Nunnally Johnson | |
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 Johnson in 1939 | |
| Born | Nunnally Hunter Johnson (1897-12-05)December 5, 1897 Columbus, Georgia, U.S. |
| Died | March 25, 1977(1977-03-25) (aged 79) |
| Occupations |
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| Spouses | |
| Children | 5, includingMarjorie Fowler andNora 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 theAcademy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay forThe Grapes of Wrath and in 1956, he was nominated for theDirectors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Feature Film forThe Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. Some of his other notable films includeTobacco Road (1941),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),The Three Faces of Eve (1957),Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962), andThe Dirty Dozen (1967). As a playwright he wrote thebooks for severalBroadwaymusicals, including the musical revueShoot the Works (1931),Arthur Schwartz's Park Avenue (1946),Bob Merrill'sHenry, Sweet Henry (1967), andJule Styne'sDarling of the Day (1968). He also wrote the 1943Broadway playThe World's Full of Girls.
Nunnally Johnson was born on December 5, 1897, inColumbus, 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 theCentral of Georgia Railway.[1][2] 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.[3]
Nunnally graduated fromColumbus High School in 1915.[4] While living in Columbus in 1919, at 1312 Third Street, Nunnally was asecond lieutenant in thefield artillery reserve corps of theU.S. Army duringWorld War I.[5] His brother Cecil graduated from Georgia Tech in 1924,[6] married Gene Clair Norris,[7] and moved to Bellingham, Washington, where he was first a gas department superintendent and later a vice president withPuget Sound Power & Light.[8][9]
Johnson began his career as a journalist, writing for theColumbus Enquirer Sun, theSavannah Press, theBrooklyn Daily Eagle, theNew York Evening Post and theNew York Herald Tribune. He also wrote short stories, and a collection of these stories, titledThere 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 by20th Century-Fox in 1935. He began producing films as well and co-foundedInternational Pictures in 1943 withWilliam Goetz. Johnson also directed several films in the 1950s, including two starringGregory Peck. He was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Screenplay in 1940 forThe Grapes of Wrath and theDirectors Guild of America Best Director Award in 1956 forThe 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 thesame title, starringPeter Sellers.
His first marriage in 1919 at Trinity Church in Brooklyn Heights,[10] was to Alice Love Mason, with whom he had one daughter, film editorMarjorie Fowler. Mason was an editor with theBrooklyn Daily Eagle.[11] Mason and Johnson divorced in 1920. His second marriage was to Marion Byrnes in 1927, also a staff member of theDaily Eagle,[12] with whom he also had a daughter,Nora Johnson. Byrnes's and Johnson's marriage ended in 1938.
While filmingThe Grapes of Wrath, Johnson met his third wife, actressDorris Bowdon, a Mississippi native. The two were married at the home ofCharles MacArthur andHelen Hayes in Nyack-on-the-Hudson on February 4, 1940.[13] They had three children. They resided in a mansion located at 625 Mountain Drive in Beverly Hills, California.[14] It was designed by architectPaul R. Williams.[14]
ActorJack Johnson is his grandson.
Johnson died of pneumonia in Hollywood in 1977 and was interred in theWestwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.[15]
* Writer of original story
** Uncredited writer
***Co-producer
