Vera Caspary

Vera Louise Caspary (November 13, 1899 – June 13, 1987) was an American writer of novels, plays, screenplays, and short stories.

Her best-known novel, Laura, was made into a successful movie of the same title. Though generally classified as a mystery novelist, Caspary felt uncomfortable with classifying herself in the genre. Yet her novels effectively merged women's quest for identity and love with murder plots. Independence is the key to her protagonists, with her novels revolving around women who are menaced, but who turn out to be neither victimized nor rescued damsels.

Following her father's death in 1924, the income from Caspary's writing was at times barely sufficient to support herself and her mother, and during the Great Depression she became interested in socialist causes. Caspary joined the Communist Party under an alias, but not being totally committed and at odds with its code of secrecy, she claimed to have confined her activities to fund-raising and hosting meetings.

Caspary visited Russia in an attempt to confirm her beliefs, but became disillusioned and wished to resign from the Party, though she continued to contribute money and support similar causes. She eventually married Isidor "Igee" Goldsmith, her lover and writing collaborator of six years. However, despite their successful partnership, her Communist connections led to her being "graylisted", temporarily yet significantly affecting their offers of work and income.

Biography Caspary was born prematurely in Chicago – her mother, Julia (née Cohen), over 40 with three nearly-grown children, had hidden the pregnancy. Being so much younger than her siblings, Caspary was reportedly spoiled as a child. She was also producing articles for publications such as Finger Print Magazine, and the New York-based Dance Lovers Magazine. By 1922, she had turned down a raise from $50 to $75 to write from home and work on her first novel. "I should have never committed that murder", Caspary complained.

The English Harper's Bazaar also wanted Murder at the Stork Club, and its editor Ben McPeake, like Mayes in New York, continually checked on the story's progress. There were too many distractions in London for Caspary to write, but fortunately she had the loan of W. R. Hearst's castle in Wales, St Donat's. All but empty and abandoned during the war, it provided much-needed seclusion for her to write the story.

Despite their arrangement and a previous wife long-abandoned in England, by 1948 Igee was anxious to marry Caspary, though she had serious reservations about the practice. After three years of physical separation, Igee got his divorce on the grounds of abandonment. While in Europe finalizing the divorce, Igee traveled to visit his grown son in Switzerland and, while there, bought Caspary a small chalet in nearby Annecy. After living together for the better part of seven years, they were married within the week.

Hollywood in 1951 was the feeding ground for the House Un-American Activities Committee, the House's rabid anti-communist investigations pitted Hollywood's residents against one another. If people testified, they were "friendly" witnesses; if they were named as communist sympathizers, they were "blacklisted". Either way, the decision was made for them. The couple were preparing to leave for Europe, as Igee was negotiating a French remake of Three Husbands, when MGM abruptly and illegally questioned Caspary regarding her Communist links. They were duly worried, as they had just bought two expensive stories from her, and if she were named and blacklisted, they would not be able to release them.

Since Caspary had left the Party before she came to Hollywood, she told the truth about which committees she attended and the initiatives she had worked on, but the one thing they never asked was if she had ever been a member.

Caspary was concerned; if she was subpoenaed to appear she would not be able to leave the country unless she became a "friendly witness" and named names. On a lawyer's advice, the couple left the country as soon as possible. They remained in Europe, Igee going from studio to studio trying to finance new projects or remake old ones, finally inspiring Caspary to write a musical comedy, Wedding in Paris. It was while working in Austria on the musical adaptation of Daddy Long Legs, Caspary learned she had been added to the graylist and told to abandon the project. If someone appeared before the HUAC committee and refused to name names, they were blacklisted; if their file indicated that they had signed pledges, attended congresses or contributed to doubtful causes, they were graylisted. Caspary described the former as hell, the latter merely purgatory.

The couple returned to Hollywood early in January 1954, but found the climate in Hollywood had gone from chilly to severe. They left again after six months, and what followed were two more years of bad luck. In 1956, Caspary and Igee returned to Hollywood when the HUAC lost interest. A job was waiting for her; an old friend, Sol Siegel, had purchased the rights to the book Les Girls, and was eager for her to adapt it for the screen. However, MGM wouldn't employ Caspary unless she wrote a letter stating she had never been a member of the Communist Party; under such duress, she capitulated and wrote the letter. Years later, Caspary remembered George Cukor's Les Girls with Gene Kelly and Mitzi Gaynor as her most enjoyable studio experience.

Time out The couple split their time between Hollywood and Europe. The novel Evvie, about two emancipated girls in the 1920s and heavily based on her own experiences, was begun in London, continued in New York, finished in Beverly Hills, and proofed in Paris. The novel won faint reviews, but Caspary considered it one of her best, and famed Chicago Tribune reviewer Fanny Butcher came out of retirement long enough to denounce it as obscene.

She could no longer work with the intensity and fervor of her youth, but she still needed to earn a living and pay their debts. Caspary even broke a twenty-year vow and took work from Columbia Pictures and the ever-irascible Harry Cohn. She reworked an idea that she had begun in Austria and that had been rejected in London, altering it to fit American situations, and to her shock 20th Century Fox offered $150,000 for it. They wanted it for Marilyn Monroe; a deal was made for the 100-page treatment of Illicit, the contract signed and the first payment sent, but then Monroe became undisciplined and unreliable and was suspended by the studio. Caspary completed a first draft, but the film was never made.

The good feeling from being financially secure for the first time in ages was lost when Igee was diagnosed with lung cancer. In between surgeries and bouts of illness, the couple traveled: Greece, Las Vegas, New England — all places they had meant to go. They traveled until Igee was too ill to do so; he died in 1964 while they were in Vermont.

Caspary returned to New York after Igee's death, where she published eight more books including The Rosecrest Cell, a study of a group of frustrated amateur Communists; and the memoir The Secrets of Grown-ups. None equaled the popularity of her early suspense work. In her 18 published novels, 10 screenplays and four stage plays, Caspary's main theme, whether in a murder mystery, drama or musical comedy, was the working woman and her right to lead her own life, to be independent.

Caspary died of a stroke at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City in 1987.

Works

Novels Ladies and Gents. NY: The Century Company, 1929 The White Girl. NY: J.H. Sears & Company, 1929 Music in the street. NY: Sears Publishing Co., 1930 Thicker than Water. NY: Liveright, 1932 Laura. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943 Bedelia. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1945 Stranger Than Truth. NY: Random House, 1946 The Murder in the Stork Club. NY: AC. Black, 1946 The Weeping And The Laughter. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1950 Thelma. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1952 False Face. London: W.H Allen, 1954 The Husband. NY: Harpers, 1957; London: W.H. Allen, 1957 (with dust-wrapper by George Adamson) Evvie. NY: Harper, 1960 Bachelor in Paradise. NY: Dell, 1961 A Chosen Sparrow. NY: Putnam, 1964 The Man Who Loved His Wife. NY: Putnam, 1966 The Rosecrest Cell. NY: Putnam, 1967 Final Portrait. London: W.H. Allen, 1971 Ruth. NY: Pocket, 1972 Dreamers. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1975 Elizabeth X. London: W.H. Allen, 1978 The Secrets of Grown-Ups. NY: McGraw Hill, 1979 The Murder in the Stork Club and Other Mysteries. Norfolk, VA: Crippen & Landru, 2009. Collection of novelettes.

Short stories "In Conference" "Marriage '48", Colliers, Sept–Oct 1948 "Odd Thursday" "Out of the Blue", Today's Woman, Sept 1947 "Stranger in The House", 1943 "Stranger Than Truth", Colliers, Sept–Oct 1946 "Suburbs"

Plays Blind Mice w/ Winifred Lenihan (1930) Geraniums in My Window; a Comedy in Three Acts, w/ Samuel Ornitz (1934) June 13; a Mystery-Drama in Three Acts, w/ Frank Vreeland (1940) Wedding in Paris, w/ Sonny Miller (1956) Laura, w/ George Sklar (1947)

Non-fiction A Manual of Classic Dancing. (as Sergei Marinoff) Chicago: Sergei Marinoff School, 1922

Film credits Working Girls, (1931; play "Blind Mice") The Night of June 13, (1932; story "Suburbs") Private Scandal, (1934; story "In Conference") Such Women Are Dangerous, (1934; story "Odd Thursday") Hooray for Love, (1935; contributor to treatment; uncredited) Party Wire, (1935; story; uncredited) I'll Love You Always, (1935; writer) Easy Living, (1937; story) Scandal Street, (1938; story "Suburbs") Service de Luxe, (1938; story) Sing, Dance, Plenty Hot, (1940; story) Lady from Louisiana, (1941; screenplay) Lady Bodyguard, (1943; story) Laura, (1944; novel) Claudia and David, (1946; adaptation) Bedelia, (1946; novel; screenplay) Out of the Blue, (1947; story) A Letter to Three Wives, (1949; adaptation) I Can Get It for You Wholesale, (1951; adaptation) Three Husbands, (1951; screenplay; story) Give a Girl a Break, (1953; story) The Blue Gardenia, (1953; story) The 20th Century Fox Hour, (1955; episodes) Les Girls, (1957; story) Bachelor in Paradise, (1961; story) Laura, (1962; TV; writer) Laura, (1968; TV; novel)