Fred Niblo Jr. (January 23, 1903 – February 18, 1973) was a successful American screenwriter. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film The Criminal Code (1931) together with Seton I. Miller. Niblo retired from films in 1950 to become a businessman.

Life and career

Fred Niblo Jr. was born in New York City on January 23, 1903. He was a son of Hollywood director Fred Niblo and vaudeville entertainer Josephine Cohan, who was an older sister of Broadway legend George M. Cohan. He had studied at the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, before going to Hollywood in 1928.

Niblo began his career in 1930 and received an Oscar nomination for The Criminal Code, one of his first screenplays, at the 4th Academy Awards in 1932.

In a career spanning 20 years, Niblo had about 57 credits, including Penitentiary (1938), No Place to Go (1939), The Fighting 69th (1940), Strange Alibi (1941), Four Jills in a Jeep (1944), and Incident (1949). After several years on the Columbia Pictures writing staff, he moved to Warner Bros. and spent the last decade of his career at RKO Pictures and 20th Century Fox.

Niblo was married to Patricia Henry (1910–1998) until his death in 1973. They had two daughters, Moira and Ann, and a son, Dennis.

Niblo died at Encino Emergency Hospital in Encino on February 18, 1973.^[1]

Filmography