Viña Delmar

Viña Delmar

Viña Delmar in Sadie McKee trailer
Born January 29, 1903
New York City
Died January 19, 1990 (age 86)
Los Angeles
Occupation Writer, playwright, screenwriter
Nationality United States
Period 1920s–1970s
Genre Fiction, historical fiction
Spouse Eugene Delmar

Viña Delmar (January 29, 1903 – January 19, 1990) was an American short story writer, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter who worked from the 1920s to the 1970s. She rose to fame in the late 1920s with the publication of her risqué novel, Bad Girl, which became a bestseller in 1928. Delmar also wrote the screenplay to the screwball comedy, The Awful Truth, for which she received an Academy Award nomination in 1937.

Early years

Viña Delmar was born Alvina Louise Croter on January 29, 1903 in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of vaudeville performers Isaac "Ike" Croter and Jennie A. Croter, née Guran or Guerin. Her parents were regulars on the vaudeville circuit as well as performers in the Yiddish theater in New York City and other major cites in the United States. Ike Croter went by the stage name of "Charlie Hoey" (or "Chas Hoey"), and formed half of the musical duo "Hoey and Lee," alongside partner Harry Lee.[1] Jennie Croter was a chorus girl and singer who performed under the name "Jean Powell" (or "Jeanne Powell").

From the outset of her life, Delmar was bundled up and taken along by her parents as they performed on the vaudeville circuit in the US. At the age of three weeks, she was in San Francisco, with the top drawer of her mother's trunk used as a cradle. In 1911, when Delmar was eight, her mother retired from the stage, and the family settled in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. Not long afterwords, on September 13, 1916, her mother died, and with her father, Delmar moved to the Bronx. She attended school until the age of 13. By age 16, she was appearing on the stage. It was also then that she married Eugene Delmar on May 10, 1921. With her stage career floundering, Delmar took on various employments including theater usher, typist, switchboard operator, and assistant manager of a moving picture house in Harlem.

Writing career

As a child of nine years of age, Delmar showed an interest in writing and began to pen stories. Her first success with publication was achieved with the short story "Tony Checks Out", which appeared in the risqué magazine Snappy Stories in 1922.

Delmar's breakthrough as a writer occurred at age 23 with her first book, Bad Girl, a popular fiction novel published in 1928 by Harcourt Brace and Co. Spinning a cautionary tale about premarital sex and pregnancy, and the grittiness of working-class married life, Bad Girl was an unexpected and immediate sensation. The novel gained additional notoriety when it was initially banned in Boston.[2] The success of the book induced the Literary Guild to choose it as its April 1928 selection, which edged sales even higher. Among top sellers for 1928, the book ranked as the fifth bestseller of the year.

In 1929, attempting to capitalize on the success of Bad Girl, Delmar published two more books with risqué titles. Kept Woman was a novel, while Loose Ladies presented eleven fictional portraits of modern American city women.[3] Both books drew the attention of censors, but little came of it.

With the editorial assistance of her husband, Eugene, she also wrote or adapted about eighteen plays which were produced as films during her lifetime—a career that lasted from 1929 to 1976.

Works

Novels

Note: The Becker Scandal deals with the events surrounding the arrest, trial and execution of New York City policeman Charles Becker. The book is considered by some scholars and readers autobiographical,[4] and by others historical fiction. The actual disposition of the book, whether fact, quasi-fact, or embellished fiction, may be impossible to determine.

Plays

Screenplays

Personal

After their marriage in 1921, Delmar and her husband initially resided for several years in the Inwood area of Manhattan. They then lived in Scarsdale, New York between 1928 and 1940.[5] The pair with their son, Gray, (born 1924) then moved to Los Angeles and Hollywood. They remained married until Eugene's death in 1956. Gray died in an automobile racing accident in 1966. Viña Delmar died January 19, 1990 in Los Angeles, California in a convalescent home. She was 86.

Filmography

References

  1. ↑ http://search.proquest.com/docview/97862628
  2. ↑ http://search.proquest.com/docview/285345598
  3. ↑ Time Magazine
  4. ↑ Urch, Kakie. "The [Em] Space of Modernism and the Possibility of Flâneuserie: The Case of Viña Delmar and Her "Bad Girls." Modernism, Gender, and Culture: A Cultural Studies Approach. Edited with an Introduction by Lisa Rado. (New York and Oxfordshire, England: Routledge, 1997), pp. 17–46.
  5. ↑ January 2, 1940 "Closing Statement" of sale of home in Scarsdale, NY to Albert & Clare Verrilli.
  6. ↑ "Viña Delmar". Retrieved 13 November 2011.
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