Charles Lederer
Charles Lederer (1910-2001) was a notable American screenwriter known for his significant contributions to film and theater during the mid-20th century. Born to a family immersed in the arts, he was raised by his aunt, actress Marion Davies, after his parents' separation. This upbringing, coupled with his connections to influential figures like William Randolph Hearst, helped shape his career in journalism and screenwriting. Lederer is best recognized for his collaborations with renowned playwright Ben Hecht and director Howard Hawks, particularly on the acclaimed screenplays for "His Girl Friday" and "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes." His work spanned various genres, including light comedies and darker film noir, exemplified by "Kiss of Death" and "Ride the Pink Horse." Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, he penned successful films like "I Love You Again," "Love Crazy," and the Broadway musical "Kismet," which earned him multiple Tony Awards. Lederer's versatile writing style often retained the comedic essence of original works while exploring themes of power and identity. His prolific output during this vibrant era of Hollywood underscores his lasting impact on American cinema.
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Charles Lederer
Playwright
- Born: December 31, 1910
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: March 5, 1976
Biography
Charles Lederer was born on December 31, 1910, to the director/stage producer George Lederer and the singer Reine Davies. The couple’s parting led to Charles’s being raised by his maternal aunt, the actress Marion Davies. He devoted himself to journalism in his twenties, benefitting from his aunt’s companionship with the tycoon William Randolph Hearst. Lederer collaborated with Bartlett Cormack on dialogue for the 1931 film version of a play by Ben Hecht and Charles Mac Arthur, The Front Page. Most of Lederer’s successful work would involve collaboration with Hecht or with Howard Hawks, the director of a 1940 remake of The Front Page titled His Girl Friday. In this screenplay, as well as in the more famous Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), Lederer showed an uncanny ability for revising while retaining the comic essence of the original work.
The screenwriter married twice. His first marriage was in 1940 to Virginia Welles, whom he later divorced. He then married the actress Ann Shirley in 1949. The forties and early fifties saw some of Lederer’s most successful work, from the light domestic comedies I Love You Again (1940) and Love Crazy (1941) starring William Powell and Myrna Loy to the musical Kismet (1953), for which Lederer received three Tony Awards in 1954.
The period of Lederer’s greatest productivity coincided with the period of America’s inward-loooking innocence, and his screenplays on the whole are light, frothy things such as the 1949 film I Was a Male War Bride with Cary Grant. Another example is the 1952 Fearless Fagan, written during the Korean War but sporting a plot about an army recruit who takes his pet lion along with him. A slightly darker view of power struggles within the nation is incorporated in two films noir written with Hecht and directed by Henry Hathaway, Kiss of Death (1947) and Ride the Pink Horse (1947).
Some of Lederer’s screenplays were adaptations from serious playwrights such as Robert E. Sherwood and Maxwell Anderson. Gaby (1956) was an indirect adaptation of Sherwood’s Waterloo Bridge, and Never Steal Anything Small (1959) was adapted from Anderson’s play. Lederer quarreled with Billy Wilder over the making of The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), and abandoned the film. The 1962 remake of Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando is a script collaboration between Lederer and Hecht. Other well-known films on which Lederer worked are the 1960 Can-Can and Ocean’s Eleven in the same year. His prolific career bears witness to the truly entertaining aspect of Hollywood production in the forties and fifties.