Albert Hackett
Albert Hackett was an American playwright and screenwriter, best known for his long-standing collaboration with his wife, Frances Goodrich. This partnership, which spanned over thirty years, yielded several notable works, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, *The Diary of Anne Frank*, which also garnered a Tony Award and a New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1956. Born in New York and raised in a family of actors, Hackett began his career as a performer before transitioning to writing.
The couple's successful career in Hollywood included writing for the popular *Thin Man* film series, featuring Nick and Nora Charles, as well as other notable works such as *Easter Parade* and *Father of the Bride*. Their writing was characterized by sharp dialogue and well-drawn characters, drawing from their backgrounds as actors. Although their adaptation of *The Diary of Anne Frank* was met with acclaim, the subsequent film did not achieve commercial success, which was a disappointment for them. After Goodrich's passing in 1984 and Hackett's in 1995, their legacy, particularly through *The Diary of Anne Frank*, continues to resonate globally.
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Albert Hackett
Playwright
- Born: February 16, 1900
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: March 16, 1995
- Place of death: New York, New York
Biography
Any discussion of Albert Hackett’s writing for the stage and films necessarily recognizes that his major productions were collaborations with his wife, Frances Goodrich. This collaboration lasted for more than thirty years and resulted in the couple’s receiving six Academy Award nominations. Their stage play, The Diary of Anne Frank, received a Pulitzer Prize, a Tony Award, and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1956.
A native New Yorker, Albert Maurice Hackett was the son of two actors. He began acting at age six and continued for some years, appearing in plays and in silent films. Hackett first met Goodrich in 1927, when they were acting with a stock company in Denver, Colorado. They began collaborating immediately, but their efforts were unrewarded until 1930, when their light-hearted comedy, Up Pops the Devil, opened in New York. Hackett was brought to Hollywood to direct dialogue when the play was adapted for film, but Goodrich was not included in the contract, so the couple returned to New York, where their Bride Wise opened on Broadway in 1932.
The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio offered the couple a contract to write screenplays but stipulated that if they were not so occupied, they could be pressed into service as actors. However, the stipulation was never enforced because the couple wrote more than a dozen screenplays between 1933 and 1939. Their backgrounds as actors enabled the Hacketts to create characters that brought out the best in actors; they produced sparkling dialogue that made performers eager to star in their screenplays.
The Hacketts achieved great success with their three Thin Man films starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles; in these films, the couple blunder into a murder that they then solve. The three films, The Thin Man, which brought the Hacketts an Academy Award nomination for best screenplay, After the Thin Man, and Another Thin Man, were commercial successes. In addition to these scripts, the Hacketts wrote the screenplay for the popular operetta Naughty Marietta, released in 1935. This production was followed by their screenplays for Rose Marie and The Firefly. They produced a screenplay for Eugene O’Neill’s play Ah, Wilderness!, that brought them an Academy Award nomination in 1935.
The Hacketts returned to New York in the early 1940’s and had a play, The Great Big Doorstep, on Broadway in 1942, but it ran for only twenty-eight performances. Returning to Hollywood, this time under contract to Paramount Pictures, they worked on Lady in the Dark and continued writing successful screenplays, including the popular Easter Parade, which won a Writers Guild Award, Father of the Bride, and Father’s Little Dividend.
>From 1953 until 1955, they worked on a pet project: a play based on Anne Frank’s diary. The Diary of Anne Frank opened on Broadway in 1955 and brought the Hacketts international acclaim. Deeply devoted to this project, they adapted the play for Hollywood. Despite a warm critical reception, the film did not entice audiences, disappointing the Hacketts greatly. They returned to New York after writing one more screenplay, Five Finger Exercise. Goodrich died in 1984; Hackett died in 1995. Perhaps the couple’s greatest contribution was The Diary of Anne Frank, which plays continually throughout the world.