Nunnally Johnson Biography and List of Works

American screenwriter, producer, and director, who wrote the scripts to such films as THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940, dir. by John Ford), THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW (1944, dir. by Fritz Lang), and HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE (1953), starring Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, and Betty Grable. Several of Johnson's screenplays were based on best-selling novels from such writers as Daphne due Maurer, Arsine Caldwell, and A.J. Cronin.

"Marilyn was blowing take after take, either fluffing or forgetting a line completely. Every man and woman on the set was loathing her. I said: 'Don't worry, darling, that last one looked very good.' She looked at me, puzzled, and said: 'Worry about what?' I swore then that I'd never attribute human feelings to her again."
(From American Film, October 1981)

Nunnally Johnson was born in Columbus. He worked as a reporter on the Columbus Enquirer Sun, and then wrote for the Savannah Press, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and the New York Herald Tribune. In 1930 Johnson published his short stories, which had appeared earlier in The Saturday Evening Post and other magazines, in the collection THERE OUGHT TO BE A LAW.

In 1932 Johnson went to Hollywood, and began his career as a scriptwriter. His first solo screenplay credit came in 1934 on THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD, based on George Humbert Westley's play about the famous banking family at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. During his years at 20th Century-Fox, Johnson became one of the most prolific writers. CARDINAL RICHELIEU (1935) started Johnson's long association with Daryl F. Zanuck. Their major achievement with the director John Ford was The Grapes of Wrath. Johnson's script, based on John Steinbeck's radical novel, was superb. Nunnally avoided insistent statements of human dignity, but the end of the film gives an uplifting tone to the story. "Whenever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there..." says Tom Joad (Henry Fonda). Ma's (Jane Darwell) speech in the last scene has been criticized for sentimentality: "We're the people that live. They can't wipe us out, they can't lick us."

Johnson's cooperation with Ford in TOBACCO ROAD (1941), based on Erskine Caldwell's novel, resulted in a bowdlerized version of the book. The Hays Office allowed only hits of the novel's sexual undercurrents. Before these films Johnson produced and wrote ROSE OF WASHINGTON SQUARE (1939), a dramatic musical. Johnson's lines for Al Johnson, singing again a medley of his songs, supported skilfully the story: "This is your song. It was born just for you. Sing it and they'll never forget it or you." In The woman in the Window, the director Fritz Lang fought over the end of the film. Killing off the hero was a far from common practice in the Forties and the nightmare situation of Prof. Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) turns out to be a dream. Everything starts innocently: "I'm not married. I've no designs on you. One drink is all I require," says a beautiful model (Joan Bennett) to Wanley. After accepting the invitation an intangible network starts to surround the professor and threatens to destroy his life. "I was warned against the siren-call of adventure."

Johnson also started to produce films and in 1943 he formed International Pictures. The venture was not a success. However, THE MOON IS DOWN (1943) is considered among the best of the Resistance films. It was shot on the set of How Green Was My Valley. Johnson based his script on John Steinbeck's play about a Norwegian village resisting the Nazis. In THE DESERT FOX (1951), directed by Henry Hathaway, Johnson made a sympathetic portrait of the German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. The screenplay was based on the biography by Desmond Young.

In the 1950s Johnson tried his hand in directing, making among others the schizophrenia drama THE THREE FACES OF EVE (1957), which won Joanne Woodward an Academy Award. Among Johnson's greatest box office hits was How to Marry a Millionaire. The film was directed by Jean Negulesco, starring Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable, and Lauren Bacall. Johnson's screenplay was based on the plays by Zoe Akins, Dale Eunson, and Katherine Albert. The film depicted three women who rent an expensive New York apartment and set out to trap millionaires. In 1958 20th Century-Fox created a syndicated television show based on the picture, but it lasted only a season.

"You wouldn't know the place [Hollywood]. I don't know one-third of the people mentioned in Joyce Haber's column. And things move very fast here too. There is some fellow who produced one successful picture, Goodbye, Columbus, and some studio was so staggered by this overwhelming success that they made him the head of the studio. Do you remember when Zanuck used to produce two pictures before eleven a.m.? As for the other head of Paramount, named [Robert] Evans, in two years he has lost almost as much money as Vietnam has cost us. So it's not surprising that they're going to give him a raise."
(from Johnson's letter to Robert Goldstein, in The Penguin Book of Hollywood, ed. by Christopher Silvester, 1998)

After giving up direction, Johnson wrote a few more screenplays, most notably the war film THE DIRTY DOZEN, based on E.M. Nathanson's novel and directed by Robert Aldrich. In the story twelve convicts, serving life sentences, are recruited for a commando suicide mission. The film produced many imitations, such as The Devil's Brigade, A Reason to Live, AReason to Die, etc. The Dirty Dozed ended Johnson's career, which spanned 40 years, from the last years of the silent film to the age of the Aquarius. - Johnson was married to former leading lady Dorris Bowdon, whom he met in 1940 when she was starring the John Ford film The Grapes of Wrath.

For further information: The Film Encyclopaedia by Ephraim Katz (1994); The Letters of Nunnally Johnson, ed. by Dorris Johnson and Ellen Leventhal (1981); Screenwriter, the Life and Times of Nunnally Johnson by Tom Stempel (1980); Flashback: Nora Johnson on Nunnally Johnson by Nora Johnson (1979) - See also: How to Marry a Millionaire; The Keys of the Kingdom

ROUGH HOUSE ROSIE, (1927)