Jules Furthman

Jules Furthman (March 5, 1888 – September 22, 1966) was a magazine and newspaper writer before working as a screenwriter.

Biography

Born in Chicago, he was the brother of writer Charles Furthman. During World War I Jules wrote under the pen name "Stephen Fox" as he thought Furthman sounded too German. He wrote screenplays for a number of important or popular films, including: The Docks of New York (1928), Thunderbolt (1929), Merely Mary Ann (1931), Shanghai Express (1932), Bombshell (1933), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Come and Get It (1936), Only Angels Have Wings (1939), To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946) and Nightmare Alley (1947). He wrote credited screenplays for eight films directed by Josef Von Sternberg and an equal number for Howard Hawks.

When he's brought up on the UK television program Scene By Scene, host Mark Cousins says, "Furthman wrote some of your best lines and he also wrote for her (Marlene Deitrich), those sort of, sexy and ambiguous lines." Lauren Bacall replies, "He did? Well, that I didn't know. I asked Howard Hawks once, why he used Furthman; as he didn't write the entire screenplay. And he (Hawks) said, 'If there are five ways to play a scene, he (Furthman) will write a sixth way.' And of course, that makes perfect sense and that's exactly what Furthman did. He always cam around the back way and suddenly there was a little surprise there."

He was nominated for an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay for Mutiny on the Bounty.

In 1920, he married the actress Sybil Seely, who played in five films directed by Buster Keaton. She bore Furthman a son in 1921 and retired from acting in 1922. They remained together until his death.

Jules Furthman died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1966 in Oxford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom. His remains were brought home and interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

List of screenplays