Jay Dratler (September 14, 1910 – September 25, 1968) was an American screenwriter and novelist."Jay Dratler, Screenwriter, Dies in Mexico" (8 Oct 1968) Los Angeles Times"Jay Dratler Dies; Wrote for Screen" (October 16, 1968) New York Times

Biography Born in New York City to a mother originally from Austria, he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the late 1920s, then studied at the Sorbonne in France and the University of Vienna, achieving fluency in French and German.

After his return to the United States in 1932, he worked as an editor for a New York publisher and translated the books Goya and Zeppelin from German to English. He then moved to Hollywood, becoming a successful novelist and rising to prominence as a screenwriter during the classic era of film noir in the 1940s. He wrote six novels, many screenplays and more than twenty television scripts. He won an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Call Northside 777, and was an Oscar nominee for the 1944 film noir, Laura. The 1948 film noir, Pitfall, was based on Dratler's novel of the same title.

Later in life, Dratler became conversant in Spanish, moving to Mexico in the 1960s. Dratler died of a heart attack in 1968 at the British-American Hospital in Mexico City. His body was returned to New York. He was survived by his widow, Berenice, and their two children, a daughter and son. The latter, Jay Dratler Jr., became a professor at the University of Akron School of Law, specializing in intellectual property law."Retirement celebration to honor Jay Dratler Jr." (December 1, 2009) The Digest, University of Akron

Works

Novels Manhattan Side Street (1936) Longmans, Green and Co., New YorkManhattan Side Street (1936) Longmans, Green and Co., New York Ducks in Thunder (1940) Reynal & Hitchcock, New York (later re-titled All for a Woman) The Pitfall (1947) Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New York The Judas Kiss (1955) Henry Holt and Co., New YorkThe Judas Kiss (1955) Henry Holt and Co., New York Doctor Paradise (1957) Popular Library, New York Without Mercy (1957) Robert Hale, London Dream of a Woman (1958) Popular Library, New York

Translations Goya. A portrait of the artist as a man (1936) Knight Publications, New YorkTranslated by Clement Greenberg, Emma Ashton and Jay Dratler,from the German by Manfred Schneider (1935) Don Francisco de Goya Zeppelin, the story of lighter-than-air craft (1937) Longmans & Co., LondonTranslated by Jay Dratler from the German by Ernst A Lehmann and Leonhard Adelt (1936)Auf Luftpatrouille und Weltfahrt - Erlebnisse eines Zeppelinführers in Krieg und Frieden - Zeppelin,Schmidt & Günther, Kelkheim, Germany

Screenplays Dratler's films as screenwriter, often with collaborators, include:

La Conga Nights (1940) Universal"Movies" (June 05, 1940) New York Times Girls Under 21 (1940) Columbia Confessions of Boston Blackie (1941) Meet Boston Blackie (1941) Columbia"Movie Review - Meet Boston Blackie - At the Rialto" (February 26, 1941) New York Times The Wife Takes a Flyer (1942)" 'The Wife Takes a Flyer', a Labored Farce Film, With Joan Bennett and Franchot Tone, at the Capitol" (June 19, 1942) New York Times Fly-by-Night (1942) Get Hep to Love (1942) Laura (1944) Higher and Higher (1944)"Bosley Crowther" (January 22, 1944) New York Times It's in the Bag! (1945)"Movie Review" (June 11, 1945) New York Times The Dark Corner (1946) Call Northside 777 (1948) That Wonderful Urge (1948)"Movie Review - That Wonderful Urge" (December 22, 1948) New York Times Dancing in the Dark (1949) Impact (1949) The Las Vegas Story (1952) We're Not Married! (1952) I Aim at the Stars (1960)"Screen: About von Braun; I Aim at the Stars Opens at the Forum" (October 20, 1960) New York Times

Plays A Grape for Seeing (1965)"John Ireland and John Saxon will co-star in the nation premiere of 'A Grape for Seeing' " (June 18, 1965) San Mateo Times, San Mateo, California The Women of Troy (1966)"Cornell Pledges Aid for Theater" (May 11, 1966) New York Times

References

External links

NY Times Biography