Writing
Frances Marion
FR, EN, ES, DE cinema · 160 credits
Born
18 November 1888
Died
12 May 1973 (aged 84)
Birthplace
San Francisco, California, USA
Also known as Frank M. Clifton
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.
Known for
Filmography
The Women Who Run Hollywood
as Self (archive footage)
Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Power of Women in Hollywood
as Self (archive footage)
Dinner at Eight
Original Film Writer
The Pirate
Additional Writing
Green Hell
Original Story, Screenplay
Love from a Stranger
Screenplay, Adaptation
Knight Without Armour
Adaptation, Writer
Camille
Screenplay
Riffraff
Screenplay, Story
Secrets
Adaptation, Screenplay
Dinner at Eight
Screenplay
Emma
Story
Blondie of the Follies
Screenplay, Story
Cynara
Adaptation, Screenplay
The Champ
Writer, Story
The Big House
Story, Dialogue, Writer
Anna Christie
Screenplay
Good News
Scenario Writer, Screenplay
Let Us Be Gay
Writer, Dialogue
Anna Christie
Adaptation
Min and Bill
Writer
Their Own Desire
Screenplay
The Wind
Screenplay
The Sunset Legion
Story, Scenario Writer
The Cossacks
Adaptation
The Scarlet Letter
Adaptation, Screenplay
Love
Writer
The Red Mill
Scenario Writer, Adaptation
Mr. Wu
Writer
Jesse James
Story, Screenplay
Don Mike
Story
The Son of the Sheik
Adaptation, Screenplay
Partners Again
Adaptation, Screenplay
The Two-Gun Man
Co-Writer
A Thief in Paradise
Adaptation, Screenplay
Stella Dallas
Adaptation, Screenplay
Lightnin'
Adaptation, Screenplay
Zander the Great
Adaptation, Screenplay
The Lady
Writer
Lazybones
Scenario Writer, Screenplay
Thank You
Screenplay
His Supreme Moment
Adaptation, Screenplay
Graustark
Adaptation, Screenplay
The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln
Screenplay, Story
Sundown
Writer
Secrets
Adaptation, Screenplay
Cytherea
Adaptation, Screenplay
Tarnish
Screenplay
The Toll of the Sea
Story, Writer
The Famous Mrs. Fair
Screenplay
The Song of Love
Director, Adaptation, Screenplay
Dulcy
Writer
Within the Law
Adaptation, Screenplay
The Nth Commandment
Producer, Writer
The Voice from the Minaret
Adaptation, Screenplay
The French Doll
Writer, Scenario Writer
The Love Piker
Scenario Writer
Back Pay
Writer
Sonny
Adaptation, Screenplay
East Is West
Writer
The Love Light
Director, Writer
Just Around the Corner
Director, Writer
The World and His Wife
Screenplay
Go and Get It
Scenario Writer
Humoresque
Writer
Pollyanna
Adaptation, Screenplay
The Flapper
Story, Screenplay
The Cinema Murder
Scenario Writer, Screenplay
Stella Maris
Writer
M'Liss
Writer
How Could You, Jean?
Screenplay
The City of Dim Faces
Screenplay
The Goat
Screenplay, Story
The Poor Little Rich Girl
Scenario Writer, Writer
Beloved Adventuress
Screenplay, Story
The Yellow Passport
Scenario Writer
The Feast of Life
Screenplay
A Girl of Yesterday
as Rosanna Danford
Rags
Writer
Camille
Screenplay
