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Katherine Albert

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Katherine Albert
BornOctober 6, 1902
Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
DiedJuly 26, 1970 (aged 67)
Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)Film and television writer
SpouseDale Eunson
ChildrenJoan Evans

Katherine Albert (sometimes credited as Katherine Eunson, her married name) was an American screenwriter, playwright, and TV writer.

Biography

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Katherine was born in Kentucky, the only child of George Albert and Logie Bell Evans Albert.[1] As a young girl, she dreamed of becoming an actress, and she persuaded a family friend who was related to D. W. Griffith to get her an introduction when she moved to California at age 16.[1] Griffith brought her onto his stock company, and she appeared in a few small roles on the stage and in silent films before deciding that acting wasn't for her.[1] The family moved away from Los Angeles for a time.

When she moved back to Hollywood in her early 20s, she began writing for publications like The Los Angeles Daily News and Photoplay before getting a job in MGM's publicity department.[1] Early on in that assignment, she was charged with working with Greta Garbo, with whom she reportedly did not get along well.[2]

At MGM, she met Dale Eunson (1904–2002), who later become the fiction editor of Cosmopolitan magazine. They married in 1931 and collaborated on a number of short stories, stage plays (including Loco, which ran on Broadway in 1946–47),[3] and screenplays.[1] Loco was later used, together with Zoe Akins' The Greeks Had a Word for It, as a source for the 1953 film How to Marry a Millionaire, starring Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, and Lauren Bacall.[3]

They had a daughter, Joan, named for her godmother, film star Joan Crawford. Joan Eunson (later Joan Evans) became an actress and entertainment journalist.[4] Albert was encouraging of Joan's career, but preferred not to meddle: "I've had to work with a lot of movie mamas. Believe me, I want no part of that."[5]

She and Eunson wrote most of their films and TV episodes after Albert suffered a major heart attack around 1950. During the 1950s and 1960s, they wrote half a dozen films and over a dozen TV episodes. They worked almost all the way up through Albert's death in 1970.[6]

Eunson later remarried, to Berenice Dratler. The two lived in Santa Barbara, California before moving to the Motion Picture Retirement Home in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, in 1993. Eunson's second wife died there, predeceasing Eunson, who died there in 2002, aged 97, from natural causes.

Selected works

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Film

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Television

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d e Talley, Rhea (November 17, 1946). "Dramatist From Kentucky Fools Broadway Critics". The Courier-Journal. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
  2. ^ Price, Theodore (November 5, 1972). "Louise Brooks Is Alive and Well in Rochester". The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
  3. ^ a b How to Marry a Millionaire at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
  4. ^ Parsons, Louella O. (October 7, 1951). "Louella O. Parsons in Hollywood". The San Francisco Examiner. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
  5. ^ MacPherson, Virginia (April 29, 1949). "Young Star Fights Her Own Battles". The Columbus Telegram. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
  6. ^ "Mrs. Eunson; Novelist and Editor". The Los Angeles Times. July 27, 1970. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
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