Sidney Howard_

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 ada