Kathleen Hite

Mary Kathleen Hite (June 17, 1917 – February 18, 1989) was an American writer for radio and television, including writing for the popular Western series '' Gunsmoke''. Hite was the first female staff writer for CBS.

Early life and education

Kathleen was born in Wichita, Kansas, the youngest of three children of Estelle (née Worrell) and Frank Hite."United States Census, 1920", Wichita, Sedgwick County, Kansas; Kathleen Hite cited in census entry for Frank L Hite Family; digital copy of original enumeration page; U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C. Retrieved via FamilySearch database, January 20, 2022. Her father was a cattleman, as was her older brother Russell, who later operated the family's ranch in New Mexico. All of her grandparents had moved to Kansas during the days of the American frontier, and she noted that all were "great storytellers" about their lives, which she absorbed as a child. After attending high school in Hutchinson, Kansas, Hite attended Wichita State University, where she majored in journalism and history.

Career

Hite's career in radio and television started in Wichita, where she began working at a radio station soon after her graduation from Wichita State University. By 1943, however, she moved to Los Angeles, California and accepted a position at CBS Radio to work as a secretary. Later, the would-be writer explained how she managed at that time to circumvent the company's employment restrictions:
Hite's plan quickly succeeded, for within a year she became the first woman staff writer for CBS. She subsequently noted that World War II-related labor shortages also helped her to obtain that promotion, explaining that "a producer needed a radio scriptwriter—ANY radio scriptwriter. And there I was."
In the coming years, she also proposed stories and wrote scripts for several television series, including '' Alfred Hitchcock Presents'', ''Mystery Playhouse'', '' Thriller'', '' Gunsmoke'', and ''The Waltons''. Hite served as a script editor as well for ''The Whistler'' and ''The Adventures of Philip Marlowe'' in 1950. She quit CBS in late 1950/early 1951, because freelance writers were paid 350% more per script.

Hite's contributions to TV series about the American West were particularly substantive, as she wrote over 100 scripts in total for shows like ''Gunsmoke'', ''Wagon Train'', '' The Monroes'', and ''Empire''.
During the 1950s and 1960s, she was among a small number of female writers for television Westerns and was identified in that period as "one of the top Cowboy-and-Indian scribes of all time".

Awards and honors

Hite received the Headliner Award from the National Professional Journalism Society in 1964, and the following year she was elected as a charter member of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She was also made an honorary member of the Choctaw Native American tribe in 1965. In 1970, she was presented the Achievement Award from Wichita State University's alumni association, which is that organization's highest honor.

Death

Hite died on February 18, 1989, in Carefree, Arizona, at the age of 71.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hite, Kathleen
1917 births
American television writers
American women television writers
American women screenwriters
American radio writers
Women radio writers
Writers from Wichita, Kansas
20th-century American women writers
Screenwriters from Kansas
Wichita State University alumni
1989 deaths
20th-century American screenwriters