Name Ranald MacDougall Role Screenwriter | Books Mildred Pierce | |
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Died December 12, 1973, Los Angeles, California, United States Nominations Academy Award for Best Writing Adapted Screenplay Movies The World - the Flesh and the D, Cleopatra, Go Naked in the World, Queen Bee, The Naked Jungle Similar People Sidney Buchman, Inger Stevens, Jerry Wald, Nanette Fabray, Joseph L Mankiewicz | ||
Ranald MacDougall (March 10, 1915 – December 12, 1973) was an American screenwriter who scripted such films as Mildred Pierce (1945), The Unsuspected (1947), June Bride (1948), and The Naked Jungle (1954), and shared screenwriting credit for 1963's Cleopatra. He also directed a number of films, including 1957's Man on Fire with Bing Crosby and 1959's The World, the Flesh and the Devil, both of which featured actress Inger Stevens.
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Born in Schenectady, New York, MacDougall came from an impoverished working-class family. His father was a crane operator and union organizer, whose frequent strikes forced MacDougall to leave school before finishing the eighth grade to help support the family. He held a variety of odd jobs and during the Great Depression found work as an usher at Radio City Music Hall.
He saw greater potential across the street in Rockefeller Center, where he was hired as a page, working alongside Gregory Peck. As a page MacDougall had the opportunity to closely observe the radio industry, and in his spare time he wrote and submitted scripts to his boss under pseudonyms, and was finally hired as a staff writer for NBC Radio despite being underage at the time.
President, WGA
MacDougall was President of the Writers' Guild of America, West from 1971 until 1973.
Personal life
He was married to Lucille Brophy in 1939, by whom he had three children. Following their divorce, he married actress Nanette Fabray in 1957 by whom he had another son. He died unexpectedly in Los Angeles, California, at age 58.