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Charles Brackett

Known For
Writing

Known Credits
2

Gender
Male

Birthday
November 26, 1892 (133 years old)

Place of Birth
Saratoga Springs, New York, USA

Charles Brackett

Biography

Charles William Brackett (November 26, 1892 – March 9, 1969) was an American novelist, screenwriter, and film producer. He collaborated with Billy Wilder on sixteen films.

Brackett was born in Saratoga Springs, New York, the son of Mary Emma Corliss and New York State Senator, lawyer, and banker Edgar Truman Brackett. The family's roots traced back to the arrival of Richard Brackett in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629, near present-day Springfield, Massachusetts. His mother's uncle, George Henry Corliss, built the Centennial Engine that powered the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. A 1915 graduate of Williams College, he earned his law degree from Harvard University. He joined the Allied Expeditionary Force during World War I. He was awarded the French Medal of Honor. He was a frequent contributor to the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, and Vanity Fair, and a drama critic for The New Yorker. He wrote five novels: The Counsel of the Ungodly (1920), Week-End (1925), That Last Infirmity (1926), and American Colony (1929). and Entirely Surrounded (1934).

Brackett was a president of the Screen Writers Guild (1938–1939) and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (1949–1955). He either wrote and/or produced over forty films, including To Each His Own, Ninotchka, The Major and the Minor, The Mating Season (1951), Niagara, The King and I, Ten North Frederick, The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker, and Blue Denim.

Beginning in August 1936, Brackett worked with Billy Wilder, writing the film classics The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard, both of which won Academy Awards for their respective screenplays. Brackett described their collaboration process as follows: "The thing to do was suggest an idea, have it torn apart and despised. In a few days, it would be apt to turn up, slightly changed, as Wilder's idea. Once I got adjusted to that way of working, our lives were simpler."

His partnership with Wilder ended in 1950 and Brackett went to work at 20th Century-Fox as a screenwriter and producer. His script for Titanic (1953) won him another Academy Award.

He received an Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1958.

Charles Brackett died on March 9, 1969. His diaries covering his screenwriting and social life from 1932 to 1949 were edited by Anthony Slide into Slide's book It's the Pictures That Got Small: Charles Brackett on Billy Wilder and Hollywood's Golden Age.

Known For

Production

1962State Fair...Producer
1960High Time...Producer
1959Journey to the Center of the Earth...Producer
1959Blue Denim...Producer
1959The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker...Producer
1958Ten North Frederick...Producer
1958The Gift of Love...Producer
1957The Wayward Bus...Producer
1956Teenage Rebel...Producer
1956The King and I...Producer
1956D-Day the Sixth of June...Producer
1955The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing...Producer
1955The Virgin Queen...Producer
1954Woman's World...Producer
1954Garden of Evil...Producer
1953Titanic...Producer
1953Niagara...Producer
1951The Model and the Marriage Broker...Producer
1951The Mating Season...Producer
1950Sunset Boulevard...Producer
1948Miss Tatlock's Millions...Producer
1948A Foreign Affair...Producer
1948The Emperor Waltz...Producer
1946To Each His Own...Producer
1945The Lost Weekend...Producer
1944The Uninvited...Producer
1943Five Graves to Cairo...Associate Producer

Writing

1959Journey to the Center of the Earth...Screenplay
1956Teenage Rebel...Screenplay
1955The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing...Screenplay
1953Titanic...Screenplay
1953Niagara...Writer
1951The Model and the Marriage Broker...Writer
1951The Mating Season...Writer
1950Sunset Boulevard...Screenplay
1950Edge of Doom...Writer
1948Miss Tatlock's Millions...Screenplay
1948A Song Is Born...Original Film Writer
1948A Foreign Affair...Screenplay
1948The Emperor Waltz...Writer
1946To Each His Own...Screenplay
1946To Each His Own...Story
1945Masquerade in Mexico...Original Film Writer
1945The Lost Weekend...Screenplay
1943Five Graves to Cairo...Screenplay
1942The Major and the Minor...Writer
1941Ball of Fire...Screenplay
1941Hold Back the Dawn...Writer
1940Arise, My Love...Screenplay
1939Ninotchka...Screenplay
1939What a Life...Screenplay
1939Midnight...Screenplay
1938That Certain Age...Writer
1938Bluebeard's 8th Wife...Screenplay
1937Live, Love and Learn...Screenplay
1936Piccadilly Jim...Writer
1936Woman Trap...Story
1936Rose of the Rancho...Screenplay
1935The Last Outpost...Adaptation
1935Without Regret...Writer
1935College Scandal...Screenplay
1935Enter Madame...Writer
1931Secrets of a Secretary...Story
1929Pointed Heels...Short Story
1926Risky Business...Story
1925Tomorrow's Love...Story
Sunset Boulevard...Original Film Writer

Crew

1947The Bishop's Wife...Additional Writing
1933Little Women...Additional Writing

Directing

1944Skirmish on the Home Front...Director

Acting

1953The Oscarsas Self
1950The Screen Writeras Self (uncredited)