Ardel Wray ( Mockbee; October 28, 1907 – October 14, 1983) was an American screenwriter and story editor, best known for her work on Val Lewton's classic horror films in the 1940s. Her screenplay credits from that era include ''
I Walked with a Zombie
''I Walked with a Zombie'' is a 1943 American horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced by Val Lewton for RKO Pictures. It stars James Ellison (actor), James Ellison, Frances Dee, and Tom Conway, and follows a Canadian nurse who trave ...
'', ''
The Leopard Man
''The Leopard Man'' is a 1943 American horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur, and starring Dennis O'Keefe, Jean Brooks, and Margo (actress), Margo. Based on the book ''Black Alibi'' by Cornell Woolrich, it follows a series of violent murders ...
'' and
''Isle of the Dead''.
In a late second career in television, she worked as a story editor and writer at Warner Bros. on ''
77 Sunset Strip
''77 Sunset Strip'' is an American television Private investigator#PIs in fiction, private detective drama series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Roger Smith (actor), Roger Smith, Richard Long (actor), Richard Long (fr ...
'',
''The Roaring 20s'', and
''The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters''.
Early life and career
Born Ardel Mockbee on October 28, 1907, in Spokane, Washington, Ardel Wray was the only child of
Virginia Brissac
Virginia Brissac (June 11, 1883 – July 26, 1979) was a popular American stage actress who headlined theatre companies from Vancouver to San Diego during the heyday of West Coast Stock in the early 1900s. An ingénue and leading lady known for ...
and Eugene Mockbee, both stage actors working in West Coast stock companies in the early 1900s. When her parents separated, she was brought to live with her maternal grandparents in San Francisco while her mother continued her career. She spent most of her childhood moving back and forth between her grandparents' home and a boarding school, and was raised primarily by her grandfather,
B. F. Brisac, a prominent San Francisco businessman who was a surrogate father and mentor until his death in 1940.
[Ardel Wray estate records and family history (Courtesy of Stefani Warren, Executor).]
Divorced from Mockbee, her mother married theatre director-manager
John Griffith Wray
John Griffith Wray (August 30, 1881 – July 15, 1929) was an American stage actor and director who later became a noted Hollywood silent film director. He worked on 19 films between 1913 in film, 1913 and 1929 in film, 1929 that included ''Anna C ...
in 1915 and moved with him to Los Angeles when he accepted a directing job at the
Thomas Ince Studios. Ardel came to live with them in 1922, later taking her stepfather's last name. After graduating from high school, she worked as a model for Hollywood fashion designer
Howard Greer
Howard Greer (16 April 1896 – April 1974, in Los Angeles) was a Hollywood fashion designer and a costume designer in the Golden Age of American cinema.
Greer began his fashion career at Lucile in 1916, working in both her New York City a ...
, briefly attended the
University of California at Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...
, and lived for a while at
The Rehearsal Club in New York, where she considered and ultimately rejected the idea of becoming an actress. She had two short-lived marriages in the decade following high school, both to California artists, Henry D. Maxwell (1928–1930) and Don Mansfield Caldwell (1933–1939).
Wray began her career working in studio story departments. In 1933, after working as a staff writer developing properties for
Carl Laemmle Jr.
Carl Laemmle Jr. (born Julius Laemmle; April 28, 1908 – September 24, 1979) was an American film producer - studio executive and heir of Carl Laemmle, who had founded Universal Studios. He was head of production at the studio from 1928 to ...
's reopening of
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...
,
["23 U writers Readying Scripts For Studio Reopening April 20". The Film Daily. April 13, 1931.] she went to work in the Story Department at
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
where she met
Dalton Trumbo
James Dalton Trumbo (December 9, 1905 – September 10, 1976) was an American screenwriter who scripted many award-winning films, including ''Roman Holiday'' (1953), ''Exodus'', ''Spartacus'' (both 1960), and ''Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo'' (1944) ...
, who was also working in the department at the time. An early draft of Trumbo's novel ''
Johnny Got His Gun
''Johnny Got His Gun'' is an anti-war novel written in 1938 by American novelist Dalton Trumbo and published in September 1939 by J. B. Lippincott. The novel won one of the early National Book Awards: the Most Original Book of 1939. A 1971 fil ...
'' with a handful of Wray's margin notes was found among her papers after she died, and anecdotes in Wray's family history suggest that she and Trumbo became "an item" for a while, but if there was a relationship beyond their shared interest in writing it did not last.
Wray moved to the story department at Fox Studios in 1936, then to RKO in 1938. She and second husband Don Caldwell divorced in 1939.
Work at RKO and Paramount
Sometime after starting work at RKO, Wray became involved in the Young Writers' Project, a program designed to identify and cultivate writing talent at the studio.
A treatment found in her estate papers puts her in that program in 1941, but her screenwriting career really began in 1942 when she was given an opportunity to work with
Val Lewton
Val Lewton (May 7, 1904 – March 14, 1951) was a Russian-American novelist, film producer and screenwriter best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s. His son, also named Val Lewton, was a paint ...
who was just beginning what would become a legendary short career as a producer of low-budget horror movies. Lewton had to recruit his production team from inside RKO,
and he may have discovered Wray through her work in the Young Writers' program, but it is also possible that she was referred to him by
Mark Robson who Lewton had recruited from the editing department, along with
Robert Wise
Robert Earl Wise (September 10, 1914 – September 14, 2005) was an American film director, producer, and editor. He won the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture for his musical films ''West Side Story'' (1961) and ''The Sound of ...
.
(Robson had met Dalton Trumbo on the night shift at a bakery where they both worked in the early 1930s and met Wray when he joined Trumbo's circle of friends at Warner Bros.)
Wray's opportunity was, in effect, a writing audition under pressure: Lewton was behind on an ambitious schedule and Wray became the second writer to try to deliver a workable script from a short story about zombies that Lewton liked. The story had been written by an Ohio journalist named Inez Wallace who had borrowed heavily from
Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë (, commonly ; 21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood and whose novels became classics of English literature.
She enlisted i ...
's ''
Jane Eyre
''Jane Eyre'' ( ; originally published as ''Jane Eyre: An Autobiography'') is a novel by the English writer Charlotte Brontë. It was published under her pen name "Currer Bell" on 19 October 1847 by Smith, Elder & Co. of London. The first ...
'', and Lewton wanted to capitalize on Brontë's moody and foreboding atmosphere. Wray delivered the script for ''
I Walked with a Zombie
''I Walked with a Zombie'' is a 1943 American horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced by Val Lewton for RKO Pictures. It stars James Ellison (actor), James Ellison, Frances Dee, and Tom Conway, and follows a Canadian nurse who trave ...
'' and went on to become a regular in the Lewton group.
Her next assignment for Lewton was to write the story and screenplay for ''
The Leopard Man
''The Leopard Man'' is a 1943 American horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur, and starring Dennis O'Keefe, Jean Brooks, and Margo (actress), Margo. Based on the book ''Black Alibi'' by Cornell Woolrich, it follows a series of violent murders ...
'' based on Black Alibi, a novel by
Cornell Woolrich
Cornell George Hopley Woolrich ( ; December 4, 1903 – September 25, 1968) was an American novelist and short story writer. He sometimes used the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley.
His biographer, Francis Nevins Jr., rated Woolrich th ...
. Later in 1943, she was loaned out to Maurice Geraghty's production group to write the story and screenplay for
''The Falcon and the Co-Eds'', the seventh in his popular 'Falcon' detective series. Back with the Lewton group in 1944, she developed
''Isle of the Dead'' (story and screenplay inspired by
Boecklin's symbolist painting),
''Bedlam'' (historical research for a story inspired by
A Rake's Progress
''A Rake's Progress'' (or ''The Rake's Progress'') is a series of eight paintings by 18th-century English artist William Hogarth. The canvases were produced in 1732–1734, then engraved in 1734 and published in print form in 1735. The series ...
, the paintings by William Hogarth), and wrote dialogue for ''
Youth Runs Wild
''Youth Runs Wild'' is a 1944 B movie directed by Mark Robson and starring Bonita Granville, Kent Smith, Jean Brooks, Glen Vernon and Vanessa Brown. The plot concerns inattentive parents and juvenile delinquency. The film was produced by Val Lewt ...
'' (Mark Robson's directorial debut). In 1945, she wrote an original screenplay, ''Blackbeard The Pirate'', for an A-movie property inspired by the life of the notorious English pirate
Edward Teach
Edward Teach (alternatively spelled Edward Thatch, – 22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies. Little is known about ...
and set to star
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff (), was an English actor. His portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the horror film ''Frankenstein'' (1931) (his 82nd film) established h ...
but never produced.
Remarried and living in Hollywood, Wray left RKO shortly before she gave birth to her daughter in May 1945. Her last produced screenplay for Lewton,
''Isle of the Dead'', was released in September of that year and the Lewton group disbanded a few months later when Lewton left RKO.
In 1948, Wray was again approached by Lewton, then at
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...
, who was trying to rescue a project he was working on about the life of
Lucrezia Borgia
Lucrezia Borgia (; ca-valencia, Lucrècia Borja, links=no ; 18 April 1480 – 24 June 1519) was a Spanish-Italian noblewoman of the House of Borgia who was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI and Vannozza dei Cattanei. She reigned as the Govern ...
, with
Paulette Goddard
Paulette Goddard (born Marion Levy; June 3, 1910 – April 23, 1990) was an American actress notable for her film career in the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Born in Manhattan and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Goddard initially began her career a ...
set to play the title role. Most of what is known about this project is found in chronicles of Lewton's career where, with minor variations, the authors suggest that the project initially belonged to some other producer, that Goddard or the studio didn't like Wray's script or the project was cancelled, and that Lewton tried to rework an "unused" script, but that somehow “the project slipped out of his hands.”
These accounts, however, do not align with Paramount records or with Wray's personal history. Paramount Pictures production records show that Wray signed a contract in February 1948 to rewrite a script written by Michael Hogan titled ''A Mask for Lucrezia''. By the time she completed that assignment a month later, Lewton had already been taken off the project and Wray had been optioned to continue working at Paramount on a new Alan Ladd project (''Dead Letter'', eventually released as ''
Appointment with Danger
''Appointment with Danger'' is a 1950 American crime film noir directed by Lewis Allen and written by Richard L. Breen and Warren Duff. The drama features Alan Ladd, Phyllis Calvert and Paul Stewart, among others.
Plot
At the Hotel Compton in ...
''), reporting to
Sydney Boehm
Sydney Boehm (April 4, 1908 – June 25, 1990) was an American screenwriter and producer. Boehm began his writing career as a newswriter for wire services and newspapers before moving on to screenwriting. His films include ''High Wall'' (1947), ...
.
The McCarthy era
Three months before Wray signed the contract at Paramount, industry producers had issued the
Waldorf Statement
The Waldorf Statement was a two-page press release issued on 24 November 1947, by Eric Johnston, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, following a closed-door meeting by forty-eight motion picture company executives at New York C ...
and, by mid-1948, what came to be known as the witch-hunt of the McCarthy era was well under way in all studios. In September 1948, shortly before ''Dead Letter'' and ''A Mask for Lucrezia'' were set to go into production, Wray was summoned to the business office at Paramount where, with little explanation, she was handed a list and asked to point to the names of people who were communist sympathizers; she declined. In addition to her former associates at RKO (including Trumbo, who had already been called before the HUAC), the list likely included the names of several people she was working with at Paramount, including Val Lewton (who along with Mark Robson had been under investigation by the FBI since 1945),
Paulette Goddard (who had also appeared before the HUAC along with her husband Burgess Meredith),
Josef Mischel (whose name was added to the Hollywood Blacklist in 1951), Robert L. Richards (whose name would appear on the Hollywood Blacklist after 1950, and Sydney Boehm (writing partner of 'Hollywood Ten' screenwriter
Lester Cole
Lester Cole (June 19, 1904 – August 15, 1985) was an American screenwriter. Cole was one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of screenwriters and directors who were cited for contempt of Congress and blacklisted for their refusal to testify regarding ...
who had been accused by the HUAC of putting subversive messages into scripts). Within a matter of days, the Ladd project was given to new writers, her credit for work on ''A Mask for Lucrezia'' (released as ''
Bride of Vengeance
''Bride of Vengeance'' is a 1949 adventure film set in the Italian Renaissance era, directed by Mitchell Leisen.
Plot
Lucrezia Borgia's brother Cesare Borgia has her second husband Prince Bisceglie killed in order to marry her to Alfonso I d' ...
'') was removed, and she was released from her contract. Signaling the end of her career as a screenwriter, her agent severed their relationship and returned all her scripts and work papers to her via U.S. mail.
Wray's reasons for refusing to point to names on Paramount's list were not political. In recounting the experience to her daughter many years later, Wray described the person she met with as nervous and "obviously embarrassed" by what they were doing, at one point offering whispered advice that "they've already been named, dear - you won't be hurting anyone."
Abstract philosophical ideas hotly debated over too many drinks at studio parties did not, to Wray's mind, constitute subversive activity; and to just wave her finger in the direction of a name she did not know—something her Paramount interrogator actually suggested—was unthinkable. Such personal knowledge as she had of Trumbo was over a decade old, and whatever was said about him or anyone else in ''The Hollywood Reporter'' was almost certainly based on gossip, if not entirely made up.
As it did for so many, Wray's decision had personal consequences as well as professional ones. Her mother (long divorced from
John Wray and moving toward the end of a second career as a character actress in Hollywood) was frightened by the incident. Concerned for her own career, she did not support her daughter's decision, and publicly questioned her loyalty. Wray's husband had just returned from serving in the
Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
in WWII and was unemployed; the situation put a strain on their marriage, which ended in divorce a few years later. Her circle of friends scattered.
Wray would not work as a screenwriter again for twelve years — a phenomenon that would come to be known as the "graylist." To support herself and her daughter, she worked as a reader in various studio story departments and took occasional side-jobs doing research and
novelizing films for newspapers. She never remarried and, although she continued to look after her mother, their relationship never fully recovered from this period.
Career in television
Wray had been working as a story analyst at
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...
for two years when, in the summer of 1960, she was loaned out to
Roy Huggins
Roy Huggins (July 18, 1914 – April 3, 2002) was an American novelist and an influential writer/creator and producer of character-driven television series, including ''Maverick'', '' The Fugitive'', '' Hunter'', and ''The Rockford Files''. He ...
' production team to do some work on scripts for his television series ''
Cheyenne
The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enroll ...
'' and ''
Maverick
Maverick, Maveric or Maverik may refer to:
History
* Maverick (animal), an unbranded range animal, derived from U.S. cattleman Samuel Maverick
Aviation
* AEA Maverick, an Australian single-seat sportsplane design
* General Aviation Design Bureau ...
''—a small writing contract which, although uncredited, marked the end of her tenure on the 'graylist'. When Huggins left Warner Bros. at the end of that year, producer-director Boris Ingster hired her to be the
story editor
Story editor is a job title in motion picture and television production, also sometimes called "supervising producer". In live action television, a story editor is a member of the screenwriting staff who edits scripts, pitches stories, and reports ...
on his new series
''The Roaring 20s''.
Wray would go on to write two (credited) episodes of
''The Roaring 20s'', and she continued to work with Ingster for the next six years as a writer and
story editor
Story editor is a job title in motion picture and television production, also sometimes called "supervising producer". In live action television, a story editor is a member of the screenwriting staff who edits scripts, pitches stories, and reports ...
on ''
77 Sunset Strip
''77 Sunset Strip'' is an American television Private investigator#PIs in fiction, private detective drama series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Roger Smith (actor), Roger Smith, Richard Long (actor), Richard Long (fr ...
'',
''The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters'', and as assistant to the producer on the movie ''
Guns of Diablo
''Guns of Diablo'' is a Metrocolor 1965 Western film directed by Boris Sagal and produced by Boris Ingster, starring Charles Bronson, Susan Oliver and Kurt Russell. It follows a wagon train master, who runs into difficulties when he meets ...
'' at
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
.
Retirement and death
While working at MGM, Wray was diagnosed with cataracts. When her contract on ''
Guns of Diablo
''Guns of Diablo'' is a Metrocolor 1965 Western film directed by Boris Sagal and produced by Boris Ingster, starring Charles Bronson, Susan Oliver and Kurt Russell. It follows a wagon train master, who runs into difficulties when he meets ...
'' ended, she returned to Warner Bros., which was closer to home and did not require driving at night, and she continued working as a story analyst there, and at
The Walt Disney Studios until her failing vision forced her to stop. To go through the then long and complicated cataract surgery and recovery process, she retired in 1972 and lived in
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label=Tiwa language, Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. ...
for the next several years – an area she remembered fondly from her trip there in 1943 to find and photograph the places that would become the sets and backdrops in ''
The Leopard Man
''The Leopard Man'' is a 1943 American horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur, and starring Dennis O'Keefe, Jean Brooks, and Margo (actress), Margo. Based on the book ''Black Alibi'' by Cornell Woolrich, it follows a series of violent murders ...
''.
Wray returned to Los Angeles in 1980, was diagnosed with
breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or a re ...
in 1983 and died on October 14, 1983, aged 75. Her mother had died only four years earlier at age 96. As she directed, her ashes were scattered at sea.
Contribution to the Lewton legacy
Wray wrote three of the collection films celebrated in
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese ( , ; born November 17, 1942) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter and actor. Scorsese emerged as one of the major figures of the New Hollywood era. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominatio ...
’s 2007 documentary film
Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows,
two of them groundbreaking screenplays that helped define the genre of the psychological thriller and establish Lewton's reputation as the master of horror.
In Wray, Lewton found a writer with a gift for character development who was also willing to take on challenging or controversial subject matter: the supernatural, a serial killer, the plagues of war and superstition, and the relationships in the notorious Borgia family—all were out of the mainstream when Wray sat down to write about them. Her ability to seduce 1940s audiences into following Lewton down a path to some of the darker corners of human experience was evident in the unexpected critical and box office success of those films.
Wray was also a member of one of the most famous B-movie units at work during what is now viewed as the
'Golden Age' of Hollywood—a group whose creative energy and inventiveness made Lewton's success possible. She spoke about working with the group in a conversation with her daughter many years later, a recollection that shines a clear light on the group's chemistry and skill, and the special place it held in Wray's heart:
''She rarely spoke about her early career or the McCarthy era. But when I asked once what it was like working with Lewton, she smiled -- thought about it for a long moment -- and then told me about the night the group spent figuring out how to build to the first murder in The Leopard Man. The scene she had written was pure psychological terror, trading on very basic fears -- of the dark, of being punished unjustly, locked out of your own home, abandoned by people you trust -- and at the same time it sets up the mystery that is the premise of the entire film. They were under pressure to get this sequence right, and almost everyone was there that night.[Along with Wray, the team for '']The Leopard Man
''The Leopard Man'' is a 1943 American horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur, and starring Dennis O'Keefe, Jean Brooks, and Margo (actress), Margo. Based on the book ''Black Alibi'' by Cornell Woolrich, it follows a series of violent murders ...
'' included Jacques Tourneur
Jacques Tourneur (; November 12, 1904 – December 19, 1977) was a French film director known for the classic film noir ''Out of the Past'' and a series of low-budget horror films he made for RKO Studios, including ''Cat People (1942 film), Cat ...
(Director), Robert De Grasse
Robert De Grasse (February 9, 1900 – January 28, 1971) was an American cinematographer and member of the American Society of Cinematographers. Over the course of his career, he was nominated for an Academy Award in 1939 and a Primetime Emmy Awa ...
(Cinematography), Mark Robson (Editor), Albert D'Agostino and Walter Keller (Art Direction), A. Roland Fields
A. Roland Fields (June 13, 1900 – September 11, 1950) was an American art director. He won an Academy Award and was nominated for another two in the category Best Art Direction. He worked on 39 films between 1942 and 1951.
Selected filmograp ...
(Set Decoration), and Roy Web (Music). The session went well into the small hours of the morning, was filled with laughter, and included a hilarious riff as one of them experimented with a set of castanets, which turned out to be the key to building the tension and suspense. They worked their way through a dozen different shot sequences before they were satisfied and, listening to her, I had the very strong impression that they would have come up with that same elegant, powerful scene even if they had been working with an A-movie budget and had more time. As Agee so famously observed about Lewton, these were people who understood film and cared about human beings. I can still see the smile on her face as she recalled that night.'' -- Stefani Warren, September 2016
Filmography
''With one exception, the credits listed are per Wray's Internet Movie Database Filmography; where there is a discrepancy with other sources, clarifications can be found in individual footnotes.''
Writer
* ''
I Walked with a Zombie
''I Walked with a Zombie'' is a 1943 American horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced by Val Lewton for RKO Pictures. It stars James Ellison (actor), James Ellison, Frances Dee, and Tom Conway, and follows a Canadian nurse who trave ...
'', 1943 (screenplay)
* ''
The Leopard Man
''The Leopard Man'' is a 1943 American horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur, and starring Dennis O'Keefe, Jean Brooks, and Margo (actress), Margo. Based on the book ''Black Alibi'' by Cornell Woolrich, it follows a series of violent murders ...
'', 1943 (screenplay)
*
''The Falcon and the Co-Eds'', 1943 (story and screenplay)
* ''
Youth Runs Wild
''Youth Runs Wild'' is a 1944 B movie directed by Mark Robson and starring Bonita Granville, Kent Smith, Jean Brooks, Glen Vernon and Vanessa Brown. The plot concerns inattentive parents and juvenile delinquency. The film was produced by Val Lewt ...
'', 1944 (additional dialogue)
*
''Isle of the Dead'', 1945 (written by)
* ''
Bride of Vengeance
''Bride of Vengeance'' is a 1949 adventure film set in the Italian Renaissance era, directed by Mitchell Leisen.
Plot
Lucrezia Borgia's brother Cesare Borgia has her second husband Prince Bisceglie killed in order to marry her to Alfonso I d' ...
'', 1949 (contributing writer) (uncredited)
* ''Blackbeard the Pirate''... original screenplay, RKO circa 1945, unproduced
*
''The Roaring 20s'' TV Series, 1961 (writer, 2 episodes)
* ''
77 Sunset Strip
''77 Sunset Strip'' is an American television Private investigator#PIs in fiction, private detective drama series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Roger Smith (actor), Roger Smith, Richard Long (actor), Richard Long (fr ...
'' TV Series, 1963-64 (teleplay, 3 episodes)
*
''The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters'' TV series, 1964 (writer, 1 episode)
*
''Ritual'', 2002 (1943 screenplay of ''I Walked with a Zombie'' remake)
[ ''Ritual'', a remake of '']I Walked with a Zombie
''I Walked with a Zombie'' is a 1943 American horror film directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced by Val Lewton for RKO Pictures. It stars James Ellison (actor), James Ellison, Frances Dee, and Tom Conway, and follows a Canadian nurse who trave ...
'' produced by Bob Weinstein
Robert Weinstein (born October 18, 1954) is an American film producer. He is the founder and head of Dimension Films, former co-chairman of Miramax Films and The Weinstein Company, all of which he co-founded with his older brother, Harvey. He ...
, Robert Zemeckis
Robert Lee Zemeckis (born May 14, 1952) is an American filmmaker. He first came to public attention as the director of the action-adventure romantic comedy ''Romancing the Stone'' (1984), the science-fiction comedy ''Back to the Future'' film tr ...
and others, was released internationally between 2001 and 2012 and distributed on DVD in the U.S. There is very little written about this remake and Wray's family has no knowledge of it; however, all the original writing credits are included in the listing along with additional screenplay credits for Rob Cohen
Rob Cohen (born March 12, 1949) is an American director and producer of film and television. Beginning his career as an executive producer at 20th Century Fox, Cohen produced and developed numerous high-profile film and television programs, inc ...
and director Avi Nesher
Avi Nesher ( Hebrew: אבי נשר; born 13 December 1952) is an Israeli film producer, film director, screenwriter and actor.
Biography
Avi Nesher was born and raised in Ramat Gan, Israel. The child of a Romanian-born diplomat, and a mother w ...
.
Story Editor
* ''
77 Sunset Strip
''77 Sunset Strip'' is an American television Private investigator#PIs in fiction, private detective drama series created by Roy Huggins and starring Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Roger Smith (actor), Roger Smith, Richard Long (actor), Richard Long (fr ...
'', 1962-1964 (TV Series)
*
''The Roaring 20s'', 1961-1962 (TV Series)
*
''The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters'', 1964 (TV Series)
* ''
Guns of Diablo
''Guns of Diablo'' is a Metrocolor 1965 Western film directed by Boris Sagal and produced by Boris Ingster, starring Charles Bronson, Susan Oliver and Kurt Russell. It follows a wagon train master, who runs into difficulties when he meets ...
'' (1965)
Notes and related history
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wray, Ardel
1907 births
1983 deaths
American women screenwriters
20th-century American women writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Hollywood blacklist