Homer Croy
Encyclopedia
Homer Croy (March 11, 1883 - May 24, 1965), was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and occasional screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
who wrote a number of fiction and non-fiction books about life in the Midwestern United States
Midwestern United States
The Midwestern United States is one of the four U.S. geographic regions defined by the United States Census Bureau, providing an official definition of the American Midwest....
. He also wrote several popular biographies, including books on humorist Will Rogers
Will Rogers
William "Will" Penn Adair Rogers was an American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, film actor, and one of the world's best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s....
and film director D.W. Griffith.
Croy was born on a farm northwest of Maryville, Missouri
Maryville, Missouri
Maryville is a city in Nodaway County, Missouri, United States. The population was 10,581 at the 2000 census. The town, organized on February 14, 1845, was named for Mrs. Mary Graham, wife of Amos Graham, then the county clerk. Mary was the first Caucasian woman to have lived within the boundaries...
, and published his first book, When to Lock the Stable, in 1914. During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
he was production manager in Paris, France, for the Community Motion Picture Bureau
Community Motion Picture Bureau
During World War I, the Community Motion Picture Bureau was an American organization that "would supply about four thousand picture shows a week to YMCA, Red Cross, Salvation Army, Jewish Welfare Board, Knights of Columbus or any other accredited organization supplying entertainment for troops."...
, which distributed movies to Allied troops. His first successful book was West of the Water Tower published in 1923. It dealt with hypocrisy in a small town, "Junction City," which was a thinly disguised version of Maryville; a sequel, R.F.D. #3, appeared the following year.
Croy's most famous work was the novel They Had to See Paris (1926), about a rural couple from Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
on a European trip. The book was filmed in 1929 as the first talking picture to star Will Rogers
Will Rogers
William "Will" Penn Adair Rogers was an American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, film actor, and one of the world's best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s....
.
Croy had a long but intermittent association with the motion picture industry. Many of his novels and stories were adapted for the screen, and he also directed a series of short travelogue films in 1914-1915; he received screenwriting credits on a handful of feature films in the 1930s. In addition to his biography of D.W. Griffith, he also wrote about the film industry in his 1918 book How Motion Pictures Are Made and a 1932 novel Headed for Hollywood.
In 2010 an edited selection of Croy's writing was collected with an introduction by Zachary Michael Jack entitled Homer Croy: Corn Country (Ice Cube Press).
Selected bibliography
- 1914 When to Lock the Stable
- 1918 How Motion Pictures Are Made
- 1918 Boone Stop
- 1920 Turkey Bowman
- 1923 West of the Water Tower
- 1924 R.F.D. No. 3
- 1926 They Had to See Paris
- 1929 Coney Island
- 1932 Headed for Hollywood
- 1942 Family Honeymoon
- 1947 Corn Country
- 1949 Jesse James Was My Neighbor
- 1953 Our Will Rogers
- 1959 Star Maker: The Story of D.W. Griffith
Selected motion picture credits
- 1932 Down to Earth (co-screenplay with Edwin J. Burke; a follow-up to They Had to See Paris)
- 1933 The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble (one of five credited screenwriters)
- 1936 The Harvester (one of four credited screenwriters)