Jules Furthman | |
|---|---|
 Jules Furthman (left) and actor William Russell in 1919 | |
| Born | March 5, 1888 Chicago, Illinois, U.S. |
| Died | September 22, 1966 (aged 78) Oxford, Oxfordshire, England |
| Resting place | Forest Lawn Memorial Park |
| Occupation(s) | Screenwriter, director and producer |
| Years active | 1915–1959 |
| Spouse | Sybil Seely (m. 1920-1966) |
| Children | 1 |
Jules Furthman (March 5, 1888 – September 22, 1966) was an American magazine and newspaper writer before working as a screenwriter. Pauline Kael once wrote that Furthman "has written about half of the most entertaining movies to come out of Hollywood (Ben Hecht wrote most of the other half.)"[1]
Furthman was born in Chicago. His brother was the writer Charles Furthman. During World War I he wrote under the pen name "Stephen Fox" as he thought Furthman sounded too German.[2]
He wrote screenplays for a number of important or popular films, including The Docks of New York (1928), Thunderbolt (1929), Merely Mary Ann (1931), Shanghai Express (1932), Bombshell (1933), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Come and Get It (1936), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), and Nightmare Alley (1947). He wrote credited screenplays for eight films directed by Josef Von Sternberg and an equal number for Howard Hawks.
He was nominated for an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay for Mutiny on the Bounty.[3]
In 1920, he married the actress Sybil Seely, who played in five films directed by Buster Keaton. She and Furthman had a son in 1921, and she retired from acting in 1922. They remained together until his death.
Furthman died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1966 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. His remains were brought home and interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
On the UK television program Scene By Scene, host Mark Cousins said, "Furthman wrote some of your best lines and he also wrote for her (Marlene Dietrich), those sort of, sexy and ambiguous lines." Lauren Bacall replied, "He did? Well, that I didn't know. I asked Howard Hawks once, why he used Furthman; as he didn't write the entire screenplay. And he (Hawks) said, 'If there are five ways to play a scene, he (Furthman) will write a sixth way.' And of course, that makes perfect sense and that's exactly what Furthman did. He always came around the back way and suddenly there was a little surprise there."[4]
