Poet, playwright, novelist and screenwriter Zoë Akins was born on the
day before Halloween in 1886 in Humansville, Missouri. She was
home-schooled before attending the Monticello Seminary in Godfrey,
Illinois, and Hosmer Hall in St. Louis for her education. Akins lived
in St. Louis for many years, writing poetry and contributing criticism
to the magazine "Reedy's Mirror". As a writer she developed into a
successful contributor to the leading magazines of the day.
Akins wrote 40 plays, starting with the sophisticated comedy "Papa" in
1914. "The Magical City", which was part of the repertory of the
Washington Square Players' 1915-16 season, was her first Broadway
production, opening on October 4, 1915. There were to be another 17
original plays of hers produced on Broadway over the next 30 years.
Her first big hit was "Declassée", which starred
Ethel Barrymore and ran for 257
performances in the 1919-20 season. She did not have another big hit
until "The Greeks Had a Word for It", which ran for 253 performances in
the 1930-21 season. Her most famous play, "The Old Maid"--an adaptation
of Edith Wharton's novel--ran for 305
performances from January through September 1935. The play brought
Akins the 1935 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. None of her plays has ever
been revived on Broadway.
Her play "Daddy's Gone A-Hunting" was the first to be adapted by
Hollywood, serving as the basis for the 1925 film of the same name
(Daddy's Gone A-Hunting (1925))
directed by Frank Borzage. Hollywood also
bought "Declassée" (which it adapted twice, as a 1925 silent
0Déclassé (1925)] and as a 1928 sound
film, Her Private Life (1929))
and "The Moon-Flower", which was turned into
Eve's Secret (1925). In 1930 she
became a screenwriter herself, writing the dialogue for
Wiegenlied (1930), a "woman's
picture" directed by Dorothy Arzner, the
sole woman director to successfully make the transition from silents to
sound in Hollywood. Akins and Arzner would also collaborate on
Anybody's Woman (1930),
Working Girls (1931) and
Christopher Strong (1933),
Katharine Hepburn's second film; her
debut was in Morgenrot des Ruhms (1933),
based on an Akins play that did not make it to Broadway. The role
brought Hepburn the first of her four Academy Awards as Best Actress.
Apart from the movies made from her plays and her novel "Pardon My
Glove" (adapted as
Ladies Love Brutes (1930)),
Akins wrote, adapted or contributed the story to 15 motion pictures.
Her most famous film, as a contributing writer, was the classic
Die Kameliendame (1936), which she worked on along
with James Hilton and
Frances Marion.
Zoë Atkins died in Los Angeles, California, on October 29, 1958, one
day before what would have been her 72nd birthday.
