Anna Hamilton Phelan

Anna Hamilton Phelan is an American screenwriter. She was nominated for two Writers Guild of America Awards for the films Mask and Gorillas in the Mist (1988), the latter of which also earned her an Academy Award nomination.

Life Phelan grew up in central Pennsylvania. She studied theater arts at Emerson College in Boston until 1965. Phelan left Boston after her studies and moved to New York City to pursue a career as a theatre actress. There she started to write her own monologues. She took a serious turn to scriptwriting when she "was in a television film as a dance hall girl and the producer recast her as the madam."

Themes She is known for writing strong women's roles, such as Cher's role in Mask (1985), as a caring and supportive mother towards her son who has a skull deformity, and Sigourney Weaver's part in Gorillas in the Mist (1988), who devotes her life to the study of primates and a strong fighter against illegal poaching in the African jungle. After Gorillas in the Mist, Sigourney Weaver told her "if you and other writers stop writing about female characters, then our daughters and granddaughters will have no female images on the screen to identify with at all" and Phelan took that as a responsibility of hers to keep creating positive roles for women on screen.

Filmography Writer Mask (1985) Into the Homeland (1987) Gorillas in the Mist (1988) In Love and War (1996) Girl, Interrupted (1999) Amelia (2009)

Actress Mask (1985)

Awards and nominations Year Award Category Nominated work Result 1986 38th Writers Guild of America Awards Best Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen Mask 1989 61st Academy Awards Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium Gorillas in the Mist 41st Writers Guild of America Awards Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium