Charles Lederer
Encyclopedia
Charles Lederer was a prolific and well-connected American film writer and director of the 30s to the 60s, from a prominent theatrical family with close ties to the Hearst dynasty.
and singer Reine Davies
(sister of William Randolf Hearst's lover, actress Marion Davies
). He was the older brother of actress Pepi Lederer
, who committed suicide at age 25.
He was a child prodigy and was admitted to UC Berkeley at the age of 13, but dropped out a few years later to work as a journalist for Hearst newspapers.
, who introduced him to the New York literati. His friendship with Hecht led to his being hired to write additional dialogue for the film The Front Page
. He later moved back to Hollywood to become a full-time screenwriter.
Lederer is recognized for his acerbic adaptations and collaborative screenplays of the 1940s and early 1950s. His screenplays frequently delved into the corrosive influences of wealth and power. Yet his comedy writing was also among the best of the period, and he, along with Hecht and Herman Mankiewicz became major contributors to the film genre known as "screwball comedy
".
. "Herman told Joe to come to the office of their mutual friend Charlie Lederer ... " Herman “saw Hearst as ‘a finagling, calculating, Machiavellian figure.’ But also, with Charlie Lederer, … wrote and had printed parodies of Hearst newspapers ...”
As described by Pauline Kael
, “Mankiewicz found himself on story-swapping terms with the power behind it all, Hearst himself. When he had been in Hollywood only a short time, he met Marion Davies and Hearst through his friendship with Charles Lederer, a writer, then in his early twenties, whom Ben Hecht
had met and greatly admired in New York when Lederer was still in his teens. Lederer, a child prodigy, who had entered college at thirteen, got to know Mankiewicz ... Lederer was Marion Davies’s nephew – the son of her sister Reine ... Marion was childless, and Lederer was very close to her; he spent a great deal of his time at her various dwelling places, and took his friends to meet both her and Hearst.”
According to Hecht biographer, William MacAdams, "When Hecht began looking around for a new collaborator ... he thought of Charlie Lederer, whom he had met on one of his first trips to Los Angeles....In a letter to screenwriter Gene Fowler
, Hecht called Lederer 'a sort of poisonous bud – very tender soul – a Peter Pan weaned on distilled cunt and with a moonbeam for a cock.' ... Charlie captivated the New York literati just as the other Charlie (MacArthur) had a few years earlier."
. In 1933, he made contributions to Hecht's screenplay for Topaze without being credited.
From 1940 to 1943 Lederer worked at MGM where he wrote a series of light comedies, usually centering on mismatched couples. Comrade X
(1940), written in collaboration with Ben Hecht and directed by King Vidor
is the story an American in Russia (Clark Gable
) who falls in love with a streetcar conductor (Hedy Lamarr
).
He penned the screenplay for the classic 1951 science-fiction/horror film The Thing from Another World
, directed largely by Howard Hawks
but credited to Christian Nyby
and co-wrote the original 1960's Ocean's Eleven
. Lederer wrote or co-wrote screenplays (notably with Ben Hecht
) for Howard Hawks's production of His Girl Friday
(a remake of The Front Page) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and the Lewis Milestone
remake of Mutiny on the Bounty
, starring Marlon Brando
. His Girl Friday has remained his most popular and critically acclaimed screenplay. At the suggestion of the films' director, Howard Hawks, Lederer changed the sex of the lead character in the play, Hildy Johnson, from male to female.
With Ben Hecht
, he co-wrote the original Kiss of Death
which was to feature the actor Richard Widmark
's chilling debut as the psychopathic killer with a giggle. In addition, he directed the 1959 film Never Steal Anything Small
, an adaptation of a play by Maxwell Anderson
and Rouben Mamoulian
, starring James Cagney
. The Spirit of St. Louis
was Lederer's last significant film work. The films that followed that were primarily vehicles for established stars.
Lederer was valued as a Hollywood screenwriter who produced lively, acerbic adaptations and worked well in collaboration with others. He was also a member of another circle of writers, on the East Coast, which included Moss Hart
, George S. Kaufman
, Howard Dietz
, Robert Benchley
, Dorothy Parker
, and the editor Harold Ross
. These writers were to become the nucleus of the Algonquin Round Table
.
, as Best Producer (Musical), as Best Author (Musical) with Luther Davis, and as co-author of the book who, with several collaborators, contributed to the Best Musical win.
, were raised by his mother's sister, actress Marion Davies. He grew up in Hollywood, spending much time at San Simeon, the "enchanted castle on the hill", where his aunt reigned as publisher William Randolph Hearst
's mistress. "Hollywood was home to Lederer, where for most people it was a place they moved to in order to work for the movies. Virtually none of the film community had grown up in Los Angeles, but Lederer had been brought there when he was 11 by Marion Davies, his mother's sister... Lederer thus knew the movie colony inside out as seen from the top and wasn’t impressed ..."
"Everyone close to Marion knew that Charlie was her favorite person after Hearst." "... he was her knight-errant and no one, not even Hearst, ever reckoned with Marion alone from then on; they knew that they were dealing, too, with nephew Charlie."
The close connection with Marion gained Lederer a brief film role in Charlie Chaplin
's 1931 film City Lights
. Chaplin had met Lederer at San Simeon in the late 1920s, and cast him as a delivery boy in a comedy sequence cut from the final film. The legendary seven minute clip was first publicly shown in the 1983 documentary Unknown Chaplin
.
, who said Charles was “half Jewish and half Irish.” Hecht wired Rose, his wife, “I have met a new friend. He has pointed teeth, pointed ears, is nineteen years old, completely bald and stands on his head a great deal. His name is Charles Lederer. I hope to bring him back to civilization with me.” Hecht's 1963 autobiography, Gaily, Gaily, was dedicated "For Charles Lederer, to read in his tub."
Lederer was famed on both coasts as a sardonic wit and "incessant practical joker," which endeared him to Hecht. Bennett Cerf
's book Shake Well Before Using describes an incident during Lederer's career in the Army during World War II
, when Lederer wreaked revenge on an Englishwoman who had been making rude remarks against Jews. Lederer was also great friends with Marx Brother Harpo Marx
and the two constantly cooked up practical jokes at the balls and parties they attended at the estate of William Randolph Hearst
such as stealing all the female guests' fur coats and draping them over the statues outside the estate during a heavy snowstorm.
’s ex-wife Virginia Nicholson Welles, in 1940, at San Simeon. “She got a divorce [from Welles] early in December 1939, and in the spring of 1940 she married Charlie… coming back to the Lederer home on Bedford Drive [in Los Angeles] with her young daughter, Chris, Welles’ first-born child.” Lederer's second wife was actress Anne Shirley
.
After Rita [Hayworth
] threw him out, Orson installed himself in a beach house next door to the palatial Marion Davies estate, where his first wife, Virginia, and her husband, Charles Lederer, were living. In the past, earnestly trying to protect the best interests of Virginia and, particularly, of [daughter] Christopher, Lederer had angry run-ins with Orson, whom he accused of not living up to the divorce settlement. Now, in the unlikeliest of turnarounds, Orson and the witty, intelligent Lederer became great chums. "… I liked them together," says Orson of the Lederers, with whom he entered into a friendly relationship that he describes as a "strange design for living at the beach."
Early life
Charles was born in New York City, and was the son of two prominent figures in the American theater – Broadway producer George LedererGeorge Lederer
George Lederer was an American producer and director on Broadway from 1894 to 1931. He was the husband of Reine Davies and father of Charles Lederer and Pepi Lederer....
and singer Reine Davies
Reine Davies
Reine Davies was an American singer and actress.-Biography:Davies was born Irene Douras in Brooklyn, New York. She was the eldest sister of the actress Marion Davies. Reine was the first of the Douras daughters to start using the name, 'Davies.' One day she was driving through the Brooklyn...
(sister of William Randolf Hearst's lover, actress Marion Davies
Marion Davies
Marion Davies was an American film actress. Davies is best remembered for her relationship with newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, as her high-profile social life often obscured her professional career....
). He was the older brother of actress Pepi Lederer
Pepi Lederer
Pepi Lederer was an American actress and writer. She was the niece of actress Marion Davies.-Early life & career:Josephine Rose Lederer was born in Chicago in 1910 and later formally adopted the name...
, who committed suicide at age 25.
He was a child prodigy and was admitted to UC Berkeley at the age of 13, but dropped out a few years later to work as a journalist for Hearst newspapers.
Career
When he was 19, Lederer became friends with Ben HechtBen Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...
, who introduced him to the New York literati. His friendship with Hecht led to his being hired to write additional dialogue for the film The Front Page
The Front Page (1931 film)
The Front Page is a 1931 American comedy film, directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien. Based on a Broadway play of the same name, the film was produced by Howard Hughes, written by Bartlett Cormack and Charles Lederer, and distributed by United Artists. The...
. He later moved back to Hollywood to become a full-time screenwriter.
Lederer is recognized for his acerbic adaptations and collaborative screenplays of the 1940s and early 1950s. His screenplays frequently delved into the corrosive influences of wealth and power. Yet his comedy writing was also among the best of the period, and he, along with Hecht and Herman Mankiewicz became major contributors to the film genre known as "screwball comedy
Screwball Comedy
Screwball Comedy is an album by the Japanese band Soul Flower Union. The album found the band going into a simpler, harder-rocking direction, after several heavily world-music influenced albums.-Track listing:...
".
Screenwriting
He was friends with screenwriters Joseph and his brother Herman Mankiewicz, co-screenwriter of Citizen KaneCitizen Kane
Citizen Kane is a 1941 American drama film, directed by and starring Orson Welles. Many critics consider it the greatest American film of all time, especially for its innovative cinematography, music and narrative structure. Citizen Kane was Welles' first feature film...
. "Herman told Joe to come to the office of their mutual friend Charlie Lederer ... " Herman “saw Hearst as ‘a finagling, calculating, Machiavellian figure.’ But also, with Charlie Lederer, … wrote and had printed parodies of Hearst newspapers ...”
As described by Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic....
, “Mankiewicz found himself on story-swapping terms with the power behind it all, Hearst himself. When he had been in Hollywood only a short time, he met Marion Davies and Hearst through his friendship with Charles Lederer, a writer, then in his early twenties, whom Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...
had met and greatly admired in New York when Lederer was still in his teens. Lederer, a child prodigy, who had entered college at thirteen, got to know Mankiewicz ... Lederer was Marion Davies’s nephew – the son of her sister Reine ... Marion was childless, and Lederer was very close to her; he spent a great deal of his time at her various dwelling places, and took his friends to meet both her and Hearst.”
According to Hecht biographer, William MacAdams, "When Hecht began looking around for a new collaborator ... he thought of Charlie Lederer, whom he had met on one of his first trips to Los Angeles....In a letter to screenwriter Gene Fowler
Gene Fowler
Gene Fowler was an American journalist, author and dramatist.He was born in Denver, Colorado. When his mother remarried, young Gene took his stepfather's name to become Gene Fowler. Fowler's career had a false start in taxidermy, which he later claimed permanently gave him a distaste for red meat...
, Hecht called Lederer 'a sort of poisonous bud – very tender soul – a Peter Pan weaned on distilled cunt and with a moonbeam for a cock.' ... Charlie captivated the New York literati just as the other Charlie (MacArthur) had a few years earlier."
Leading screenplays
His friendship with Hecht led to his being hired, in 1931, to write additional dialogue for the film version of the 1928 play The Front PageThe Front Page (1931 film)
The Front Page is a 1931 American comedy film, directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien. Based on a Broadway play of the same name, the film was produced by Howard Hughes, written by Bartlett Cormack and Charles Lederer, and distributed by United Artists. The...
. In 1933, he made contributions to Hecht's screenplay for Topaze without being credited.
From 1940 to 1943 Lederer worked at MGM where he wrote a series of light comedies, usually centering on mismatched couples. Comrade X
Comrade X
Comrade X is a 1940 lighthearted spy movie, starring Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr and directed by King Vidor.-Plot summary:In the Soviet Union, American reporter McKinley "Mac" Thompson secretly writes unflattering stories, attributed to "Comrade X", for his newspaper...
(1940), written in collaboration with Ben Hecht and directed by King Vidor
King Vidor
King Wallis Vidor was an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter whose career spanned nearly seven decades...
is the story an American in Russia (Clark Gable
Clark Gable
William Clark Gable , known as Clark Gable, was an American film actor most famous for his role as Rhett Butler in the 1939 Civil War epic film Gone with the Wind, in which he starred with Vivien Leigh...
) who falls in love with a streetcar conductor (Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress celebrated for her great beauty who was a major contract star of MGM's "Golden Age".Lamarr also co-invented – with composer George Antheil – an early technique for spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping, necessary to wireless...
).
He penned the screenplay for the classic 1951 science-fiction/horror film The Thing from Another World
The Thing from Another World
The Thing from Another World , is a 1951 science fiction film based on the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell . It tells the story of an Air Force crew and scientists at a remote Arctic research outpost who fight a malevolent plant-based alien being...
, directed largely by Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks
Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...
but credited to Christian Nyby
Christian Nyby
Christian Nyby was an American television and film director.Born in Los Angeles, California, he started his career as a film editor in the 1940s. During this period, he worked on four films for famous director Howard Hawks, of which one led to an Academy Award nomination...
and co-wrote the original 1960's Ocean's Eleven
Ocean's Eleven (1960 film)
Ocean's 11 is a 1960 heist film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring five Rat Packers: Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Joey Bishop....
. Lederer wrote or co-wrote screenplays (notably with Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...
) for Howard Hawks's production of His Girl Friday
His Girl Friday
His Girl Friday is a 1940 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, an adaptation by Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur of the play The Front Page by Hecht and MacArthur...
(a remake of The Front Page) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and the Lewis Milestone
Lewis Milestone
Lewis Milestone was a Russian-American motion picture director. He is known for directing Two Arabian Knights and All Quiet on the Western Front , both of which received Academy Awards for Best Director...
remake of Mutiny on the Bounty
Mutiny on the Bounty (1962 film)
Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1962 film starring Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard based on the novel Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. The film retells the 1789 real-life mutiny aboard HMAV Bounty led by Fletcher Christian against the ship's captain, William Bligh...
, starring Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando
Marlon Brando, Jr. was an American movie star and political activist. "Unchallenged as the most important actor in modern American Cinema" according to the St...
. His Girl Friday has remained his most popular and critically acclaimed screenplay. At the suggestion of the films' director, Howard Hawks, Lederer changed the sex of the lead character in the play, Hildy Johnson, from male to female.
With Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...
, he co-wrote the original Kiss of Death
Kiss of Death (1947 film)
Kiss of Death is a 1947 film noir movie directed by Henry Hathaway and written by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer from a story by Eleazar Lipsky. The story revolves around the film's protagonist, a former robber, and the antagonist, the ruthless, violent Tommy Udo...
which was to feature the actor Richard Widmark
Richard Widmark
Richard Weedt Widmark was an American film, stage and television actor.He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as the villainous Tommy Udo in his debut film, Kiss of Death...
's chilling debut as the psychopathic killer with a giggle. In addition, he directed the 1959 film Never Steal Anything Small
Never Steal Anything Small
Never Steal Anything Small is a musical comedy film starring James Cagney, Shirley Jones, Roger Smith, Cara Williams, Nehemiah Persoff, Royal Dano, and Horace McMahon. The film was based on The Devil's Hornpipe by Maxwell Anderson and released by Universal Pictures.-Production details:Filmed in...
, an adaptation of a play by Maxwell Anderson
Maxwell Anderson
James Maxwell Anderson was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist and lyricist.-Early years:Anderson was born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to William Lincoln "Link" Anderson, a Baptist minister, and Charlotte Perrimela Stephenson, both of Scots and Irish descent...
and Rouben Mamoulian
Rouben Mamoulian
Rouben Mamoulian was an Armenian-American film and theatre director.-Biography:Born in Tbilisi, Georgia to an Armenian family, Rouben relocated to England and started directing plays in London in 1922...
, starring James Cagney
James Cagney
James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...
. The Spirit of St. Louis
The Spirit of St. Louis (film)
The Spirit of St. Louis is a 1957 biographical film directed by Billy Wilder and starring James Stewart as Charles Lindbergh. The screenplay was adapted by Charles Lederer, Wendell Mayes, and Billy Wilder from Lindbergh's 1953 autobiographical account of his historic flight, which won the Pulitzer...
was Lederer's last significant film work. The films that followed that were primarily vehicles for established stars.
Lederer was valued as a Hollywood screenwriter who produced lively, acerbic adaptations and worked well in collaboration with others. He was also a member of another circle of writers, on the East Coast, which included Moss Hart
Moss Hart
Moss Hart was an American playwright and theatre director, best known for his interpretations of musical theater on Broadway.-Early years:...
, George S. Kaufman
George S. Kaufman
George Simon Kaufman was an American playwright, theatre director and producer, humorist, and drama critic. In addition to comedies and political satire, he wrote several musicals, notably for the Marx Brothers...
, Howard Dietz
Howard Dietz
Howard Dietz was an American publicist, lyricist, and librettist.-Biography:Dietz was born in New York City and studied journalism at Columbia University...
, Robert Benchley
Robert Benchley
Robert Charles Benchley was an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor...
, Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
, and the editor Harold Ross
Harold Ross
Harold Wallace Ross was an American journalist and founder of The New Yorker magazine, which he edited from the magazine's inception in 1925 to his death....
. These writers were to become the nucleus of the Algonquin Round Table
Algonquin Round Table
The Algonquin Round Table was a celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits. Gathering initially as part of a practical joke, members of "The Vicious Circle", as they dubbed themselves, met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel from 1919 until roughly 1929...
.
Awards
In 1954, he won three Tony Awards for the Broadway Musical KismetKismet (musical)
Kismet is a musical with lyrics and musical adaptation by Robert Wright and George Forrest, adapted from the music of Alexander Borodin, and a book by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis, based on Kismet, the 1911 play by Edward Knoblock...
, as Best Producer (Musical), as Best Author (Musical) with Luther Davis, and as co-author of the book who, with several collaborators, contributed to the Best Musical win.
Marion Davies' nephew
After his parents were separated in 1912, Lederer and his sister, PepiPepi Lederer
Pepi Lederer was an American actress and writer. She was the niece of actress Marion Davies.-Early life & career:Josephine Rose Lederer was born in Chicago in 1910 and later formally adopted the name...
, were raised by his mother's sister, actress Marion Davies. He grew up in Hollywood, spending much time at San Simeon, the "enchanted castle on the hill", where his aunt reigned as publisher William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
's mistress. "Hollywood was home to Lederer, where for most people it was a place they moved to in order to work for the movies. Virtually none of the film community had grown up in Los Angeles, but Lederer had been brought there when he was 11 by Marion Davies, his mother's sister... Lederer thus knew the movie colony inside out as seen from the top and wasn’t impressed ..."
The close connection with Marion gained Lederer a brief film role in Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
's 1931 film City Lights
City Lights
City Lights is a 1931 American silent film and romantic comedy-drama written by, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. It also has the leads Virginia Cherrill and Harry Myers. Although "talking" pictures were on the rise since 1928, City Lights was immediately popular. Today, it is thought of...
. Chaplin had met Lederer at San Simeon in the late 1920s, and cast him as a delivery boy in a comedy sequence cut from the final film. The legendary seven minute clip was first publicly shown in the 1983 documentary Unknown Chaplin
Unknown Chaplin
Unknown Chaplin is an acclaimed three-part 1983 British television documentary about the career and the methods of the film luminary Charles Chaplin using previously unseen film for illustration....
.
Friendships
He was a close and lifelong friend of screenwriter Ben HechtBen Hecht
Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, and novelist. Called "the Shakespeare of Hollywood", he received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some 70 films and as a prolific storyteller, authored 35 books and created some of...
, who said Charles was “half Jewish and half Irish.” Hecht wired Rose, his wife, “I have met a new friend. He has pointed teeth, pointed ears, is nineteen years old, completely bald and stands on his head a great deal. His name is Charles Lederer. I hope to bring him back to civilization with me.” Hecht's 1963 autobiography, Gaily, Gaily, was dedicated "For Charles Lederer, to read in his tub."
Lederer was famed on both coasts as a sardonic wit and "incessant practical joker," which endeared him to Hecht. Bennett Cerf
Bennett Cerf
Bennett Alfred Cerf was a publisher and co-founder of Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his television appearances in the panel game show What's My Line?.-Biography:Bennett Cerf...
's book Shake Well Before Using describes an incident during Lederer's career in the Army during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, when Lederer wreaked revenge on an Englishwoman who had been making rude remarks against Jews. Lederer was also great friends with Marx Brother Harpo Marx
Harpo Marx
Adolph "Harpo" Marx was an American comedian and film star. He was the second oldest of the Marx Brothers. His comic style was influenced by clown and pantomime traditions. He wore a curly reddish wig, and never spoke during performances...
and the two constantly cooked up practical jokes at the balls and parties they attended at the estate of William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
such as stealing all the female guests' fur coats and draping them over the statues outside the estate during a heavy snowstorm.
Marriages
Lederer married Orson WellesOrson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
’s ex-wife Virginia Nicholson Welles, in 1940, at San Simeon. “She got a divorce [from Welles] early in December 1939, and in the spring of 1940 she married Charlie… coming back to the Lederer home on Bedford Drive [in Los Angeles] with her young daughter, Chris, Welles’ first-born child.” Lederer's second wife was actress Anne Shirley
Anne Shirley
Anne Shirley is a fictional character introduced in the 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. Montgomery wrote in her journal that the idea for Anne's story came from relatives who, planning to adopt an orphaned boy, received a girl instead...
.
After Rita [Hayworth
Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...
] threw him out, Orson installed himself in a beach house next door to the palatial Marion Davies estate, where his first wife, Virginia, and her husband, Charles Lederer, were living. In the past, earnestly trying to protect the best interests of Virginia and, particularly, of [daughter] Christopher, Lederer had angry run-ins with Orson, whom he accused of not living up to the divorce settlement. Now, in the unlikeliest of turnarounds, Orson and the witty, intelligent Lederer became great chums. "… I liked them together," says Orson of the Lederers, with whom he entered into a friendly relationship that he describes as a "strange design for living at the beach."
Final years
Meryman records that Charles Lederer "isolated himself in his last years, contorted from arthritis, addicted to narcotics."Writer
- Kiss of DeathKiss of Death (1947 film)Kiss of Death is a 1947 film noir movie directed by Henry Hathaway and written by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer from a story by Eleazar Lipsky. The story revolves around the film's protagonist, a former robber, and the antagonist, the ruthless, violent Tommy Udo...
(1995) (1947 screenplay) - KismetKismet (musical)Kismet is a musical with lyrics and musical adaptation by Robert Wright and George Forrest, adapted from the music of Alexander Borodin, and a book by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis, based on Kismet, the 1911 play by Edward Knoblock...
(1967) (TV) (musical libretto) - A Global AffairA Global AffairA Global Affair is a 1964 film directed by Jack Arnold, and starring Bob Hope, Michele Mercier, and Yvonne DeCarlo....
(1964) (writer) - Mutiny on the BountyMutiny on the Bounty (1962 film)Mutiny on the Bounty is a 1962 film starring Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard based on the novel Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall. The film retells the 1789 real-life mutiny aboard HMAV Bounty led by Fletcher Christian against the ship's captain, William Bligh...
(1962) (screenplay) - Follow That DreamFollow that DreamFollow That Dream is a 1962 musical film starring Elvis Presley made by Mirisch Productions. The movie was based on the 1959 novel Pioneer, Go Home! by Richard P. Powell. Producer Walter Mirisch liked the song Follow that Dream and retitled the picture...
(1962) (writer) - Ocean's ElevenOcean's Eleven (1960 film)Ocean's 11 is a 1960 heist film directed by Lewis Milestone and starring five Rat Packers: Peter Lawford, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Joey Bishop....
(1960) (screenplay) - Can-CanCan-Can (film)Can-Can is a 1960 musical film made by Suffolk-Cummings productions and distributed by 20th Century Fox. It was directed by Walter Lang, produced by Jack Cummings and Saul Chaplin, from a screenplay by Dorothy Kingsley and Charles Lederer, loosely based on the musical play by Abe Burrows with music...
(1960) (screenplay) - It Started with a Kiss (1959) (writer)
- Never Steal Anything SmallNever Steal Anything SmallNever Steal Anything Small is a musical comedy film starring James Cagney, Shirley Jones, Roger Smith, Cara Williams, Nehemiah Persoff, Royal Dano, and Horace McMahon. The film was based on The Devil's Hornpipe by Maxwell Anderson and released by Universal Pictures.-Production details:Filmed in...
(1959) (writer) - The Fiend Who Walked the WestThe Fiend Who Walked the WestThe Fiend Who Walked the West is a Western based on the 1947 film noir Kiss of Death. The film stars Robert Evans, Hugh O'Brian, Linda Cristal, and Stephen McNally.-External links:*...
(1958) - Tip on a Dead Jockey (1957) (writer)
- The Spirit of St. LouisThe Spirit of St. Louis (film)The Spirit of St. Louis is a 1957 biographical film directed by Billy Wilder and starring James Stewart as Charles Lindbergh. The screenplay was adapted by Charles Lederer, Wendell Mayes, and Billy Wilder from Lindbergh's 1953 autobiographical account of his historic flight, which won the Pulitzer...
(1957) (adaptation) - GabyGaby (film)Gaby is a 1956 drama film made by MGM. It is the third version of the play Waterloo Bridge, previously made into films in 1931 and 1940. It is the only version of the play made in color, and the least faithful to it. Not only the story but the names of the characters were also changed.This version...
(1956) (writer) - KismetKismet (musical)Kismet is a musical with lyrics and musical adaptation by Robert Wright and George Forrest, adapted from the music of Alexander Borodin, and a book by Charles Lederer and Luther Davis, based on Kismet, the 1911 play by Edward Knoblock...
(1955) (musical libretto) (screenplay) - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) (screenplay)
- O. Henry's Full HouseO. Henry's Full HouseO. Henry's Full House is an anthology film made by 20th Century Fox, consisting of five separate stories by O. Henry. The film was produced by André Hakim and directed by five separate directors from five separate screenplays. The music score was composed by Alfred Newman...
(1952) (uncredited) - Monkey BusinessMonkey Business (1952 film)Monkey Business is a screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks and starring Cary Grant, Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn, Marilyn Monroe, and Hugh Marlowe. To avoid confusion with the famous Marx Brothers movie of the same name, this film is sometimes referred to as Howard Hawks' Monkey...
(1952) (screenplay) - Fearless FaganFearless FaganFearless Fagan is a 1952 film directed by Stanley Donen and stars Janet Leigh and Carleton Carpenter. It is about a clown who is drafted into the military and tries to sneak his pet lion into the service....
(1952) (writer) - The ThingThe Thing from Another WorldThe Thing from Another World , is a 1951 science fiction film based on the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell . It tells the story of an Air Force crew and scientists at a remote Arctic research outpost who fight a malevolent plant-based alien being...
(1951) (writer)
- Wabash AvenueWabash Avenue (film)Wabash Avenue is a 1950 musical film directed by Henry Koster and starring Betty Grable. The film was a remake of Grable's earlier hit 1943 film Coney Island.-Plot:...
(1950) (screenplay) (story) - Red, Hot and BlueRed, Hot and BlueRed, Hot and Blue is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and the book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. The musical premiered on Broadway in 1936 and introduced the popular song, "It's De-Lovely" sung by Ethel Merman.-Synopsis:...
(1949) (story) - I Was a Male War BrideI Was a Male War BrideI Was a Male War Bride is a 1949 comedy film directed by Howard Hawks and starring Cary Grant and Ann Sheridan.This film was based on I was an Alien Spouse of Female Military Personnel Enroute to the United States Under Public Law 271 of the Congress, a biography of Henri Rochard, a Belgian who...
(1949) (screenplay) - The Lady from ShanghaiThe Lady from ShanghaiThe Lady from Shanghai is a 1947 film noir directed by Orson Welles and starring Welles, his estranged wife Rita Hayworth and Everett Sloane. It is based on the novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King.-Plot:...
(1947) (uncredited) - Her Husband's Affairs (1947) (writer)
- Ride the Pink HorseRide the Pink HorseRide the Pink Horse is a 1947 American crime film noir produced by Universal Studios. It was directed by the actor Robert Montgomery from a screenplay by Ben Hecht, which was based on a novel of the same name by Dorothy B. Hughes. The drama features Robert Montgomery, Wanda Hendrix, Andrea King,...
(1947) (writer) - Kiss of DeathKiss of Death (1947 film)Kiss of Death is a 1947 film noir movie directed by Henry Hathaway and written by Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer from a story by Eleazar Lipsky. The story revolves around the film's protagonist, a former robber, and the antagonist, the ruthless, violent Tommy Udo...
(1947) (screenplay) - Slightly DangerousSlightly DangerousSlightly Dangerous is a 1943 American romantic comedy film starring Lana Turner and Robert Young. A bored young woman in a dead-end job runs away to New York City and ends up impersonating the long-lost daughter of a millionaire. The film was directed by Wesley Ruggles and written by Charles...
(1943) (screenplay) - The Youngest ProfessionThe Youngest ProfessionThe Youngest Profession is a 1943 film, directed by Edward Buzzell, and starring Virginia Weidler, John Carroll, Edward Arnold, Scotty Beckett, and Agnes Moorehead. It contains cameos by Greer Garson, Lana Turner, William Powell, Walter Pidgeon, and Robert Taylor....
(1943) (screenplay) - Love CrazyLove CrazyLove Crazy is a 1941 screwball comedy film pairing William Powell and Myrna Loy as a couple whose marriage is on the verge of being broken up by the husband's old girlfriend and the wife's disapproving mother.-Plot:...
(1941) (screenplay) - Comrade XComrade XComrade X is a 1940 lighthearted spy movie, starring Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr and directed by King Vidor.-Plot summary:In the Soviet Union, American reporter McKinley "Mac" Thompson secretly writes unflattering stories, attributed to "Comrade X", for his newspaper...
(1940) (screenplay) - I Love You AgainI Love You AgainI Love You Again is a comedy film released in 1940. It was directed by W.S. Van Dyke and starred William Powell and Myrna Loy; all three were prominently involved in the The Thin Man series...
(1940) (screenplay) - His Girl FridayHis Girl FridayHis Girl Friday is a 1940 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, an adaptation by Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur of the play The Front Page by Hecht and MacArthur...
(1940) (screenplay) - Broadway SerenadeBroadway SerenadeBroadway Serenade is a 1939 musical drama film distributed by MGM, and directed and produced by Robert Z. Leonard. The screenplay was written by Charles Lederer, based on story by Lew Lipton, John Taintor Foote and Hanns Kräly...
(1939) (screenplay) - Within the Law (1939) (screenplay)
- Double or NothingDouble or Nothing (1937 film)Double or Nothing is a 1937 musical comedy film starring Bing Crosby, Martha Raye, Andy Devine, Mary Carlisle, William Frawley, Samuel S. Hinds, and Frances Faye. The most famous song from the film is "The Moon Got In My Eyes".-Plot synopsis:...
(1937) (writer) - Mountain Music (1937) (writer)
- Baby Face Harrington (1935) (additional dialogue)
- Cock of the Air (1932) (writer)
- The Front PageThe Front Page (1931 film)The Front Page is a 1931 American comedy film, directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien. Based on a Broadway play of the same name, the film was produced by Howard Hughes, written by Bartlett Cormack and Charles Lederer, and distributed by United Artists. The...
(1931) (additional dialogue)
Director
- Never Steal Anything SmallNever Steal Anything SmallNever Steal Anything Small is a musical comedy film starring James Cagney, Shirley Jones, Roger Smith, Cara Williams, Nehemiah Persoff, Royal Dano, and Horace McMahon. The film was based on The Devil's Hornpipe by Maxwell Anderson and released by Universal Pictures.-Production details:Filmed in...
(1959) - On the LooseOn the Loose (1931 film)On The Loose is a comedy film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, produced and directed by Hal Roach, and starring Zasu Pitts and Thelma Todd. The short film features a cameo appearance by Laurel and Hardy.- Plot :...
(1951) - Fingers at the Window (1942)
Actor
- City LightsCity LightsCity Lights is a 1931 American silent film and romantic comedy-drama written by, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. It also has the leads Virginia Cherrill and Harry Myers. Although "talking" pictures were on the rise since 1928, City Lights was immediately popular. Today, it is thought of...
(1931) (In unused scene) Telegraph Delivery Boy, included in 1983 Unknown ChaplinUnknown ChaplinUnknown Chaplin is an acclaimed three-part 1983 British television documentary about the career and the methods of the film luminary Charles Chaplin using previously unseen film for illustration....
documentary.