Robert E. Sherwood

Personal Info

Known For Writer

Gender Male

Birthday 1896-04-04

Deathday 1955-11-14 (59 years old)

Place of Birth New York City, New York, USA

Also Known As Robert Emmet Sherwood, Robert Sherwood

Robert E. Sherwood

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Robert Emmet Sherwood (April 4, 1896 – November 14, 1955) was an American playwright, editor, and screenwriter. Born in 1896 in New Rochelle, New York, Robert was a son of Arthur Murray Sherwood, a rich stockbroker, and his wife, the former Rosina Emmet, a highly accomplished illustrator and portrait painter known as Rosina E. Sherwood. Sherwood's first Broadway play, The Road to Rome (1927), a comedy concerning Hannibal's botched invasion of Rome, introduced one of his favorite themes: the futility of war. Many of his later dramatic works employed variations of that motif, including Idiot's Delight (1936), which won Sherwood the first of four Pulitzer Prizes. According to legend, he once admitted to the gossip columnist Lucius Beebe, “The trouble with me is that I start with a big message and end up with nothing but good entertainment.” Sherwood's Broadway success soon attracted the attention of Hollywood; he began writing for the silver screen in 1926. While some of his work went uncredited, his films included many adaptations of his plays. He also collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock and Joan Harrison in writing the screenplay for Rebecca (1940). With Europe in the midst of World War II, Sherwood set aside his anti-war stance to support the fight against the Third Reich. His 1940 play about the Soviet Union's invasion of Finland, There Shall Be No Night, was produced by the Playwright's Company that he co-founded and starred Alfred Lunt, Lynn Fontanne, and Montgomery Clift. Sherwood publicly ridiculed isolationist Charles Lindbergh as a "Nazi with a Nazi's Olympian contempt for all democratic processes". After serving as Director of the Office of War Information from 1943 until the conclusion of the war, he returned to dramatic writing with the movie The Best Years of Our Lives, directed by William Wyler. The 1946 film, which explores changes in the lives of three servicemen after they return home from war, earned Sherwood an Academy Award for Best Screenplay. Sherwood died of a heart attack in New York City in 1955. A production of his final work, Small War on Murray Hill, debuted on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on January 3, 1957. Nearly four decades later, Sherwood was portrayed by actor Nick Cassavetes in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, a 1994 feature film about the Algonquin Round Table.

Known For

Writer

1996
The Preacher's Wife

as Original Film Writer

1964
Abe Lincoln in Illinois

as Theatre Play

1956
Gaby

as Theatre Play

1955
Jupiter's Darling

as Theatre Play

1955
The Petrified Forest

as Theatre Play

1953
1947
The Bishop's Wife

as Screenplay

1946
1945
Escape in the Desert

as Theatre Play

1940
Rebecca

as Screenplay

1940
1940
Abe Lincoln in Illinois

as Theatre Play

1940
Waterloo Bridge

as Theatre Play

1939
Idiot's Delight

as Theatre Play

1939
Idiot's Delight

as Screenplay

1939
Over the Moon

as Story

1938
1937
Tovarich

as Theatre Play

1937
Thunder in the City

as Screenplay

1936
The Petrified Forest

as Theatre Play

1935
The Ghost Goes West

as Screenplay

1934
1933
Reunion in Vienna

as Theatre Play

1933
1932
Cock of the Air

as Writer

1931
Waterloo Bridge

as Theatre Play

1931
The Age for Love

as Dialogue

1926
Red Hot Rails

as Writer

1926
The Lucky Lady

as Writer

1926

Actor

1987
The Ten-Year Lunch

as Himself (archive footage)

1939
20,000 Men a Year

as Dispatcher

Editor

1927
1927

Crew

1927
The Prince of Whales

as Title Graphics

Producer

1941
Adam Had Four Sons

as Producer