bibliography
NNDB
This is a beta version of NNDB
Search: for

Charles Brackett

AKA Charles William Brackett

Born: 26-Nov-1892
Birthplace: Saratoga Springs, NY
Died: 9-Mar-1969
Location of death: Beverly Hills, CA
Cause of death: Stroke
Remains: Buried, Greenridge Cemetery, Saratoga Springs, NY

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Screenwriter, Film/TV Producer, Author
Party Affiliation: Republican

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Billy Wilder's collaborator

Military service: US Army (WWI, 2nd Lt.)

Charles Brackett practiced law for several years before being hired as drama critic at The New Yorker, on the strength of his short stories for The Saturday Evening Post and his second novel, Week-End. He left New York to work as a Hollywood screenwriter, and had his greatest success in a long-running collaboration with Billy Wilder, including Ninotchka, The Lost Weekend and Sunset Blvd.. The general assessment was that Wilder provided their films' coarse, cynical elements, while Brackett supplied sentiment and sincerity. Without Wilder, Brackett's best-known screenplays include the melodramatic Titanic with Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Wagner, the effective women's weepy To Each His Own with Olivia de Havilland, and the epic but paper-thin Journey to the Center of the Earth with Pat Boone. Brackett was also a film producer, with credits including The King and I with Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr, State Fair with Bobby Darin and Ann-Margret, and The Lost Weekend and Sunset Blvd.. He won two Oscars with Wilder, another without him, and a fourth honorary Oscar for his long service as President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Father: Edgar Truman Brackett (attorney, b. 30-Jul-1830)
Mother: Mary Emma Corliss Brackett (m. 22-Nov-1883)
Brother: Edgar Truman Brackett, Jr.
Wife: Elizabeth Barrows Fletcher Brackett (b. 7-Apr-1890, m. 1919, d. 1948, two children)
Daughter: Alexandra Brackett Larmore
Daughter: Elizabeth Brackett Moore
Wife: Lillian Fletcher Brackett ("Muff", b. 14-Aug-1904, m. 26-Dec-1953, d. 5-May-1984, no children)

    University: BA, Williams College (1915)
    Law School: LLD, Harvard Law School (1920)

    Oscar (honorary) 1958 "for outstanding service to the Academy"
    Oscar for Best Screenplay 1953 for Titanic (shared with Richard L. Breen, Walter Reisch)
    Oscar for Best Screenplay 1950 for Sunset Blvd. (shared with Billy Wilder, D.M. Marshman, Jr.)
    Oscar for Best Screenplay 1945 for The Lost Weekend (shared with Wilder)
    Writers Guild Award 1950 for Sunset Blvd. (shared with Wilder, D.M. Marshman, Jr.)
    The New Yorker Drama critic (1924-29)
    The Saturday Evening Post
    Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President (1949-55)
    Screen Writers Guild President (1938-39)
    Scottish Ancestry Paternal

Author of books:
Counsel of the Ungodly (1920)
Week-End (1925)
That Last Infirmity (1926)
American Colony (1929)
Entirely Surrounded (1934)

Wrote plays:
Jocelyn (1915)


New!
NNDB MAPPER
Create a map starting with Charles Brackett
Requires Flash 7+ and Javascript.

Do you know something we don't?
Submit a correction or make a comment about this profile



Copyright ©2019 Soylent Communications