On Saturday, November 3rd, 2018 several of the contributors to When Women Wrote Hollywood gathered at the Skylark Bookshop in Columbia, Missouri for a signing and launch party that functioned like a mini-reunion of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Class of 2017.
Many thanks to all who came to hear them each speak with passion about the research subjects who became whole chapters in this book of essays on female screenwriters from the Silent Era into the 1940s.
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
To highlight the wonderful yet largely forgotten work of a collection of female screenwriters from the early years of Hollywood (and as a companion to the book, When Women Wrote Hollywood) we will be posting quick bits about the many films they wrote along with links to further information and clips from their works which are still accessible online. Take a few moments once or twice a week to become familiar with their names and their stories. I think you’ll be surprised at how much bold material these writers tackled at the birth of this new medium. — Rosanne Welch
My Man Godfrey is a 1936 American screwball comedy film directed by Gregory La Cava.[2] The screenplay was written by Morrie Ryskind, with uncredited contributions by La Cava, based on 1101 Park Avenue, a short novel by Eric Hatch. The story concerns a socialite who hires a derelict to be her family’s butler, only to fall in love with him. The film stars William Powell and Carole Lombard.[3] Powell and Lombard had been briefly married years earlier.[4]
The film was remade in 1957 with June Allyson and David Niven in the starring roles. In 1999, the original version of My Man Godfrey was deemed “culturally significant” by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. — Wikipedia
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
To highlight the wonderful yet largely forgotten work of a collection of female screenwriters from the early years of Hollywood (and as a companion to the book, When Women Wrote Hollywood) we will be posting quick bits about the many films they wrote along with links to further information and clips from their works which are still accessible online. Take a few moments once or twice a week to become familiar with their names and their stories. I think you’ll be surprised at how much bold material these writers tackled at the birth of this new medium. — Rosanne Welch
Her first major dramatic work was Papa, written in 1914. The comedy failed even though it greatly impressed both H.L. Menckenand George Jean Nathan,[3] and she continued to write.[4] She followed up with two other plays, The Magical City and Déclassée. The latter play, which starred Ethel Barrymore, was not only a great success but “something of a sensation, and her days of waiting were over.” [5] During this time several of her early plays were adapted for the screen. These adaptations were mostly failures, released as silent films in a time when the industry was transitioning to sound. While some “talkie” stars had notable roles in the films (Walter Pidgeon and a young Clark Gable), most of the films are now believed to be lost. In 1930, Akins had another great success with her play, The Greeks Had a Word For It, a comedy about three models in search of rich husbands [6]
In the early 1930s, Akins became more active in film, writing several screenplays as well as continuing to sell the rights to plays such as The Greeks Had a Word for It(1930), which was adapted for the movies three times, in 1932 (as The Greeks Had a Word for Them), 1938 (as Three Blind Mice), and 1953 (How to Marry a Millionaire). Two highlights of this period were the films Sarah and Son (1930) and Morning Glory (1933), the latter remade as Stage Struck. Both films earned their respective female leads (Ruth Chatterton and Katharine Hepburn) Academy Award nominations for Best Actress (Hepburn won).
In 1935, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her dramatization of Edith Wharton’s The Old Maid, a melodrama set in New York City and written in five episodes stretching across time from 1839 to 1854. The play was adapted for a 1939 film starring Bette Davis.
In 1936, Akins co-wrote the screenplay for Camille, adapted from Alexandre Dumas’s play and novel, La dame aux camélias The film starred Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, and Lionel Barrymore, and earned Garbo her third Oscar nomination. — Wikipedia
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
Learn more about the American Revolution through the eyes of an important, Italian Immigrant, Filippo Mazzei. Read his story today!
“Daytime found Filippo managing both plantations and attending militia meetings. Nights found him bent over his desk, quill in hand, reading and responding to letters from other Committee men all around the colonies, from friends at the Continental Congress reporting on the debates, or quartermasters from the front begging for supplies of food and ammunition. James Madison, with whom Filippo drilled in the militia company, had become a frequent visitor at Colle, often stayed for dinner to collect more of the latest information and to help Filippo debate these ideas and the proper responses. “
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
Thomas Jefferson and Philip Mazzei chose the very same site when they grew grapes here almost 250 years ago. Back then, our estate was the site of Virginia’s first wine company. With our present operation, we have bridged the origins of winemaking by introducing quality modern viticulture and winemaking practices to Virginia, helping realize Jefferson’s dream.
For her 5th Doctor Who lecture to the CPP community, Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses how society – and the show’s writing staff – prepared the audience for a major change in this 50-year franchise – the creation of the first Lady Doctor!
Transcript:
So I think that’s pretty cool. Then we had Danny Pink, a guy who’d been in the wars who’s now a math teacher right? He’s Clara’s boyfriend. So we have him as a soldier but we really see him as a man who protects children because he worked with middle school children. We don’t have a lot of middle school teachers who are male right? Because we don’t pay them enough and that’s bad because young men need to see that teaching is an excellent career — that caregiving and that nurturing the younger generation is a valuable thing to do with your life. So Danny Pink is really important in that respect and of course in the same way sadly Danny becomes a Cyberman and he makes this ultimate choice. The Doctor has one chance that you can come back alive from that and it gives it to Danny and instead of taking it for himself so he can come back and be with his girlfriend, he gives it to the little Afghan child that he accidentally shot when he was in the wars. He gives away his chance to live to a boy that was you know accidentally shot by him and I’m like what a powerful thing for a male character to choose to do. I think that makes Danny super super sensitive right and super strong!
Rosanne Welch PhD teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.
Writing/producing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. In 2016 she published the book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop; co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia; and placed “Transmitting Culture Transnationally Via the Characterization of Parents in Police Procedurals” in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Essays appear in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television and Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.
![35 Danny Pink from Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse [Video] (1:07)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/gender-dw-35-danny.jpeg)