Women who have won Best Original Screenplay Academy Awards

The most renowned female screenwriter of the 20th century, and one of the most respected scripters of any gender, Frances Marion was born in San Francisco. She modeled and acted and had some success as a commercial artist. She entered into journalism and served in Europe as a combat correspondent during World War I. She moved to Los Angeles and was employed by director Lois Weber as an assistant, in which position she received a thorough apprenticeship in the film industry. She began writing scripts and attracted the attention of Mary Pickford. The pair began a long relationship as both friends and artists, with Marion serving as Pickford's official screenwriter. She wrote many of Pickford's most famous and memorable silent films as well as many other of the great successful pictures of the 1920s and 1930s. She won Oscars for her writing on The Big House (1930) and The Champ (1931). Her influence resurrected the career of Marie Dressler and resulted in her greatest glory, and her scripts for Marion Davies are among the most memorable of that actress' oeuvre. At MGM, where she was long under contract, she enjoyed enormous creative freedom for a writer. With the death of Irving Thalberg, MGM's creative head, in 1936, Marion's power and influence waned. In 1946 she left Hollywood and thereafter concentrated on plays and novels. She was at one time married to 1920s cowboy star Fred Thomson and subsequently to director George W. Hill. She died in 1973, one of the most respected names in Hollywood history.

Eleanore Griffin, the Oscar-winning screenwriter who won her Academy Award along with co-writer Dore Schary for Boys Town (1938), was born on April 29, 1904, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Griffin began writing screenplays at Universal in 1937, being credited for the comedies When Love Is Young (1937) (directed by Hal Mohr) and Love in a Bungalow (1937) (directed by Ray McCarey, the younger brother of famed director Leo McCarey). Moving over to MGM, she penned the Mickey Rooney / Judy Garland musical Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (1937) for Maurice Rapf's production unit. It was there she hit paydirt with the script based on the true story of the priest who launched Boys Town in 1917, a reformatory for wayward boys. Directed by Norman Taurog, "Boys Town" was nominated for Five Academy Awards, bringing Oscars for Best Actor to 'Spencer Tracy (I)' (v) and for Best Original Story to Griffin and Dore Schary. It also made Edward Flanagan famous and spawned a sequel, Men of Boys Town (1941).

Griffin worked as a screenwriter for almost 30 years, but ironically, "Boys Town" - which came very early in her career - would remain the summit of her achievement. Part of this was due to the exigencies of studio production, in which even a highly paid screenwriter would win an Oscar one year and be penning B-picture potboilers the next. However, it was the vertical integration of the studios, which was complete by the time she established herself in Hollywood in the late 1930s, that likely limited her career, as it did all women from the mid-1930s to the turn of the century.

Women had been a major force in the film industry during the silent era, particularly in the area of screenwriting (since dialogue wasn't needed, and inter-titles were a separate discipline, screenplays were called "scenarios", with the concept of "play" devolving onto the movie itself, which commonly was called a "photoplay" in the first generations of cinema). June Mathis, who helped make Rudolph Valentino a superstar, wrote the scenarios and screenplays for over over 100 films, and also as an "editorial director" on others, from the mid-Teens until 1930.

Women directors were not uncommon during the silent era (in fact, the first "feature" film was directed by a woman, back in 1896), but with the vertical integration of the movie industry in the 1930s women were squeezed out after the advent of the Talkies. It is a truism of organizational theory that the more complex the structure, the more control is exerted over all aspects of the organization, and the more conformity is demanded from organizational players. The corporate hierarchies were dominated by men, and the pressure for conformity made the vertical, publicly traded studios inhospitable to women, who by their very gender, could not conform to the dominant corporate paradigm.

After the early Talkie period, it was unusual for there to be powerful women, i.e., directors or producers, and conformity was demanded even the writers (a craft with decidedly little power due to the industrial mode of production used by the vertically integrated studios, in which piece-work was the dominant paradigm). Only Frances Marion, a double Oscar winner able to write across genres, survived and it is significant that her two Oscars came during the early talkie period, in 1930 for Best Writing Achievement for the prison picture The Big House (1930) and in 1932 for the Best Original Story for The Champ (1931). Though she worked on such prestigious pictures as Camille (1936) at MGM, the most powerful of Hollywood studios, she only received one more Oscar nod, in 1934, for Best Writing, Original Story for The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933). By 1937, the year Griffin got her start at Univesal, the career of Hollywood's greatest woman screenwriter was virtually over.

After Griffin's Oscar victory at MGM, she moved over to Paramount for the musical-comedy St. Louis Blues (1939), directed by Raoul Walsh. At Columbia she contributed to the treatment of Howard Hawks' classic Only Angels Have Wings (1939), the screenplay of which was written by Jules Furthman. She also contributed the story for Mitchell Leisen's Army Air Crops melodrama I Wanted Wings (1941).

During World War II her career lost its momentum, despite the legions of male screenwriters who went to war. At Columbia she wrote the story for the B-movie series entry Blondie in Society (1941), as well as the stories for the comedy Hi, Beautiful (1944) starring 'Noah Beery' Jr.' and Hattie McDaniel at Universal and for Henry Hathaway's melodrama Nob Hill (1945) starring George Raft at Fox. Back at MGM she contributed the story for George Sidney's The Harvey Girls (1946)_ and wrote the screenplay for the 'Margaret O'Brien' vehicle Tenth Avenue Angel (1948).

Most writers in Hollywood during the sound era made their living rewriting, polishing or adding to scripts. Griffin's next major credited spurt of activity came in the mid-1950s, when she wrote two Henry Koster films, the religious drama A Man Called Peter (1955) and Good Morning, Miss Dove (1954)_ starring 'Jennifer Jones' in the title role.

Her contribution to Universal's 1959 remake Imitation of Life (1959), Fannie Hurst's novel, was largely forgotten due to the film being almost wholly attributed to Douglas Sirk, a main beneficiary of the auteur theory that elevated the director to the status of a film's sole author (which is rather ridiculous within the industrial paradigm of Hollywood film, particularly in a factory such as Universal, which ground out product for the Big and little screens like so much sausage). For "Life" producer Ross Hunter she adapted another of Hurst's novels into a film, Back Street (1961), which starred Susan Hayward and John Gavin.

Her last credited film was an adaptation of Norman Vincent Peale's autobiography "Minister To Millions", produced by Frank Ross as One Man's Way (1964).

Eleanore Griffin died on July 25, 1995, in the Woodland Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. She was 91 years old.

British novelist and playwright Clemence Dane was born Winifred Ashton in Kent, England, in 1888. A gifted student, she was educated in a variety of private schools and, at age 16, was hired to teach French in Geneva, Switzerland. A year later she returned to England and studied art for three years in London, and another year in Dresden, Germany, and showed promise as a portrait painter. However, she gave up her art career to accept a position as a teacher in Ireland. She left that position for a career as a stage actress, and did that for several years until World War I broke out. She plunged into war work and drove herself so relentlessly that her health broke down. While recuperating she wrote her first novel, "Regiment of Women", under the pseudonym Clemence Dane, a name she picked in honor of the famous London church of St. Clemence Dane (later destroyed in a German bombing raid in 1940).

"Regiment of Women" was an almost instant success. Her next novel, "Legend", was also successful, and several reviewers suggested that it should be turned into a play. She followed their advice, and the play, now called "A Bill of Divorcement", had a successful run on Broadway and the London stage with Katharine Cornell, and was made into a film several times, most notably with Katharine Hepburn and John Barrymore (A Bill of Divorcement (1932)). She alternated writing novels, plays and essays, and even wrote a personal and professional study of actor/writer Hugh Walpole.

She died in London, England, in 1965 at age 77.

Muriel Box was born on 22 September 1905 in New Malden, Surrey [now in Kingston upon Thames, London], England, UK. She was a writer and director, known for The Seventh Veil (1945), Mr. Lord Says No (1952) and A Novel Affair (1957). She was married to Gerald Gardiner and Sydney Box. She died on 18 May 1991 in London, England, UK.

Edna Anhalt was an American screenwriter, often working as part of a writing team with her husband Edward Anhalt (1914-2000). Her writing credits span the years 1947 to 1957.

Anhalt's claim to fame is winning the Academy Award for Best Story for the film "Panic in the Streets" (1950) concerning an epidemic of pneumonic plague, and for being nominated again for the film "The Sniper" (1952) concerning a spree killer with misogynist tendencies.

In 1957, Edna and Edward Anhalt received a divorce, and stopped working as a writing team. Edna retired, while Edward continued working as a screenwriter until 1989.

Sonya, a graduate with a law degree from New York University, briefly practiced law before becoming a magazine editor and fiction writer. After several of her stories were adapted to the screen, she became a screenwriter. Levien wrote several screenplays for Will Rogers films and for Fox studios during the 1930s. She wrote for a number of studios including RKO and Warner Bros., but most of her work was with MGM.

Nancy Dowd was born in 1945 in Framingham, Massachusetts, USA. She is a writer and director, known for Slap Shot (1977), Coming Home (1978) and Love (1982).

Pamela Wallace is known for Witness (1985), The Place God Forgot and Love's Unending Legacy (2007). She was previously married to Earl W. Wallace.

Raised in Texas and Kentucky by her doctor father and mother. Went to Purdue University to study landscape architecture but switched to drama. Moved to Nashville after college to be with her family before heading to Los Angeles in 1982 to study at the Strasburg Institute. Worked for a commercials production company as a receptionist before taking a position with them as a music video production assistant. While working at the office, she began work on what would eventually become Thelma & Louise (1991), writing the script in longhand at home and then retyping it on the job.

Jane Campion was born in Wellington, New Zealand, and now lives in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Having graduated with a BA in Anthropology from Victoria University of Wellington in 1975, and a BA, with a painting major, at Sydney College of the Arts in 1979, she began filmmaking in the early 1980s, attending the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS). Her first short film, Peel (1982) won the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1986. Her other short films include A Girl's Own Story (1984), Passionless Moments (1983), After Hours (1985) and the tele-feature 2 Friends (1986), all of which won Australian and international awards. She co-wrote and directed her first feature film, Sweetie (1989), which won the Georges Sadoul prize in 1989 for Best Foreign Film, as well as the LA Film Critics' New Generation Award in 1990, the American Independant Spirit Award for Best Foreign Feature, and the Australian Critics' Award for Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress. She followed this with An Angel at My Table (1990), a dramatization based on the autobiographies of Janet Frame which won some seven prizes, including the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1990. It was also awarded prizes at the Toronto and Berlin Film Festivals, again winning the American Independent Spirit Award, and was voted the most popular film at the 1990 Sydney Film Festival. The Piano (1993) won the Palme D'Or at Cannes, making her the first woman ever to win the prestigious award. She also captured an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay at the 1993 Oscars, while also being nominated for Best Director.

Sofia Coppola was born on May 14, 1971 in New York City, New York, USA as Sofia Carmina Coppola. She is a director, known for Somewhere (2010), Lost in Translation (2003), and Marie Antoinette (2006). She has been married to Thomas Mars since August 27, 2011. They have two daughters, Romy and Cosima. She was previously married to Spike Jonze.

Diablo Cody, aka Brook Busey, grew up in Lemont, IL. After working a series of unfulfilling agency jobs, she moved to Minneapolis and took up writing, acting as Arts Editor for the local independent weekly and creating a popular blog detailing a brief foray into stripping. Her blog attracted the attention of her manager Mason Novick, who encouraged her to write a book based on her experience. That book, "Candy Girl," was published in 2006. Novick also encouraged her to try her hand at screenwriting, and her first attempt, "Juno," was picked up by Fox Searchlight. It was an immediate hit, and garnered her an Oscar for Best Screenplay in 2008.

Since then, she's written and produced a number of hit films and cult hits, including "Jennifer's Body," "Young Adult," "Tully" and "Lisa Frankenstein," as well as the television series "United States of Tara." She also penned the book for the successful Broadway musical "Jagged Little Pill," based on the music of Alanis Morrisette. She lives in Los Angeles.

Emerald Lilly Fennell is an English actress, filmmaker, and writer. She has received many awards and nominations, including an Academy Award, two British Academy Film Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award, and nominations for three Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. Fennell first gained attention for her roles in period drama films, such as Albert Nobbs (2011), Anna Karenina (2012), The Danish Girl (2015), and Vita and Virginia (2018). She went on to receive wider recognition for her starring roles in the BBC One period drama series Call the Midwife (2013-17) and for her portrayal of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in the Netflix period drama series The Crown (2019-20).

Justine Triet is a graduate from the Paris National School of Fine Arts. Since then, she has directed a couple of films dealing with the place of the individual within a group: Sur place (2007) was shot right in the middle of the 2006 student protest; Solférino (2009) was filmed during the 2007 French presidential election; in her next effort, Two Ships (2012), Justine Triet gave a startling account of life in a São Paulo shantytown and garnered many awards in the festival circuit. Her first feature, Age of Panic (2013) is a skillful mix of a documentary (five years after Solférino (2009), she records the second ballot of the French elections for President live in the streets of Paris) and fiction (the crisis experienced on that very day by a divorced couple). Age of Panic (2013) has been acclaimed by most critics as one of the best works of the latest new wave of French directors.