Mildred Cram

American writer

Author
screenwriter

Mildred Cram (October 17, 1889 – April 4, 1985) was an American writer.^[1]

Her short story "Stranger Things" was included in the O. Henry Award story collection for 1921.^[2] A number of her stories and novels were made into films. She was also nominated, along with Leo McCarey, for the Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story for Love Affair (1939).^[3]

Gerald Clarke wrote in his biography Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland that Cram was Tyrone Power's favorite author.^[4] Power introduced Garland to Cram's novella Forever, which Garland could eventually "quote word for word".^[4] Over the years, several attempts were made to adapt the story, but without success. In the 1930s, Cram sold it for $15,000.^[5] It changed hands a few more times. In 1942, movie columnist Louella Parsons announced that Hedy Lamarr and Robert Taylor had been cast for a film adaptation of the story.^[6] In 1955, it was reported that Bill Bacher, co-producer of the Broadway play Seventh Heaven,^[7] had bought the play rights and would be making it into a Broadway musical.^[5]

Bibliography

All the King's Horses, book-length novel, Cosmopolitan Magazine, September 1936
Forever, novella (60 pages), Alfred A. Knopf, April 22, 1938; 13th printing, November 1954

Filmography

Subway Sadie (1926) (story "Sadie of the Desert")
Behind the Make-Up (1930) (story "The Feeder")
This Modern Age (1931) (story "Girls Together")
Amateur Daddy (1932) (novel Scotch Valley)
Sinners in the Sun (1932) (story "The Beachcomber")
Faithless (1932) (novel Tinfoil)
Maquillage (1932), also known as Make Up (novella The Feeder)
Stars Over Broadway (1935) (story "Thin Air")
Mariners of the Sky/Navy Born (1936) (story)
Wings Over Honolulu (1937) (story)
Love Affair (1939) (story)
Beyond Tomorrow (1940), also known as Beyond Christmas (story)
An Affair to Remember (1957) (story)
Love Affair (1994) (story)

References

^ "Authors No Longer "Slave" In Garrets!: Successful Writers Of Today Have Different Slant On Life Than Immortals Of Yesteryear!". Daily Capital Journal. May 29, 1937 – via Newspapers.com. Note image of Cram on the left.
^ "The O. Henry Prize Stories: Past Winners List". Random House.
^ "Academy Awards Database: 1939 (12th)". awardsdatabase.oscars.org. Retrieved April 15, 2015.
^ ^a ^b Clarke, Gerald (2000). Get Happy: the Life of Judy Garland. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-385-33515-6.
^ ^a ^b Hedda Hopper's Staff (July 5, 1955). "Producer Buys Play Rights to 'Forever' from Metro". Chicago Tribune – via Newspapers.com.
^ Parsons, Louella (January 30, 1942). "Hedy Lamarr, Robert Taylor Are Cast In Mildred Cram's Fantasy, Distant Valley". The Fresno Bee. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.
^ William Bacher at the Internet Broadway Database