Charles Brackett
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| Charles Brackett | |||||||||||
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| Born | November 26, 1892 Saratoga Springs, New York, USA |
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| Died | March 9, 1969 (aged 76) Los Angeles, California, USA |
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| Occupation | Writer, Screenwriter | ||||||||||
| Years active | 1925-1962 | ||||||||||
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Charles Brackett (November 26, 1892 - March 9, 1969) was an American novelist, screenwriter, and film producer.
Born in Saratoga Springs, New York, Charles William Brackett was the son of New York State Senator Edgar Truman Brackett. Brackett's roots traced back to his Mayflower ancestor Stephen Hopkins.
Brackett was a graduate of Williams College, and received his law degree from Harvard University. He was a frequent contributor to the Saturday Evening Post and a drama critic for The New Yorker from 1925 to 1929.
Brackett wrote five novels: Counsel of the Ungodly (1920), Week-End (1925), That Last Infirmity (1926), American Colony (1929), and Entirely Surrounded (1934).
Brackett was president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from 1949 through 1955. He won Academy Awards for scripting The Lost Weekend (1945), Sunset Boulevard (1950), and Titanic (1953), and won an Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1959. Brackett either wrote or produced an additional 39 films during his career, including To Each His Own, Ninotchka, The Major and the Minor, Niagara, The King and I, Ten North Frederick, The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker, and Blue Denim.
Brackett worked with Billy Wilder as his collaborator on thirteen movies, including the classics Sunset Boulevard and The Lost Weekend. Brackett and Wilder were teamed together as writers early in their careers. Wilder was the more profane of the two partners, while Brackett held to his upper-crust upbringing and was known as the "gentleman" of the pair. Their social and cultural backgrounds often clashed, but Brackett acknowledged later in his life that Wilder's baser instincts about human nature were invaluable to their collaboration. By the late 1940s, a schism based on personal and creative differences, festering for many years, began to threaten the partnership. However, when Wilder went on to direct movies he continued to collaborate with Brackett, despite the fact that their mutual animosity grew even greater.
