Florence Ryerson

Florence Ryerson (September 20, 1892 – June 8, 1965) was an American playwright, screenwriter, and co-author of the script for the 1939 film ''The Wizard of Oz''.'' Between 1915 and 1927 she published more than 30 short stories and then joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1926 to work on silent film scripts. In 1930 and 1933 she and her husband wrote two of the earliest novels about the teenage years for girls. The novels were based on a short story series Ryerson had started in 1925. She continued to write for most of her life, writing plays for Broadway in the 1940s.

Life and career

Early years

Florence Ryerson was born in Glendale, California. She was the daughter of Charles Dwight Willard and Mary McGregor. Charles Dwight Willard (1860-1914), journalist and political reformer, was an 1883 graduate of the University of Michigan, worked on the ''Los Angeles Times'' and '' Los Angeles Herald'', and was author of ''The Fall of Ulysses - An Elephant Story'' (1912), ''The Herald's History of Los Angeles City'' (1901), and other books. Florence was educated at Stanford and Radcliffe. In 1920 Florence and her first husband, Harold Swayne Ryerson, worked in the manufacture of ladies' clothes. Florence was also a She attended George Pierce Baker’s famous “47 Workshop” at Harvard University, as did her second husband, Colin Campbell Clements.

Magazine writer

Ryerson published more than 30 short stories in magazines between 1915 and the early 1930s. Her writing appeared in ''Munsey's Magazine, The American Magazine, Woman's World, Ladies' Home Journal'', and numerous other magazines.

Screenwriter

In 1926, Florence Ryerson joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to work on silent film scripts, among them '' Adam and Evil'' and ''Wickedness Preferred''. Later sound films she wrote include the Fu Manchu and Philo Vance series.

She was co-author of the screenplay for ''The Wizard of Oz'', along with frequent collaborator Edgar Allan Woolf and British author Noel Langley. Both Ryerson and Woolf created the Wizard's Kansas counterpart, Professor Marvel.

Novelist

With Colin Clements, her second husband, Ryerson wrote two of the earliest novels featuring teenage girlhood: ''This Awful Age'' (1930) and ''Mild Oats'' (1933), both based on a short story series Ryerson had started in 1925 in ''Woman’s World'' magazine. Both books were published by D. Appleton. The couple adapted these stories, first as a play, ''June Mad'' (1939), which was then adapted as a film, Her First Beau (1941). Actors from the film performed the story on the Lux Radio Theatre on October 27, 1941.

Shadow Ranch

In the 1930s, Ryerson and Clements acquired the 19th century Workman Ranch in Canoga Park, in the western San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. She renamed the estate Shadow Ranch for the amount of shade provided by the numerous large Blue Gum (''Eucalyptus globulus'') eucalyptus trees, originally planted in the 1860s during the Workman era. They restored and expanded the historic adobe and redwood ranch house, and lived there through the 1940s. Ryerson co-wrote ''The Wizard of Oz'' screenplay while living there.

Playwright and novelist

Ryerson wrote short stories, plays, and mystery novels with husband Colin Clements. For Broadway in the 1940s they wrote ''Glamour Preferred'', ''Harriet'', and ''Strange Bedfellows''. In ''Harriet'', Helen Hayes portrayed Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Later years

Colin Clements died in 1948. Ryerson retired to Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, in 1951, where she continued to write plays, some for the local high school.

Florence Ryerson Clements died in Mexico City of cardiac insufficiency in 1965.Reports of Deaths of American Citizens Abroad, 1835-1974 Record for Florence Ryerson Clements

References

External links

Florence Ryerson and Colin Clements papers, 1909-1965
held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ryerson, Florence
1892 births
1965 deaths
Screenwriters from California
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
Writers from Los Angeles
People from the San Fernando Valley
American women screenwriters
20th-century American women writers
20th-century American screenwriters
Writers from Glendale, California
American short story writers
American women short story writers
Stanford University alumni
Radcliffe College alumni