Paul Hervey Fox

Paul Hervey Fox (March 13, 1894 November 1, 1956) was an American playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. He wrote several films during the pre-Code era and Hollywood golden age, including Mandalay, Grand Finale (1936), The Last Train from Madrid (1937), Safari (1940), A Gentleman at Heart (1942), and The Stars Are Singing (1953). He also published several novels and short stories, and wrote five Broadway plays.

Fox was the father of author Paula Fox, whose mother was Cuban writer Elsie Fox (née de Sola). He is the biological grandfather of Linda Carroll, and great-grandfather of her daughter, rock musician Courtney Love.

Early life Fox was born in New York City in 1894 to Winfield Douglas Fox and Mary Finch. Fox's paternal great-grandmother, Jane, immigrated to the United States from her native Nova Scotia, Canada. He was the cousin of writer Faith Baldwin and actor Douglas Fairbanks. Fox was raised in Yonkers, New York, and was "thrown out of three [different] colleges."

Career At age nineteen, Fox sold his first story to The Smart Set, a New York-based literary magazine.

Fox's play Odd Man Out premiered on Broadway in 1925. Between then and 1938, four more of his plays were performed in Broadway theaters, though he later joked: "My plays dimmed more Broadway stars and killed more good performers than there are in the Actors Home."

In 1935, Fox published the novel Sailor Town, which earned high praise, and was deemed by one unnamed English critic as "one of the best six novels to appear in the English language" that year. In reviewing The Antagonists, critic E. E. Hollis of The Salt Lake Tribune noted Fox as a "distinctive talent" and praised the work. Fox and Elsie left Paula at a foundling hospital, but Elsie's mother reclaimed her shortly thereafter.

After divorcing Elsie, Fox later remarried Mary Parke, twenty years his junior, with whom he had four other children.

Fox was an alcoholic.

Filmography

Prince of Diamonds Adaptation, additional dialogue

Soldiers and Women Based on his play, originally titled The Soul Kiss

Ladies Must Play Story

The Cuban Love Song Additional dialogue

Mandalay Story

House Broken Story

Hideout in the Alps Additional dialogue

Grand Finale Story

The Last Train from Madrid Story

Soldiers and Women (1929; Broadway)