Mortimer Offner

Mortimer Offner was born in New York City on November 3, 1900, to parents of Austrian Jewish descent who operated a dressmaking business. The family resided on East 54th Street alongside Offner's aunt, and the household included his brother Richard and his cousin Stella Bloch, a dancer and artist. Offner pursued a university education before enrolling at the Clarence White School of Photography.

After an early attempt at acting, Offner transitioned to photography, building a career taking portraits of prominent film stars on Broadway. He and his brother are credited with having played a role in advancing their cousin Stella Bloch's career. His Broadway appearances included productions of Meet the People and The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife, with his stage work dating to 1923. He also worked as a composer during this period of his career.

In 1932, actress Katharine Hepburn encouraged Offner to relocate to Hollywood, a move that redirected his professional life entirely. He found that screenwriting suited him, and by 1934 his work as a photographer had come to an end. He went on to write ten screenplays, many of them adaptations of novels. Among his most notable contributions was his work on Alice Adams, for which director George Stevens brought him in after becoming dissatisfied with an existing script by Dorothy Yost and Jane Murfin. Offner, Stevens, and Hepburn collaborated on a rewrite, composing and performing the dialogue simultaneously as they worked. The completed script was delivered only twelve days before the shooting schedule concluded.

Offner's involvement with the Communist Party ultimately cost him his career in Hollywood. Blacklisted as a result of his political activism, he was eventually forced to work under a pseudonym. Like his cousin's husband, Edward Eliscu, who faced similar circumstances, Offner left Hollywood and returned to New York. He died there in September 1965, survived by two daughters, Elizabeth Offner and Deborah Offner.