Next Panel 
A native of Columbus, Georgia, Nunnally Johnson became Hollywood's most successful and famous screenwriter from 1933-1967. His fifty-one screenplays include The Grapes of Wrath, Jesse James, The Moon is Down, Tobacco Road, The Desert Fox, How to Marry a Millionaire, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, The Three Faces of Eve, and The Dirty Dozen.
In his era, almost every major star played in a Johnson film; many in outstanding performances. Jane Darwell, as Ma Joad, won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Henry Fonda was nominated for Best Actor for his role as Tom Joad. (Jimmy Stewart won that year for The Philadelphia Story). Monty Woolley was nominated for Best Actor in The Pied Piper (1942), and Gregory Peck in The Keys to the Kingdom (1945). Joanne Woodward (originally from Thomasville, Georgia) won an Oscar for her portrayal of a woman with a multiple-personality disorder in The Three Faces of Eve (1957).
Among his other achievements, his first serious picture, The House of Rothschild (1934), was nominated for the Best Picture of the year. The profits from it made so much money that Twentieth Century Pictures was able to buy Fox, with its wide distributorship to become Twentieth Century-Fox. Johnson was nominated in 1940 for an Academy of Motion Pictures Award of Merit for Outstanding Achievement for The Grapes of Wrath, and the film won Best Picture of the Year by the New York Drama Critics. The Pied Piper, which he wrote and produced in 1942, was nominated for Best Picture. In 1943 his script for Holy Matrimony was nominated for Best Screenplay. His screenplay of Steinbeck's The Moon is Down in 1943 boosted Allied morale. In 1989 in the first twenty-five films designated by a Congressional committee as American film classics in black and white, The Grapes of Wrath was the top vote-getter. Johnson's success helped to build Twentieth Century-Fox.
| |
Next Panel | |
| Back to Panel Selection |
Created by: Diana Lomarcan, Library Webmaster
This page is part of the CSU Library Web site. Send questions and comments about the site to the Library Webmaster.