Valentine Davies
Valentine Davies | |
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Born | Valentine Loewi Davies (1905-08-25)August 25, 1905 New York City, US |
Died | July 23, 1961(1961-07-23) (aged 55) Malibu, California, US |
Occupation | Screenwriter, playwright, director, producer |
Alma mater | University of Michigan |
Notable works | Miracle on 34th Street The Benny Goodman Story The Bridges at Toko-Ri It Happens Every Spring |
Notable awards | Best Story 1947 Miracle on 34th Street |
Valentine Loewi Davies (August 25, 1905 – July 23, 1961) was an American film and television writer, producer, and director. His film credits included Miracle on 34th Street (1947), Chicken Every Sunday (1949), It Happens Every Spring (1949), The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), and The Benny Goodman Story (1955). He won the 1947 Academy Award for Best Story for Miracle on 34th Street and was nominated for the 1954 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Glenn Miller Story.
Biography
Davies was born in New York City, served in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II and graduated from the University of Michigan, where he developed his writing skill with a column in the Michigan Daily and honed his skills further as a graduate student at Yale Drama School. He walked away from his family's successful real estate business in New York and moved to Hollywood to become a screenwriter. He wrote a number of Broadway plays and was president of the Screen Writers Guild and general chairman of the Academy Awards program.
He wrote the story for the 1947 film Miracle on 34th Street while in the service, which was given screen treatment by the director, George Seaton. Davies also did a novelization of the story, which was published as a novella by Harcourt Brace & Company in conjunction with the film release. Miracle on 34th Street earned him an Academy Award for Best Story.
From 1949 to 1950, he served as President of the Screen Writers Guild. He died in 1961 at his home in Malibu, California when he was fifty-five years old. His secretary at the time of his death, Marian Saphro, recalled many years later that her boss died in the midst of a heavy laugh. The Valentine Davies Award was established in 1962, the year following his death, by the Writers Guild of America, West, in his honor. It has been awarded annually, excepting the years 2006, 2010, and 2015.
External links
- Valentine Davies Biography
- Valentine Davies at IMDb
Non-profit organization positions | ||
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Preceded by B. B. Kahane | President of Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences 1960-1961 | Succeeded by |
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- Ben Hecht (1927/28)
- No Award (1928/29)
- No Award (1929/30)
- John Monk Saunders (1930/31)
- Frances Marion (1931/32)
- Robert Lord (1932/33)
- Arthur Caesar (1934)
- Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur (1935)
- Pierre Collings and Sheridan Gibney (1936)
- Robert Carson and William Wellman (1937)
- Eleanore Griffin and Dore Schary (1938)
- Lewis R. Foster (1939)
- Benjamin Glazer and John Toldy (1940)
- Harry Segall (1941)
- Emeric Pressburger (1942)
- William Saroyan (1943)
- Leo McCarey (1944)
- Charles G. Booth (1945)
- Clemence Dane (1946)
- Valentine Davies (1947)
- Richard Schweizer and David Wechsler (1948)
- Edna Anhalt and Edward Anhalt (1950)
- James Bernard and Paul Dehn (1951)
- Frank Cavett, Fredric M. Frank and Theodore St. John (1952)
- Dalton Trumbo (1953)
- Philip Yordan (1954)
- Daniel Fuchs (1955)
- Robert Rich (1956)
This article about a United States film director born in the 1900s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
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