Isabel Leighton

Isabel Leighton Bunker (July 17, 1899 – April 22, 1995) was an American writer and actress. She was the writer of six Broadway plays, She graduated from Horace Mann School and then attended the Columbia School of Journalism, making her debut in 1917, before leaving school to marry.

Career As actress Leighton's career began in the 1920s, when she appeared in several Broadway productions.

In 1920, she performed in Deburau. In 1922, she starred in Why Men Leave Home. In the same year, she starred in The Haunted House. In the same year, she adapted The Sapphire Ring from Hungarian for the stage.

In 1927, she cowrote the operetta Katja with Frederick Lonsdale and Harry Graham. It was adapted from a German original and performed in Chicago's Garrick Theater. The next year, she adapted the play Polly With a Past into a musical comedy called Polly. It was performed on Broadway in 1929. In 1941, she collaborated with Bertram Bloch to write the play Spring Again. She wrote for the North American Newspaper Alliance,

In 1933, she published My Boy Franklin with Gabrielle Forbush, a collection of interviews with Sara Roosevelt about her son Franklin D. Roosevelt. In the same year, she worked with Margaret Livingston Whiteman to write Whiteman's Burden, a look at her husband Paul Whiteman's difficulties with losing weight.

During the Second World War, she served as a naval correspondent.

Mental health activism In the 1950s, Leighton served as moderator on the television show How Did They Get That Way?, which dealt with mental health issues.

Political activism In 1933, Leighton served as head of the women's committee of the National Recovery Administration campaign in New York City. She was appointed vice-chairman of the independent citizen's committee for Democratic New York mayoral candidate Joseph V. McKee,

Personal life Aged 17, Isabella married Herbert B. Lederer, a customer's man (registered representative) at Edward B. Smith & Co. brokerage firm. A dozen years into this marriage, she told an interviewer that American men seek out youth to their detriment, and that an older woman has more to offer, not least in constructive companionship. Herbert Lederer hanged himself in October 1933 at their 1045 Park Avenue apartment. Her second husband was a grandson of British Army officer Frederick Willis and a distant cousin of Winston Churchill through the Jerome family. His ex-wife, Helen Thornton Willis, committed suicide in her Park Avenue apartment in May 1938. (who had also married a 17 year old actress, Julia Hoyt) ). Leighton and Willis were divorced by 1957.

Leighton was later married to Arthur H. Bunker, an American businessman and the brother of diplomat Ellsworth Bunker. His ex-wife, Frances Wilkinson, married Italian ambassador Augusto Rosso ("Mussolini's man") in January 1937. Bunker's daughter Daphne was found strangled on June 4, 1962, in her Topeka apartment. She had been a patient at the Menninger Clinic in the city and was briefly married to the writer Evan H. Rhodes. In October 1964, she hosted a party for Rhodes and his co-author Merle Miller on the publication of their book Only You, Dick Daring

Following a farewell dinner for Rudolf Bing at the Metropolitan Opera House on October 31, 1971, Leighton and two others were attacked by armed robbers outside River House, having thousands of dollars' worth of jewelry stolen.

Leighton died (aged 95) from a stroke at her Manhattan home on April 22, 1995. It includes scripts for The Sapphire Ring, Cadge, and Mercenary Mary, as well as correspondence from John Kenneth Galbraith, Henry Kissinger, and Archibald MacLeish.

Yale professorship With Arthur Bunker having graduated from Yale University's Sheffield Scientific School in 1916, Leighton left a bequest following her death to create a new chair in hematology called the Arthur H. and Isabel Bunker Associate Professor in Medicine. Hematology covers the study of blood cancers such as the leukemia from which her husband died. The list of chairs and their appointed years is as follows:

Filmography Title Year of production Media Notes Stage work Stage work Stage work Stage work Stage work Performed at the Lyceum Theater. Stage work

Publications Books Title Year of firstpublication First edition publisher Notes New York: Ray Long & Richard R. Smith New York: Viking Press Cowritten with Margaret Livingston Whiteman. Cowritten with George Sessions Perry. New York: Simon and Schuster Editor.

Scripts Title Year of release Media Notes Stage work Stage work Operetta Cowritten with Frederick Lonsdale and Harry Graham. Stage work Film Story cowritten with Jean Negulesco. Stage work Cowritten with Bertram Bloch.