Charles MacArthur
Charles Gordon MacArthur ( born November 5, 1895 in Quincy, Michigan, † April 21, 1956 in New York City, New York) was an American playwright and in the 1930s, one of the highest paid screenwriters in Hollywood.
Biography
Charles MacArthur was first reporter in Chicago before he became a playwright. Together with Ben Hecht, he wrote several successful plays. The most famous is The Front Page, which houses his experiences as a reporter in Chicago and has been filmed several times, so in 1931 as The Front Page and 1940 as His Girl Friday. Also the piece The Twentieth Century in 1934 brought to the screen with success. MacArthur was in New York a member of the Algonquin Round Table and had a brief affair with Dorothy Parker. The beginning of 1930 was Charles MacArthur as a screenwriter in Hollywood and managed to quickly rise to highly paid star of the authors. For a screenplay he could partially require fees of up to U.S. $ 150,000. Often Charles MacArthur was called to give screenplays the finishing touches. He demanded and got on daily rates of $ 15,000. MacArthur managed for example to complete the finished script for the Hedy Lamarr film I Take This Woman, where until then a total of 25 authors had failed.
Charles MacArthur was on the Academy Awards in 1934 for his work on Rasputin: The nominated Russia daemon for the Academy Award for best original story. Together with Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur won at the Academy Awards in 1936 in this category for The Scroundel. A third nomination, this time in the category Academy Award he received Best Adapted Screenplay along with Ben Hecht at the Academy Awards in 1940 for Wuthering Heights.
His second wife Charles MacArthur was married to actress Helen Hayes, who accompanied him to Hollywood in 1931. MacArthur wrote the screenplay for Hayes sound film debut Sin of Madelon Claudet, for the Helen Hayes won the Oscar for Best Actress.