Nationality United States Spouse Eugene Delmar | Name Vina Delmar | |
 | ||
Died January 19, 1990 (age 86)
Los Angeles Occupation Writer, playwright, screenwriter | ||
Viña Delmar (January 29, 1903 – January 19, 1990) was an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter who was actively productive 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 top bestseller in 1928. Delmar also wrote the screenplay to the acclaimed screwball comedy, The Awful Truth, for which she received an Academy Award nomination in 1937.
Contents
Family
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. (née Guerin) Croter. Her parents were regulars on the vaudeville circuit as well as performers in the Yiddish theater in New York City and elsewhere in the United States. Ike Croter went by the stage name of "Charlie Hoey" (or "Chas Hoey"), and formed one-half of the musical duo "Hoey and Lee," alongside partner Harry Lee. Jennie Croter was a singer who performed under the name "Jean Powell" (or "Jeanne Powell").
Delmar's grandfather, Simon Croter, was a tailor and merchant in New York City's Lower East Side. Together with his brother Abraham (Arthur) Croter, he owned a store at 10 Baxter Street in what is now Chinatown in New York City. Simon Croter, who spoke German and was Jewish, emigrated from Poland. Delmar's father, grandparents, as well as an uncle (Charles Croter) and an aunt (Rose Croter Silberger), are buried in Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
Writing career
According to one obituary, Delmar was a "young woman [who] wrote a series of novels that scandalized the country, making them not only best-sellers but giving her entree to Hollywood".
Her first major work was a 1928 novel titled Bad Girl, a cautionary tale about premarital sex and pregnancy, which was adapted for both stage and screen. The book was the fifth best-selling work for that year. Bad Girl was considered so scandalous at first that it was initially banned in Boston.
In 1929, she published Loose Ladies, a series of fictional portraits of modern American city women, and the novel Kept Woman.
With the editorial assistance of her husband, Eugene, she wrote or adapted about twenty plays which were produced as films during her lifetime—a career that lasted from 1929 to 1956.
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, 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
Alvina (Viña) Croter married Eugene Delmar either in 1921 or 1922. They resided in Scarsdale, New York from 1928 until 1940, then moved to Los Angeles. They remained married until his death in 1956. The couple had one son, Gray, who was born in 1924 and killed in an automobile racing accident in 1966. Viña Delmar died January 19, 1990 in Los Angeles, California. She was 86.