Nunnally Johnson

Nunnally Hunter Johnson (December 5, 1897 – March 25, 1977) was an American screenwriter, film director, producer and playwright. As a filmmaker, he wrote the screenplays to more than fifty films in a career that spanned from 1927 to 1967. He also produced more than half of the films he wrote scripts for and directed eight of those movies. In 1940 he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Grapes of Wrath and in 1956, he was nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Feature Film for The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. Some of his other notable films include Tobacco Road, The Moon Is Down (1943), Casanova Brown (1944), The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944), The Mudlark (1950), The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951), My Cousin Rachel (1952), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), The Three Faces of Eve (1957), Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962), and The Dirty Dozen (1967). As a playwright he wrote the books for several Broadway musicals, including the musical revue Shoot the Works (1931), Arthur Schwartz's Park Avenue (1946), Bob Merrill's Henry, Sweet Henry (1967), and Jule Styne's Darling of the Day (1968). He also wrote the 1943 Broadway play The World's Full of Girls.

Biography

Early life Nunnally Johnson was born on December 5, 1897, in Columbus, Georgia, the elder of two sons born to Johnnie Pearl (née Patrick) and James Nunnally Johnson. He and his younger brother, Cecil Patrick Johnson, were raised in Columbus. Their father was a journeyman mechanic, turned tinsmith and coppersmith, turned pipe and sheetmetal shop superintendent for the Central of Georgia Railway. His mother founded what later became the PTA in Columbus, and was the first woman to serve on the Muscogee County Board of Education. Johnson Elementary School in Columbus was built and named for her in 1949.

Nunnally graduated from Columbus High School in 1915. While living in Columbus in 1919, at 1312 Third Street, Nunnally was a second lieutenant in the field artillery reserve corps of the U.S. Army during World War I. His brother Cecil graduated from Georgia Tech in 1924, married Gene Clair Norris, and moved to Bellingham, Washington, where he was first a gas department superintendent and later a vice president with Puget Sound Power & Light.

Career Johnson began his career as a journalist, writing for the Columbus Enquirer Sun, the Savannah Press, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, the New York Evening Post and the New York Herald Tribune. He also wrote short stories, and a collection of these stories, titled There Ought to Be a Law, was published in 1930. His first connection with film work was the sale of screen rights to one of his stories in 1927. Johnson asked his editor if he could write film criticism in 1932. When this request was denied, he decided to move to Hollywood and work directly in the film industry.

Finding work as a scriptwriter, Johnson was hired full-time as a writer by 20th Century-Fox in 1935. He began producing films as well and co-founded International Pictures in 1943 with William Goetz. Johnson also directed several films in the 1950s, including two starring Gregory Peck. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Screenplay in 1940 for The Grapes of Wrath and the Directors Guild of America Best Director Award in 1956 for The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. In 1964, Johnson adapted his daughter Nora Johnson's novel, The World of Henry Orient, into a film of the same title, starring Peter Sellers.

Personal life His first marriage in 1919 at Trinity Church in Brooklyn Heights, was to Alice Love Mason, with whom he had one daughter, film editor Marjorie Fowler. Mason was an editor with the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Mason and Johnson divorced in 1920. His second marriage was to Marion Byrnes, in 1927, also a staff member of the Daily Eagle, with whom he also had a daughter, Nora Johnson. Byrnes's and Johnson's marriage ended in 1938.

While filming The Grapes of Wrath, Johnson met his third wife, actress Dorris Bowdon, a Mississippi native. They were married at the home of Charles MacArthur and Helen Hayes in Nyack-on-the-Hudson on February 4, 1940. They had three children. They resided in a mansion located at 625 Mountain Drive in Beverly Hills, California. It was designed by architect Paul R. Williams.

Filmography Year TitleWriter ProducerDirector 1927 Rough House Rosie 1933 A Bedtime Story Mama Loves Papa 1934 Moulin Rouge The House of Rothschild Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back Kid Millions 1935 Cardinal Richelieu Baby Face Harrington Thanks a Million The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo 1936 The Prisoner of Shark Island The Country Doctor Dimples The Road to Glory Banjo on My Knee 1937 Nancy Steele Is Missing! Cafe Metropole Slave Ship Love Under Fire 1939 Jesse James Wife, Husband and Friend Rose of Washington Square 1940 The Grapes of Wrath I Was an Adventuress Chad Hanna 1941 Tobacco Road 1942 Roxie Hart Moontide The Pied Piper Life Begins at Eight-Thirty 1943 The Moon Is Down Holy Matrimony 1944 Casanova Brown The Keys of the Kingdom 1945 The Woman in the Window The Southerner Along Came Jones 1946 The Dark Mirror 1947 The Senator Was Indiscreet 1948 Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid 1949 Everybody Does It 1950 Three Came Home The Gunfighter The Mudlark 1951 The Long Dark Hall The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel 1952 Phone Call from a Stranger We're Not Married! O. Henry's Full House My Cousin Rachel 1953 How to Marry a Millionaire 1954 Night People Witness to Murder Black Widow 1955 How to Be Very, Very Popular 1956 The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit 1957 Oh, Men! Oh, Women! The Three Faces of Eve 1959 The Man Who Understood Women 1960 The Angel Wore Red Flaming Star 1962 Something's Got to Give Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation 1963 Take Her, She's Mine 1964 The World of Henry Orient 1965 Dear Brigitte 1967 The Dirty Dozen