James Edward Grant
James Edward Grant was an influential American screenwriter and filmmaker born on July 2, 1905, in Chicago, Illinois. He began his career as a journalist before transitioning to Hollywood, where he made significant contributions to the film industry, particularly in the Western genre. Grant received his first screen credit in 1936 for the film "Grand Jury," but he gained prominence with his story for "A Lady Comes to Burkburnett," which inspired the 1940 film "Boom Town."
Throughout his career, he wrote several notable films, including "The Lady is Willing," "Johnny Eager," and "Angel and the Badman," the latter establishing his reputation as a talented screenwriter. He frequently collaborated with John Wayne, contributing to films like "The Sands of Iwo Jima" and "Hondo," and was known for his attention to historical detail. Grant's work earned him an Academy Award nomination for "The Sheepman." He continued to write and direct in Hollywood, engaging with prominent figures like John Ford and navigating the complexities of filmmaking, ultimately leaving a lasting impact on the industry.
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James Edward Grant
Writer
- Born: July 2, 1905
- Birthplace: Chicago, Illinois
- Died: February 19, 1966
- Place of death: Burbank, California
Biography
James Edward Grant was born on July 2, 1905, in Chicago, Illinois. As a young writer, he worked in Chicago as a journalist and as a magazine writer. At The Chicago Herald, for instance, he covered the syndicated column, “It’s a Racket.” Then Grant went to Hollywood, where he began working on marginal comedies, musicals, and melodramas. He contributed to original stories and screen developments and received his first screen credit for Grand Jury in 1936.
Grant made a name for himself not with Grand Jury but with the story “A Lady Comes to Burkburnett,” on which the 1940 movie Boom Town was based. Grant went on to write The Lady is Willing (1941); the 1941 film noirJohnny Eager; and the 1945 films Belle of the Yukon and The Great John L (the latter of which he also produced).
His next work, Angel and the Badman, was be one of his finest, and it helped form his reputation as a talented Hollywood screenwriter. This, Grant’s first Western, developed the idea of a good woman who reforms a bad outlaw. As such, it provided him with his first opportunity to work with a Western star, and that star was John Wayne. Grant collaborated with Harry Brown on The Sands of Iwo Jima (1949).This film earned Wayne an Academy Award nomination for his performance as Sergeant Striker.
Grant also worked on Bullfighter and the Lady (1951); Flying Leathernecks (1951), starring Wayne and directed by Nicholas Ray; Big Jim McLain, in which Grant and two other writers created a script that was, as star John Wayne requested, stridently anti-Communist; and Hondo (1953), which Grant adapted from the Louis L’Amour novel The Gift of Cochise. Wayne starred in the film, and Grant was praised for his writing skills and for his attention to historical detail.
By 1954, Grant was firmly entrenched in Hollywood culture. He directed and cowrote Ring of Fear—which Wayne produced—but then decided to return to writing Westerns. He would work on numerous films in the genre; one of these, 1958’s The Sheepman earned Grant his only Academy Award nomination. In 1960, Grant worked for Wayne on the notorious The Alamo. Grant was the solo screenwriter, though he would assume this role for only one of the other four final films he did for John Wayne.
Additional perks came with those last films, however, and one of them was the opportunity to work with director John Ford, whom Grant had long admired. A final perk, which at first dismayed Grant but in fact spoke to his talent and to John Wayne’s respect for him, came when Grant wrote the film Circus World. It had been originally written as storyboard but was never formalized as a movie, and Frank Capra had agreed to direct the film with Wayne. But Wayne insisted on using Grant, so Capra quit. As it turns out, the new director, Henry Hathaway, didn’t use Grant’s gifts as he might have, and the character Wayne portrayed lacked the Grant touches.