Bradley King

Bradley King ((1894-08-04)August 4, 1894 – August 24, 1977) was the pen name of Josephine McLaughlin. She was a successful screenwriter who wrote 56 scripts for films between 1920 and 1947. All but one of her 40 silent films are lost, but most of her 20 or so sound films still exist.

Biography

Beginnings

King was educated at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Albany, New York.

Hollywood career

King recalled that she entered the business after selling a few short stories to pulp magazines and arranged a meeting with Thomas Ince. "I've read some of your stuff and I think your literary style is absolutely lousy," she later recounted Ince saying. "But you've got a good sense of drama, and I'll give you $50 a week." Five years later, she was making $1,500 a week.

Personal life

She was married several times. One was a short marriage to silent film director John Griffith Wray, who died just nine months after their October 1928 wedding. After a later husband, George Hiram Boyd, lost most of her $400,000 fortune ($7.3 million today) to bad investments, she divorced him in 1940.

Later years

She wrote her last screenplay for the 1947 movie That's My Man and disappeared at age 53. She had been having poor health. She was never heard from again, and there is no known record of her death.

Partial filmography