Audrey Ann Wells (''née'' Lederer; January 25, 1960 – October 4, 2018) was an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. Her 1999 film ''

Guinevere Guinevere ( ; ; , ), also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever, was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First mentioned in literature in the early 12th cen ...

'' won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.

Early life and education

Wells was born in

San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, to Austrian-American psychiatrist Wolfgang Lederer and Romanian-American psychologist Alexandra Botwin Lederer; her parents fled World War II-era Europe. She had Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish ancestry. She graduated from U.C. Berkeley and

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

Career

Wells worked as a disc jockey at San Francisco jazz radio station KJAZ FM. She wrote a number of successful screenplays and directed three for which she had created the script. Her works were primarily comedies and

romance film Romance films involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion (emotion), passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typically their ...

s. Among her films are '' The Truth About Cats & Dogs'' (1996) and '' Under the Tuscan Sun'' (2003), both of which she also produced. Her 1999 film ''

'' won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with 423,234 combined in-person and online viewership in 2023. The festival has acted ...

. Wells also co-wrote the script for the comedy '' The Game Plan''.

Death

Wells was diagnosed with cancer in 2013. She continued to work on film projects up until her death. Wells died on October 4, 2018, at age 58 due to cancer. The film '' The Hate U Give'', for which she wrote the screenplay, was released the day after she died. She also wrote the screenplay for the 2020

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

Pearl Studio Shanghai Pearl Studio Film and Television Technology Co., Ltd, doing business as Pearl Studio, formerly known as Oriental DreamWorks, the trade name of Shanghai Oriental DreamWorks Film & Television Technology Co., Ltd., is a Chinese animation f ...

animated feature '' Over the Moon'', which was dedicated to her memory.

Filmography

* '' The Truth About Cats & Dogs'' (1996), writer/executive producer * ''

George of the Jungle ''George of the Jungle'' is an American animated television series produced and created by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, who also created '' The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends''. The character George was inspired by the story of ...

'' (1997), co-screenwriter * ''

'' (1999), writer/director (feature directorial debut) * '' Disney's The Kid'' (2000), writer * '' Under the Tuscan Sun'' (2003), screen story writer/screenwriter/director/producer * '' Shall We Dance?'' (2004), screenwriter * '' The Game Plan'' (2007), co-story writer * ''The Fugees'' (2012), director * ''

A Dog's Purpose A Dog's Purpose may refer to: * ''A Dog's Purpose'' (novel), a 2010 novel by W. Bruce Cameron * ''A Dog's Purpose'' (film), a 2017 American adventure drama film, based on the novel {{disambiguation ...

'' (2017), co-screenwriter * '' The Hate U Give'' (2018), screenwriter (film released posthumously) * '' Abominable'' (2019), Additional screenplay material with Irena Brigull and William Davies (film released posthumously) * '' Over the Moon'' (2020), writer (film released posthumously) - The film was dedicated to her memory.

References

External links