episodes of Tonight, Dick Powell! ( The Dick Powell Show , 1961) and Amos Burke ( Burke's Law , 1963) and the play The Man in the Dog Suit. A Comedy in Three Acts (1958) based on a novel by Edwin Corle . The comedy came out on Broadway in 1958, starring married couple Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy .

The black circle (Dead Ringer) with Bette Davis and Karl Malden as well as The Blue Eskadron ( A Distant Trumpet ) with Troy Donahue and Suzanne Pleshette , in whose scripts Beich was also involved, were to be the last two cinema productions that he made as a film producer in 1964 could.

In the late 1960s, William H. Wright retired from film and television production. He died on July 23, 1980 in Santa Monica, California.

He and his wife bequeathed an extensive collection of his manuscripts and other documents from 1927 to 1976 to the renowned Margaret Herrick Library in 1977 and 1981.

Works

As a producer

cinemamovies

  • 1939: Night Work
  • 1944: Blonde Fever
  • 1946: A Letter for Evie
  • 1946: Three Wise Fools
  • 1948: The Bride Goes Wild
  • 1948: act of violence (Act of Violence)
  • 1950: Blood feud in New York (Black Hand)
  • 1950: Stars in My Crown
  • 1950: The Skipper Surprised His Wife
  • 1950: Mrs. O'Malley and Mr. Malone
  • 1951: The murder trial O'Hara (The People Against O'Hara)
  • 1952: Love Is Better Than Ever
  • 1952: Young Man with Ideas
  • 1952: Shadow in the Sky
  • 1953: The Clown's Tears
  • 1953: Naked Violence (The Naked track)
  • 1964: The Black Circle (Dead Ringer)
  • 1964: The Blue Squadron (A Distant Trumpet)

TV Shows

  • 1956–1958: The Adventures of Jim Bowie (74 episodes)
  • 1960–1961: The Barbara Stanwyck Show (36 episodes)
  • 1964-1965: Kentucky Jones

As an author

Scripts (almost always together with other authors)

  • 1942: Her Cardboard Lover
  • 1943: Assignment in Brittany
  • 1945: Man without a Heart (Adventure)
  • 1956: The Adventures of Jim Bowie - 1 episode
  • 1961–1962: Tonight, Dick Powell! (The Dick Powell Show) - 2 episodes
  • 1963–1965: Amos Burke (Burke's Law) - 5 episodes
  • 1964: Kentucky Jones - 2 episodes
  • 1965: The Sons of Katie Elder (The Sons of Katie Elder)
  • 1968: Bonanza (Bonanza) - 2 episodes

Stage play

  • together with Albert Beich : The Man in the Dog Suit. A Comedy in Three Acts . 1958 (in press: New York 1959)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e biography in the Margaret Herrick Library  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Retrieved July 25, 2009@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / old.oscars.org  
  2. ↑ a b according to filmography at imdb.com ; Retrieved July 25, 2009
  3. ↑ Information from the Margaret Herrick Library  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Retrieved July 25, 2009@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / old.oscars.org  
personal data
SURNAME Wright, William H.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wright, William; Wright, Will
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American film and television producer and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Lawrenceburg , Indiana
DATE OF DEATH July 23, 1980
Place of death Santa Monica , California