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Dudley Nichols
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Dudley Nichols (April 6, 1895 – January 4, 1960) was an American screenwriter who first came to prominence after winning and refusing the screenwriting Oscar for The Informer in 1936.
The reason for Nichols' refusal was the fact that the Screen Writers Guild was on strike at the time.
Born in Wapakoneta, Ohio, in all he wrote the screen plays for over sixty movies including such classics as Stagecoach, For Whom The Bell Tolls, Scarlet Street, and The Tin Star.
Nichols' crowning achievement, though, was probably the screenplay for Bringing Up Baby, considered one of the funniest of the thirties screwball comedies. This movie, directed by the Howard Hawks and starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, was underappreciated on first release but later recognized as a unique classic.
Dudley Nichols served as president of the Screen Writers Guild during 1937 and 1938.
Nichols has the interesting distinction of being the first artist to refuse an Academy Award (for The Informer), an act followed by George C. Scott and Marlon Brando.
He died in Hollywood from cancer in 1960 and was interred there in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.