von Harbou, Thea 1888 1954 de 1 21575 Thea Gabriele von Harbou (December 27, 1888 – July 1, 1954) was a German actress and author of Prussian aristocratic origin. In 1905, she published her first novel in the Deutsche Roman-Zeitung. However, she then started to work as an actress, beginning in 1906 in Düsseldorf, then moving to Weimar (1908), Chemnitz (1911) and Aachen (1913). In Aachen she met her first husband, the actor and director Rudolf Klein-Rogge, whom she married in 1914. In 1920, she wrote her first film script Das Indische Grabmal (The Indian Tomb, Mysteries of India), together with Fritz Lang. Fritz Lang became her second husband in 1922, and they collaborated in the following years, writing the screenplays for Metropolis and M together. They separated in October 1931 and divorced in 1933. In 1932, a year before Adolf Hitler came to power, she joined the Nazi Party. This presumably led to the divorce from Lang, who left Germany in 1934 for Paris after his film Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse had been declared illegal by Nazi officials because of perceived criticism of Nazi ideology. Harbou wrote the script for Der Herrscher 1937, directed by Veit Harlan and starring Emil Jannings. The movie celebrates unconditional submission under absolute authority, eventually finding reward in total victory. After the war she was detained by the British military government, and then did unskilled labor, like cleaning up rubble from the bombing. After receiving a working permit she did some synchronizing of movies, but also continued to write scripts. In 1954 she died in Berlin. Source: Wikipedia Van Dine, S. S. 1888 1939 en 13 17996 S. S. Van Dine was the pseudonym of Willard Huntington Wright (October 15, 1888 - April 11, 1939), a U.S. art critic and author. He created the once immensely popular fictional detective Philo Vance, who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in movies and on the radio. Willard Huntington Wright was born to Archibald Davenport Wright and Annie Van Vranken Wright on October 15, 1888, in Charlottesville, Virginia. He attended St. Vincent College, Pomona College, and Harvard University. He also studied art in Munich and Paris, an apprenticeship that led to a job as literary and art critic for the Los Angeles Times. Wright's early career in literature (1910 - 1919) was taken up by two causes. One was literary Naturalism. He wrote a novel, The Man of Promise, and some short stories in this mode; as editor of the magazine The Smart Set he also published similar fiction by others. In 1917, he published Misinforming a Nation, a scathing critique of the inaccuracies and English biases of the Encyclopedia Britannica Eleventh Edition. In 1907, Wright married Katharine Belle Boynton of Seattle, Washington. He married for a second time in October 1930. His wife was Eleanor Rulapaugh, known professionally as Claire De Lisle, a portrait painter. From 1912 to 1914 he edited The Smart Set, a New York literary magazine. He published What Nietzsche Taught in 1915. In this book, he provided information and comments on all of Nietzsche's books, as well as quotations from each book. Wright continued writing as a critic and journalist until 1923, when he became ill from what was given out as overwork, but was in reality a secret drug addiction, according to John Loughery's biography Alias S.S. Van Dine. His doctor confined him to bed (supposedly because of a heart ailment, but actually because of a cocaine addiction) for more than two years. In frustration and boredom, he began collecting and studying thousands of volumes of crime and detection. In 1926 this paid off with the publication of his first S. S. Van Dine novel, The Benson Murder Case. Wright took his pseudonym from the abbreviation of "steamship" and from Van Dine, which he claimed was an old family name. According to Loughery, however, "there are no Van Dines evident in the family tree" (p. 176). He went on to write 11 more mysteries, and the first few books about his upper-class amateur sleuth, Philo Vance (who shared a love of aesthetics like Wright), were so popular that Wright became wealthy for the first time in his life, "but the pleasure was not unalloyed. His fate is curiously foreshadowed in that of Stanford West, the hero of his only novel, who sells out by abandoning the unpopular work in which he searched for "a sound foundation of culture and aristocracy" and becoming a successful novelist. The title of an article he wrote at the height of his fame, "I used to be a Highbrow and Look at Me Now", reflects both his pleasure, and his regret that he was no longer regarded seriously as a writer." His later books declined in popularity as the reading public’s tastes in mystery fiction changed. "Wright, who was much like Vance ... was a poseur and a dilettante, dabbling in art, music and criticism. He lived in an expensive penthouse, was fond of costly clothes and food, and collected art." Wright died April 11, 1939, in New York City, a year after the publication of an unpopular experimental novel that incorporated one of the biggest stars in radio comedy, The Gracie Allen Murder Case, and leaving a complete novelette-length story that was intended as a film vehicle for Sonja Henje, and was published posthumously as The Winter Murder Case. In addition to his success as a fiction writer, Wright's lengthy introduction and notes to the anthology The World's Great Detective Stories (1928) are important in the history of the critical study of detective fiction. Although dated by the passage of time, this essay is still a core around which many others have been constructed. He also wrote an article titled Twenty rules for writing detective stories in 1928 for The American Magazine which was reprinted a number of times. Wright also wrote a series of short stories for Warner Brothers film studio in the early 1930s. These stories were used as the basis for a series of 12 short films, each around 20 minutes long, that were released in 1930 - 1931. Of these, The Skull Murder Mystery (1931) shows Wright's vigorous plot construction. It is also notable for its non-racist treatment of Chinese characters, something quite unusual in its day. As far as it is known, none of Van Dine's screen treatments have been published in book form and it seems as if none of the manuscripts survive today. Short films were extremely popular at one point and Hollywood made hundreds of them during the studio era. Except for a handful of comedy silents, however, most of these films are forgotten today and are not even listed in film reference books. Source: Wikipedia Carnegie, Dale Breckenridge 1888 1955 en 1 15385 Dale Breckenridge Carnegie (originally Carnagey until 1922 and possibly somewhat later) (November 24, 1888 – November 1, 1955) was an American writer and lecturer and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking and interpersonal skills. Born in poverty on a farm in Missouri, he was the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, first published in 1936, a massive bestseller that remains popular today. He also wrote a biography of Abraham Lincoln, titled Lincoln the Unknown, as well as several other books. Carnegie was an early proponent of what is now called responsibility assumption, although this only appears minutely in his written work. One of the core ideas in his books is that it is possible to change other people's behavior by changing one's reaction to them. Nowlan, Philip Francis 1888 1940 en 3 7813 Philip Francis Nowlan (born 1888 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, died February 1, 1940 in Philadelphia) was an American science fiction author. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania he worked as a newspaper columnist. He married, moved to the Philadelphia suburb of Bala Cynwyd and created and wrote the Buck Rogers comic strip, illustrated by Dick Calkins. The character Buck Rogers first appeared in Nowlan's 1928 novella Armageddon 2419 A.D. as Anthony Rogers. The comic strip ran for over forty years and spun off a radio series, a 1939 movie serial, and two television series. Nowlan also wrote several other novellas for the science fiction magazines as well as the posthumously published mystery, The Girl from Nowhere. Philip Francis Nowlan was married to Theresa Junker Nowlan. They had ten children including Philip, Mary, Helen, Louise, Theresa, Mike, Larry, Pat, John, and Joe. Source: Wikipedia Eliot, Thomas Stearns 1888 1965 en 0 5595 Flint, Homer Eon 1888 1924 en 4 2504 Homer Eon Flint (1888 as Homer Eon Flindt –1924) was a writer of pulp science fiction novels and stories. He began working as a scenarist for silent films (reportedly at his wife's insistence) in 1912. In 1918 he published "The Planeteer" in All-Story Weekly. His "Dr. Kinney" stories were reprinted by Ace Books in 1965, and with Austin Hall he co-wrote the novel The Blind Spot. Reportedly he died as a result of an involvement in a bank robbery attempt. According to his granddaughter the only witness, was himself a gangster. Source: Wikipedia