Frances Goodrich

Frances Goodrich (December 21, 1890 – January 29, 1984) was an American actress, dramatist, and screenwriter born in Belleville, New Jersey, the second of five children of Madeleine Christy (née Lloyd) and Henry Wickes Goodrich. Her family relocated to nearby Nutley, New Jersey when she was two years old. She attended Collegiate School in Passaic, New Jersey, and earned a degree from Vassar College in 1912. She subsequently enrolled at the New York School of Social Work, attending from 1912 to 1913, before leaving to pursue an acting career in Henry Miller's productions. Muckraking writer Henry Demarest Lloyd was her uncle.

Goodrich launched her acting career at the Players Club in New York City before moving to Northampton, Massachusetts, to perform in stock theater. Her Broadway appearances spanned from 1918 to 1927 and included Perkins (1918), Daddy Long Legs (1918), Fashions for Men (1922), Queen Victoria (1923), A Good Bad Woman (1925), Skin Deep (1927), and Excess Baggage (1927). In 1924 she appeared in George Kelly's play The Show Off. Her Broadway credits also encompassed the comedy The Great Big Doorstep, as well as the plays Bridal Wise and Up Pops the Devil.

During the summer of 1928, Goodrich joined the stock company at Denver's Elitch Theatre, where she met Albert Hackett. She showed Hackett a script she had written called Such A Lady, and the two rewrote it together, marking the beginning of a lasting creative and personal partnership. Goodrich and Hackett married and remained together until her death.

Shortly after their marriage, the couple settled in Hollywood to write the screenplay adaptation of their stage success Up Pops the Devil for Paramount Pictures. In 1933 they signed a contract with MGM and remained with the studio until 1939. Among their early assignments was the screenplay for The Thin Man (1934), developed from the writing of Dashiell Hammett at the encouragement of director W.S. Van Dyke, who urged them to focus on crafting witty dialogue for the principal characters Nick and Nora Charles, played by William Powell and Myrna Loy. The film became one of the major hits of that year. Goodrich and Hackett received Academy Award nominations for Screenplay for The Thin Man, After the Thin Man (1936), Father of the Bride (1950), and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1955). Their other film credits include Another Thin Man (1939) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946). The pair also received Writers Guild of America awards for Easter Parade (1949), Father's Little Dividend (1951), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), and The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), along with WGA nominations for In the Good Old Summertime (1949), Father of the Bride (1950), and The Long, Long Trailer (1954).

Goodrich and Hackett's stage adaptation The Diary of Anne Frank premiered in 1955 and earned them both the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play in 1956.