Owen Davis

Playwright, born in Portland, Maine, USA. He achieved critical acclaim with The Detour (1921) and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Icebound (1923), but most of his career was devoted to writing financially rewarding melodramas.

The Nervous Wreck (1923), play, later made into the 1926 motion picture of the same name, and the 1944 motion picture Up in Arms; later produced as a musical, Whoopee!, staged on Broadway in 1928 and 1979 and made into the 1930 motion picture of the same name The Haunted House (1924) Lazybones (1924), made into the 1925 motion picture of the same name Beware of Widows (1925) Easy Come, Easy Go (1926), play later produced as a musical, Lady Fingers (1929) The Great Gatsby (1926), play based on the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, made into the 1949 motion picture The Good Earth (1932), dramatization of the Pearl Buck novel, later produced as the 1937 motion picture, all of the same name Jezebel (1933), original play turned into the 1938 motion picture of the same name The Convict's Sweetheart Ethan Frome (1935), play based on the Edith Wharton novel, produced on Broadway in 1936 Mr. and Mrs. North (1941), dramatization from short stories by Richard Lockridge and Frances Lockridge, made into the 1942 motion picture The Snark Was a Boojum (1943), dramatization of a novel by Richard Shattuck No Way Out (1944)