American playwright, poet, and author

Zoe Byrd Akins (October 30, 1886 – October 29, 1958) was an American playwright, poet, and author. She won the 1935 Pulitzer Prize for drama for The Old Maid.

Contents

• 1 Biography
  • 1.1 Early years
  • 1.2 Career
  • 1.3 Personal life
    • 1.3.1 Epitaph
• 2 Selected filmography
• 3 References
• 4 External links

Biography

Early years

Zoe Akins in 1907

Zoe Byrd Akins was born in Humansville, Missouri, second of three children of Thomas Jasper and Sarah Elizabeth Green Akins. Her family was heavily involved with the Missouri Republican Party, and for several years her father served as the state party chairman. Through her mother, Zoe Akins was related to prominent figures like George Washington and Duff Green. Her family moved to St. Louis, Missouri when Zoe was in her early teens. She was sent to Monticello Seminary in nearby Godfrey, Illinois for her education and later Hosmer Hall preparatory school in St. Louis. While at Hosmer Hall she was a cl*mate of poet Sara Teasdale, both graduating with the Cl* of 1903. It was at Monticello Seminary that Akins wrote her first play, a parody of a Greek tragedy. Following graduation Akins began writing a series of plays, poetry and criticism for various magazines and newspapers as well as occasional acting roles in St. Louis area theatre productions.

Career

Ethel Barrymore and Claude King in the Broadway production of Décl*ée (1919)

Her first major dramatic work was Papa, written in 1914. The comedy failed even though it greatly impressed both H.L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan, and she continued to write. She followed up with two other plays, The Magical City and Décl*ée. The latter play, which starred Ethel Barrymore, was not only a great success but "something of a sensation, and her days of waiting were over." During this time several of her early plays were adapted for the screen. These adaptations were mostly failures, released as silent films in a time when the industry was transitioning to sound. While some "talkie" stars had notable roles in the films (Walter Pidgeon and a young Clark Gable), most of the films are now believed to be lost. In 1930, Akins had another great success with her play, The Greeks Had a Word For It, a comedy about three models in search of rich husbands

In the early 1930s, Akins became more active in film, writing several screenplays as well as continuing to sell the rights to plays such as The Greeks Had a Word for It (1930), which was adapted for the movies three times, in 1932 (as The Greeks Had a Word for Them), 1938 (as Three Blind Mice), and 1953 (How to Marry a Millionaire). Two highlights of this period were the films Sarah and Son (1930) and Morning Glory (1933), the latter remade as Stage Struck. Both films earned their respective female leads (Ruth Chatterton and Katharine Hepburn) Academy Award nominations for Best Actress (Hepburn won).

In 1935, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her dramatization of Edith Wharton's The Old Maid, a melodrama set in New York City and written in five episodes stretching across time from 1839 to 1854. The play was adapted for a 1939 film starring Bette Davis.

In 1936, Akins co-wrote the screenplay for Camille, adapted from Alexandre Dumas's play and novel, La dame aux camélias The film starred Greta Garbo, Robert Taylor, and Lionel Barrymore, and earned Garbo her third Oscar nomination.

However, despite the above accomplishments in some movies, the always rigorous American Film Ins*ute never credits Zoe Akins with the above Filmography work. By the AFI's standards, she was credited with but a single movie, 1959's The Sad Horse, and that film was not based on a story by her, as the film's opening credits insist, but based on what the August 27, 1958, edition of The Hollywood Reporter had called, just two months before her death, an unpublished novel.

Personal life

Despite the fame afforded her, Akins did not pursue a screenwriting career beyond her early successes. In 1932, she married Hugo Rumbold (in the last year of his life) and, after several Hollywood films, she returned to writing plays and spending time with her family. She was rumored to be in a long-term relationship with Jobyna Howland until Howland's death in 1936. According to Anita Loos, the two squabbled often, "But such gibes actually held the key to their devotion." She was the great-aunt of actress Laurie Metcalf. She lived for a short time in Morrisonville, Illinois.

Akins died in her sleep on the eve of her 72nd birthday in Los Angeles. She is buried in San Gabriel District Cemetery.

Epitaph

She loved
Shakespeare's sonnets
Paris bonnets.
Country walks,
All-night talks,
Old trees and places
Children's faces
Shaw and Keats,
Opera seats,
Lonely prairies,
Tea at Sherry's,
Sunlight and air,
Vanity Fair

Selected filmography

• Décl*ée (1925)
• Her Private Life (1929)
• Sarah and Son (1930)
• Anybody's Woman (1930)
• The Right to Love (1930)
• Working Girls (1931)
• The Greeks Had a Word for Them (1932)
• Christopher Strong (1933)
• Outcast Lady (1934)
• Accused (1936)
• Lady of Secrets (1936)
• Camille (1936)
• The Old Maid (1939)
• Zaza (1939)

References

External links

• Works by or about Zoe Akins at Internet Archive
• Works by Zoe Akins at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Zoe Akins at IMDb
• Zoe Akins at the Internet Broadway Database
• Index Entry for Zoe Akins at Poets' Corner