Charles Brackett

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 familys roots traced back to the arrival of Richard Brackett in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629 near presentday Springfield Massachusetts His mothers 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 Colliers and Vanity Fair and a drama critic for The New Yorker He wrote five novels The Counsel of the Ungodly 1920 WeekEnd 1925 That Last Infirmity 1926 and American Colony 1929 and Entirely Surrounded 1934 Brackett was a president of the Screen Writers Guild 19381939 and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 19491955 He either wrote andor 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 Wilders 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 CenturyFox 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 Slides book Its the Pictures That Got Small Charles Brackett on Billy Wilder and Hollywoods Golden Age