John Monk Saunders

John Monk Saunders (November 22, 1897 – March 11, 1940) was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and film director whose Broadway credits include the musical Nikki and My Romance. Born in Hinckley, Minnesota, to Robert C. Saunders and Nannie Monk Saunders, he was one of six children. The family relocated to Seattle, Washington in 1907, where his father served as a U.S. Attorney. Saunders attended Broadway High School in Seattle, distinguishing himself academically and athletically, before enrolling at the University of Washington, where he was elected president of his freshman class and played quarterback on the freshman football team. He was a member of Sigma Chi Fraternity.

During World War I, Saunders served in the Air Service as a flight instructor in Florida. His inability to secure a posting to France remained a source of frustration throughout his life. Following the war, he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, entering Magdalen College in the fall of 1919 as the first American to attend that college. At Oxford he competed on the championship swimming team and played on the Rugby squad, completing a three-year degree in just one and a half years. During his time there he formed friendships with poets John Masefield and Rudyard Kipling. After leaving Oxford, he served as an attaché at the American Relief Association in Vienna, Austria, spent time in Paris, and later returned to Oxford to complete a master's degree in 1923.

Back in the United States, Saunders worked as a journalist for publications including the Los Angeles Times and the New York Tribune. He sold short stories to magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Liberty and became editor of American magazine. His first film sale came in 1924, and his screen credit debut followed with Too Many Kisses (1925), adapted from his story "A Maker of Gestures," and The Shock Punch (1925), based on his play of the same name.

In 1926, Famous Players–Lasky/Paramount purchased the rights to Saunders's unfinished novel about World War I pilots for $39,000, the highest sum paid for film rights at that time. The resulting film, Wings (1927), became the first motion picture to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Saunders continued his focus on aviation subjects with The Legion of the Condemned (1928), starring Gary Cooper. His story "The Dock Walloper" was adapted by director Josef von Sternberg as The Docks of New York (1928), and he contributed to the script for She Goes to War (1929).

The Dawn Patrol (1930), based on Saunders's story "The Flight Commander" and starring Richard Barthelmess and Douglas Fairbanks Jr., earned him the Academy Award for Best Story. Upon accepting the award, Saunders remarked that it was "a crazy business" where he was simultaneously being sued for plagiarism and honored for originality. He followed that success with The Finger Points (1931) and The Last Flight (1931), the latter adapted from his novel Single Lady (1931). Single Lady itself had grown from a series of short stories collectively known as "Nikki and Her War Birds," published in Liberty magazine. The Eagle and the Hawk (1933), based on his story "Death in the Morning," starred Fredric March, Cary Grant, and Carole Lombard, and Ace of Aces (1933) was adapted from his story "Birds of Prey." His work also provided the basis for Devil Dogs of the Air (1935), West Point of the Air (1935), and I Found Stella Parish (1935). Saunders co-wrote and co-directed the British documentary Conquest of the Air (1936) and contributed the originating idea for A Yank at Oxford (1938). The Dawn Patrol was remade in 1938 with Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, and David Niven.

On Broadway, Saunders appeared as a performer in 1921 and later wrote the book for the musical Nikki, which was produced on Broadway with actress Fay Wray. My Romance is an additional Broadway credit to his name.

In his personal life, Saunders was first married to Avis Hughes, daughter of novelist Rupert Hughes and niece by marriage to Howard Hughes, from 1922 to 1927. He subsequently married Fay Wray in 1928, with Gary Cooper serving as best man; the couple had a daughter, Susan Cary Saunders, later known as Susan Riskin. Saunders and Wray separated in 1939. In 1934, a widely publicized altercation with actor Herbert Marshall, a World War I veteran, resulted in professional setbacks and social condemnation within Hollywood. Saunders traveled to Virginia in 1938 to research a historical novel and was treated at a Virginia hospital for a nervous disorder that same year. He suffered from alcoholism throughout much of his adult life and died by suicide on March 11, 1940, at a beach cottage in Fort Myers, Florida.