Frances Marion
Writing
🎂 1888-11-18
Frances Marion (November 18, 1888 – May 12, 1973) was an American journalist, author, and screenwriter often cited as the most renowned female screenwriter of the 20th century alongside June Mathis and Anita Loos. She was the first writer to win two Academy Awards. Born Marion Benson Owens in San Francisco, California, she worked as a journalist and served overseas as a combat correspondent during World War I. On her return home, she moved to Los Angeles and was hired as a writing assistant, an actress and general assistant by "Lois Weber Productions", a film company owned and operated by pioneer female film director Lois Weber.She has a face as an actor, but she preferred a work that she isn't in the camera. She learned how to write a scenario from Weber. Marion wrote a story for a movie for her, but it burned before it was released. As "Frances Marion", she wrote many scripts for actress/filmmaker Mary Pickford, including Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and The Poor Little Rich Girl, as well as scripts for numerous other successful films of the 1920s and 1930s.Marion went to New York for her job, and her husband decline to live with her and divorced. She became the first female to win an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 1930 for the film The Big House, she received the Academy Award for Best Story for The Champ in 1932, both featuring Wallace Beery, and co-wrote Min and Bill starring her friend Marie Dressler and Beery in 1930. She was credited with writing 300 scripts and over 130 produced films. She directed and occasionally appeared in some of Mary Pickford's early movies. For many years she was under contract to MGM Studios, but, independently wealthy, she left Hollywood in 1946 to devote more time to writing stage plays and novels. Frances Marion published a memoir Off With Their Heads: A Serio-Comic Tale of Hollywood in 1972. Marion died the following year of a ruptured aneurysm in Los Angeles.
Cast credits(3)
Writing (182)
Screenplay
1936
Story
1979
Original Story
1979
Writer
1918
Screenplay
1933
Writer
1931
Story
1931
Adaptation
1926
Screenplay
1926
Screenplay
1928
Writer
1933
Screenplay
1929
Writer
1931
Writer
1917
Story
1930
Dialogue
1930
Writer
1930
Writer
1989
Adaptation
1937
Writer
1937
Screenplay
1936
Story
1936
Adaptation
1923
Screenplay
1923
Writer
1927
Writer
1926
Scenario Writer
1917
Writer
1917
Writer
1915
Story
1932
Writer
1922
Writer
1925
Original Story
1940
Screenplay
1940
Adaptation
1925
Screenplay
1925
Adaptation
1933
Screenplay
1933
Writer
1927
Adaptation
1927
Screenplay
1927
Screenplay
1930
Writer
1917
Writer
1921
Story
1923
Writer
1923
Adaptation
1932
Screenplay
1932
Story
1928
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1917
Story
1920
Screenplay
1920
Adaptation
1925
Screenplay
1925
Writer
1912
Adaptation
1920
Screenplay
1920
Scenario Writer
1930
Screenplay
1930
Writer
1930
Novel
1945
Writer
1927
Writer
1917
Scenario Writer
1927
Adaptation
1927
Adaptation
1925
Screenplay
1925
Adaptation
1924
Screenplay
1924
Adaptation
1930
Screenplay
1925
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1918
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1915
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1930
Story
1926
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1928
Screenplay
1923
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1919
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1919
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1928
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1922
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1930
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1917
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1916
Screenplay
1937
Adaptation
1937
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1920
Screenplay
1932
Story
1932
Adaptation
1925
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1925
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1923
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1918
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1916
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1918
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1927
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1927
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1917
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1927
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1920
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1916
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1922
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1915
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1917
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1924
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1924
Scenario Writer
1925
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1925
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1917
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1918
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1923
Scenario Writer
1923
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1924
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1918
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1922
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1923
Adaptation
1925
Screenplay
1925
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1916
Scenario Writer
1923
Adaptation
1924
Screenplay
1924
Story
1928
Scenario Writer
1928
Writer
1927
Co-Writer
1926
Writer
1924
Story
1926
Story
1933
Adaptation
1925
Screenplay
1925
Scenario Writer
1919
Screenplay
1919
Adaptation
1922
Screenplay
1922
Writer
1931
Screenplay
1924
Adaptation
1926
Screenplay
1926
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1920
Adaptation
1923
Screenplay
1923
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1926
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1930
Dialogue
1930
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1916
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1918
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1924
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1916
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1917
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1916
Scenario Writer
1920
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1925
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1923
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1922
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1919
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1916
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1917
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1921
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1915
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1917
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1926
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1921
Screenplay
1918
Story
1918
Screenplay
1918
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1917
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1917
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1917
Adaptation
1923
Screenplay
1923
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1917
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1923
Story
1916
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1917
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1916
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1917
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1915
Screenplay
1915
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1925
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1919
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1916
