Ranald MacDougall

Ranald MacDougall (March 10, 1915 – December 12, 1973) was an American screenwriter who scripted such films as Mildred Pierce, The Unsuspected (1947), June Bride (1948), and The Naked Jungle (1954), and shared screenwriting credit for 1963's Cleopatra. He also directed a number of films, including 1957's Man on Fire with Bing Crosby and 1959's The World, the Flesh and the Devil, both of which featured actress Inger Stevens.

Early years Born on March 10, 1915, in Schenectady, New York, MacDougall came from an impoverished working-class family.

When MacDougall quit school, he became a messenger for Western Union in New York City. He used time between deliveries of messages to write scripts, and at night, he wrote poems, some of which were accepted for publication. While in Florida recovering from a bout of pneumonia, he was a bookkeeper, commercial fisherman, and waiter. By the time he was 18 years old, he was writing feature stories for newspapers in the South, as well as some scripts for radio.

MacDougall first worked in radio as a continuity writer for NBC in 1936. By 1939, he was writing for The World's Best, a half-hour program of adaptations of literary masterpieces. In the summer of 1941, he worked on Defense for America, traveling around the United States with an NBC crew to present on-the-scene reports about industrial activities for defense. In addition to writing for the program, he reported and was assistant producer. While working for NBC, he wrote "documentaries on Americana" that were recorded in the United States and sent to the BBC in England as examples of the way American radio programs were written.

MacDougall's work on television included writing for The Nanette Fabray Show.

President, WGA MacDougall was President of the Writers Guild of America West from 1971 until 1973.

Personal life MacDougall was married to Lucille Brophy in 1939, by whom he had three children. Following their divorce, he married actress Nanette Fabray in 1957 by whom he had another son. He died of a heart attack in Pacific Palisades, California, at age 58.