Sidney Coe Howard (June 26, 1891 – August 23, 1939) was an American playwright, dramatist and screenwriter. He received the
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
The Pulitzer Prize for Drama is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were a ...
in 1925 and a posthumous
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
in 1940 for the screenplay for ''
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind most often refers to:
* ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell
* ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel
Gone with the Wind may also refer to:
Music
* ''Gone with the Wind'' ...
''.
Early life
Sidney Howard was born in Oakland, California, the son of Helen Louise (née Coe) and John Lawrence Howard. He graduated from the
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
in 1915 and went on to
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
to study playwriting under
George Pierce Baker
George Pierce Baker (April 4, 1866 – January 6, 1935) was a professor of English at Harvard and Yale and author of ''Dramatic Technique'', a codification of the principles of drama.
Biography
Baker graduated in the Harvard College class of 188 ...
in his legendary "47 workshop." (Other alumni of Baker's class included
Eugene O'Neill
Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism, earlier ...
,
Thomas Wolfe
Thomas Clayton Wolfe (October 3, 1900 – September 15, 1938) was an American novelist of the early 20th century.
Wolfe wrote four lengthy novels as well as many short stories, dramatic works, and novellas. He is known for mixing highly origin ...
,
Philip Barry
Philip Jerome Quinn Barry (June 18, 1896 – December 3, 1949) was an American dramatist best known for his plays ''Holiday (play), Holiday'' (1928) and ''The Philadelphia Story (play), The Philadelphia Story'' (1939), which were both made into ...
and
S.N. Behrman
Samuel Nathaniel Behrman (; June 9, 1893 – September 9, 1973) was an American playwright, screenwriter, biographer, and longtime writer for ''The New Yorker''. His son is the composer David Behrman.
Biography
Early years
Behrman's parents, Z ...
. Howard became good friends with Behrman.)
Along with other students of Harvard professor
A. Piatt Andrew
Abram Piatt Andrew Jr. (February 12, 1873 – June 3, 1936) was an American economist and politician who served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, the founder and director of the American Ambulance Field Service during World War I, and a m ...
, Howard volunteered with Andrew's
American Field Service
AFS Intercultural Programs (or AFS, originally the American Field Service) is an international youth exchange organization. It consists of over 50 independent, not-for-profit organizations, each with its own network of volunteers, professiona ...
, serving in France and the Balkans during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. 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. A liberal intellectual whose politics became progressively more left-wing over the years, he also wrote articles about labor issues for ''The New Republic'' and served as literary editor for the original ''Life Magazine''.
Career
In 1921, Howard's first play was produced on Broadway. A neo-romantic verse drama set in the time of Dante, ''Swords'', did not do well with audiences or critics. It was with his realistic romance ''
They Knew What They Wanted'' three years later that Howard 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, the play was praised for its un-melodramatic view of adultery and its tolerant approach to its characters. Theater critic Brooks Atkinson called it "a tender, original, merciful drama." ''They Knew What They Wanted'' won the 1925
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
The Pulitzer Prize for Drama is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It is one of the original Pulitzers, for the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were a ...
, was adapted three times into film (1928, 1930, and 1940) and later became the Broadway musical, ''
The Most Happy Fella
''The Most Happy Fella'' is a 1956 musical with a book, music, and lyrics by Frank Loesser. The story, about a romance between an older man and younger woman, is based on the 1924 play '' They Knew What They Wanted'' by Sidney Howard. The show i ...
''.
Howard's career was anything but consistent. For every successful play he wrote, he saw several others close without making any money. His saving grace was that he was a remarkably prolific writer. ''Lucky Sam McCarver'', his next play, was an unsentimental account of the marriage of a New York speakeasy owner on his way up in the world with a self-destructive socialite on her way down. It failed to attract audiences, though it won the admiration of some reviewers.
With ''The Silver Cord'', Howard had a major hit. A drama about a mother who is pathologically close to her sons and works to undermine their romances, it starred
Laura Hope Crews
Laura Hope Crews (December 12, 1879 – November 12, 1942) was an American actress who is best remembered today for her later work as a character actress in motion pictures of the 1930s. Her best-known film role was Aunt Pittypat in ''Gone ...
and was one of the most talked-about plays of the 1926-27 Broadway season. It was a story for a decade fascinated by talk of Freud, Oedipal complexes, and family dysfunction. ''The Silver Cord'' is also the only original play by Howard to outlive its era. (His 1929 adaptation ''S.S. Tenacity'' is periodically revived.) The play was occasionally staged by regional theater companies through the late twentieth century, and its first Off-Broadway production was mounted in 2013. The 1933 film of the play starred
Irene Dunne
Irene Dunne (born Irene Marie Dunn; December 20, 1898 – September 4, 1990) was an American actress who appeared in films during the Golden Age of Hollywood. She is best known for her comedic roles, though she performed in films of other gen ...
and
Joel McCrea
Joel Albert McCrea (November 5, 1905 – October 20, 1990) was an American actor whose career spanned a wide variety of genres over almost five decades, including comedy, drama, romance, thrillers, adventures, and Westerns, for which he beca ...
, with Laura Hope Crews reprising her stage role.
By 1930, Howard was "one of the most dashing figures on the Broadway scene." A prolific writer and a founding member of the
Playwrights' Company
The Playwrights Company (1938–1960) was an American theatrical production company.
History
Maxwell Anderson, S. N. Behrman, Sidney Howard, Elmer Rice, Robert E. Sherwood and John F. Wharton established The Playwrights Company in 1938 (incorpor ...
(with
Maxwell Anderson
James Maxwell Anderson (December 15, 1888 – February 28, 1959) was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist, and lyricist.
Background
Anderson was born on December 15, 1888, in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to ...
,
S. N. Behrman,
Elmer Rice
Elmer Rice (born Elmer Leopold Reizenstein, September 28, 1892 – May 8, 1967) was an American playwright. He is best known for his plays ''The Adding Machine'' (1923) and his Pulitzer Prize-winning drama of New York tenement life, '' Street Sce ...
, and
Robert Sherwood), he ultimately wrote or adapted more than seventy plays; a consummate theater professional, he also directed and produced a number of works.
In 1922, Howard married actress
Clare Eames
Clare Eames (August 5, 1894 – November 8, 1930) was an American actress and stage director, and the first wife of playwright Sidney Howard.
Early years
Eames was born August 5, 1894 in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Clare (Hamilton) a ...
(1896–1930), who had played the female lead in ''Swords.'' She later starred in Howard's ''Lucky Sam McCarver'' (1925) and ''Ned McCobb's Daughter'' (1926) on Broadway and ''The Silver Cord'' in London (1927). (Clare Eames was the niece of opera singer
Emma Eames
Emma Eames (August 13, 1865 – June 13, 1952) was an American first dramatic soprano, later lyric soprano renowned for the beauty of her voice. She sang major lyric and lyric-dramatic roles in opera and had an important career in New York ...
on her father's side, and of the inventor
Hiram Percy Maxim
Hiram Percy Maxim (September 2, 1869 – February 17, 1936) was an American radio pioneer and inventor, and co-founder (with Clarence D. Tuska) of the American Radio Relay League (ARRL). Hiram Percy Maxim is credited with inventing and sellin ...
on her mother's side, and a granddaughter of former Maryland governor
William Thomas Hamilton
William Thomas Hamilton (September 8, 1820October 26, 1888), a member of the United States Democratic Party, was the 38th Governor of Maryland in the United States from 1880 to 1884. He also served in the United States Senate, representing the ...
.) Howard and Eames had one child, a daughter,
Jennifer Howard (1925-1993), who became an actress. The couple separated in 1927, and Howard's anger at the disintegration of his marriage is reflected in his bitter satire of modern matrimony, ''Half Gods'' (1929).
Clare Eames died unexpectedly in 1930. The following year, Howard married Leopoldine "Polly" Damrosch, daughter of conductor
Walter Johannes Damrosch
Walter Johannes Damrosch (January 30, 1862December 22, 1950) was a German-born American conductor and composer. He was the director of the New York Symphony Orchestra and conducted the world premiere performances of various works, including Ge ...
. The couple had three children.
A particular admirer of the understated realism of French playwright
Charles Vildrac
Charles Vildrac (November 22, 1882 – June 25, 1971), born "Charles Messager",''1971 Britannica Book of the Year'' (for events of 1971), "Obituaries 1971" article, page 532, "Vildrac, Charles" item was a French libertarian playwright, poet a ...
, Howard adapted two of his plays into English, under the titles ''S. S. Tenacity'' (1929) and ''Michael Auclair'' (1932). One of his greatest successes on Broadway was an adaptation of a French comedy by
René Fauchois
René Fauchois (31 August 1882 – 10 February 1962) was a French dramatist, librettist and actor. Stagestruck from his youth he moved from his native Rouen to Paris as a teenager to pursue a stage career. He had early success both as an actor and ...
, ''
The Late Christopher Bean
''The Late Christopher Bean'' is a comedy drama adapted from ''Prenez garde à la peinture'' by René Fauchois. It exists in two versions: an American adaptation by Sidney Howard (1932) and an English version by Emlyn Williams (1933). Williams's i ...
''. ''
Yellow Jack
The yellow jack (''Carangoides bartholomaei''), also known as coolihoo, is a species of marine fish in the jack family, Carangidae. It is one of only two representatives of its genus present in the Atlantic Ocean, inhabiting waters off the east ...
'', an historical drama about the war against yellow fever, was praised for its high-minded purpose and innovative staging when it premiered in 1934.
"In his thinking, Howard was very much a man of his time," Brooks Atkinson wrote. "He was a Wilsonian; he brooded on the tragedy of the League of Nations. He intended to write an ironic tragedy on the theme of the destruction of such a league that would be devoted to the service rather than the conquest of humanity,
sing the techniquesthat made ''Yellow Jack'' such a forceful drama."
[Atkinson, p. 270.]
Hired by
Samuel Goldwyn
Samuel Goldwyn (born Szmuel Gelbfisz; yi, שמואל געלבפֿיש; August 27, 1882 (claimed) January 31, 1974), also known as Samuel Goldfish, was a Polish-born American film producer. He was best known for being the founding contributor a ...
, Howard worked in Hollywood at MGM and wrote several successful screenplays. Despite his well-known left-wing political sympathies (he supported William Foster, the Communist Party candidate for president, in 1932), he became a shrewd Hollywood insider. In 1932, Howard was nominated for an
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
for his adaptation of the
Sinclair Lewis
Harry Sinclair Lewis (February 7, 1885 – January 10, 1951) was an American writer and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States (and the first from the Americas) to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, which was ...
novel ''
Arrowsmith'' and again in 1936 for ''
Dodsworth'', which he had adapted for the stage in 1934. He wrote a screenplay as well for Lewis's most political book, the anti-Fascist novel ''It Can't Happen Here.'' The film was never made. (Studio officials claimed production-cost issues, but Howard maintained that the politics of the script were the issue.) Sinclair Lewis was a great admirer of Howard's stage work and was pleased with his three film adaptations, and the two men (whose political opinions aligned) became good friends.
In 1935, Howard wrote the Broadway stage adaptation of
Humphrey Cobb's novel ''Paths of Glory''. With its unsparing depictions of battlefield brutality, the play failed at the box office. As a World War I veteran, however, Howard believed it necessary to show the horrors of armed conflict. Convinced that the novel should be filmed one day, Howard wrote, "It seems to me that our motion picture industry must feel something of a sacred obligation to make the picture."
[Phil McArdle]
"Sidney Howard: From Berkeley to Broadway and Hollywood"
''The Berkeley Daily Planet'', December 18, 2007 The
film version of the novel, directed by
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick (; July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, his films, almost all of which are adaptations of nove ...
, did not appear until 1957. Howard's screenplay for ''
Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind most often refers to:
* ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell
* ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel
Gone with the Wind may also refer to:
Music
* ''Gone with the Wind'' ...
'' echoed ''Paths of Glory'' with an unflinching look at the cost of war.
[
After two Academy Award nominations and the Broadway success of ''Dodsworth,'' Sidney Howard was at the height of his fame in the late 1930s and appeared on the cover of ''Time'' magazine on June 7, 1937. Two years later, he was dead.
Howard was the posthumous winner of the 1939 Academy Award for an adapted screenplay for '']Gone with the Wind
Gone with the Wind most often refers to:
* ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell
* ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel
Gone with the Wind may also refer to:
Music
* ''Gone with the Wind'' ...
''. (He was the only writer honored for the writing of that screenplay, despite the fact that his script was revised by several other writers.) This was the first time a posthumous nominee for any Oscar won the award.
Howard was also an advocate for writers' rights in the theatrical industry. In 1935, he served as the sixth president of the Dramatists Guild of America
The Dramatists Guild of America is a professional organization for playwrights, composers, and lyricists working in the U.S. theatre market.
Membership as an Associate Member is open to any person having written at least one stage play. Active Mem ...
.
Death
Howard died in the summer of 1939 at the age of 48 in Tyringham, Massachusetts while working on his 700-acre farm. A lover of the quiet rural life, Howard spent as much time on his farm as possible when he was not in New York or Hollywood. He was crushed to death in a garage by his two-and-a-half ton tractor. He had turned the ignition switch on and was cranking the engine to start it when it lurched forward, pinning him against the wall of the garage. "His death was a Broadway calamity," Atkinson wrote. "Broadway and the Playwrights' Company lost one of its most admirable people...in the midst of an active career and full of ideas for more plays." In his 2007 history of Broadway playwrights, Ethan Mordden wrote, "When he found his metier, Howard excelled at edgy American stories about charismatic but somewhat unlikable people. He seemed to enjoy testing his public; or perhaps he simply saw the world as being filled with rogues...."
At the time of his death, Howard was working on a dramatization of Carl van Doren's biography of Benjamin Franklin. He is buried in the Tyringham Cemetery.
Legacy
Howard left behind a number of unproduced works. ''Lute Song
The term lute song is given to a music style from the late 16th century to early 17th century, late Renaissance to early Baroque, that was predominantly in England and France. Lute songs were generally in strophic form or verse repeating with a h ...
'', an adaptation of an old Chinese play co-written with Will Irwin
William Henry Irwin (September 14, 1873 – February 24, 1948) was an American author, writer and journalist who was associated with the muckrakers.
Early life
Irwin was born in 1873 in Oneida, New York. In his early childhood, the Irwin famil ...
, premiered on Broadway in 1946. A lighthearted reworking of the Faust
Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540).
The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroads ...
legend, ''Madam, Will You Walk?'' closed out of town when produced by the Playwrights' Company in 1939, but was more warmly received as the first production of the Phoenix Theatre in 1953.
Shortly after his death his colleagues at the Playwrights' Company founded in his honor the Sidney Howard Memorial Award. The award consisted of a prize of $1500 given to a young playwright without notable successes who had shown promise in a New York production. The inaugural prize was given to Robert Ardrey
Robert Ardrey (October 16, 1908 – January 14, 1980) was an American playwright, screenwriter and science writer perhaps best known for ''The Territorial Imperative'' (1966). After a Broadway and Hollywood career, he returned to his academic tr ...
in recognition of his play ''Thunder Rock''.
In 1950, Howard's daughter Jennifer Howard (1925–1993) married Samuel Goldwyn, Jr.
Samuel John Goldwyn Jr. (September 7, 1926 – January 9, 2015) was an American film producer.
Early life
Samuel Goldwyn Jr. was born on September 7, 1926, in Los Angeles, California, the son of actress Frances Howard (born Frances Howard McL ...
with whom she had four children including business executive Francis Goldwyn, actor Tony Goldwyn
Anthony Howard Goldwyn (born May 20, 1960) is an American actor, singer, producer, director, and political activist. He made his debut appearing as Darren in the slasher film '' Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives'' (1986), and had his breakthr ...
and studio executive John Goldwyn
John Howard Goldwyn (born August 10, 1958) is an American film producer.
Biography
Goldwyn was born on August 10, 1958, in Los Angeles, California, the son of producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr., and his wife, film and stage actress Jennifer Howard. ...
.
Howard was posthumously inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981."26 Elected to the Theater Hall of Fame."
''The New York Times'', March 3, 1981.
Selected works
*''Swords'' (1921)
*''They Knew What They Wanted'' (1924)
*''Lucky Sam Carver'' (1925)
*''Ned McCobb's Daughter'' (1926)
*''The Silver Cord'' (1926)
*''Half Gods'' (1929)
*''S.S. Tenacity'' (1929): adaptation
*''Marseilles'' (1930)
*''Arrowsmith'' (1931): adaptation
*''Michel Auclair'' (1932): adaptation
*''Yellow Jack'' (1934)
*''Dodsworth'' (1934)
*''Ode to Liberty'' (1934)
*''Paths of Glory'' (1935): adaptation
*''The Ghost of Yankee Doodle'' (1937)
*''
Gone With The Wind
Gone with the Wind most often refers to:
* ''Gone with the Wind'' (novel), a 1936 novel by Margaret Mitchell
* ''Gone with the Wind'' (film), the 1939 adaptation of the novel
Gone with the Wind may also refer to:
Music
* ''Gone with the Wind'' ...
'' (1939) (Screenplay of
Margaret Mitchell's work of the same name) (posthumous Academy Award for Best Adaptation)
See also
*
List of ambulance drivers during World War I
This is a list of notable people who served as ambulance drivers during the First World War. A remarkable number—writers especially—volunteered as ambulance drivers for the Allied Powers. In many cases, they sympathized strongly with the ideal ...
References
Sources
*Atkinson, Brooks. ''Broadway.'' New York: Atheneum, 1970.
*Berg, A. Scott. ''Goldwyn: A Biography.'' New York: Riverhead, 1998.
*Gewirtz, Arthur. ''Sidney Howard and Clare Eames: American Theater's Perfect Couple of the 1920s.'' Jefferson, MO: McFarland Publishers, 2004.
External links
Guide to the Sidney Coe Howard Papersat
The Bancroft Library
The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Howard, Sidney
1891 births
1939 deaths
Accidental deaths in Massachusetts
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
American people of World War I
American male screenwriters
Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners
Farming accident deaths
Harvard University alumni
Writers from Oakland, California
Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners
University of California, Berkeley alumni
American male dramatists and playwrights
People from Tyringham, Massachusetts
20th-century American male writers
Screenwriters from California
Screenwriters from Massachusetts
20th-century American screenwriters