Jean Rouverol
Encyclopedia
Jean Rouverol is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, actress and screenwriter
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

 who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio
Movie studio
A movie studio is a term used to describe a major entertainment company or production company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to film movies...

s in the 1950s.

Biography

Born in St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

, she is the daughter of playwright Aurania Rouverol (1886-1955), who created Andy Hardy
Andy Hardy
Andy Hardy was a fictional character played by Mickey Rooney in an MGM film series from 1937 to 1958. Spanning over 20 years, the 16 movies were based on characters in the play Skidding by Aurania Rouverol....

 and wrote many of the films in the MGM series. After being spotted in a high school production, Rouverol first acted in a Hollywood motion picture at the age of seventeen, appearing as W. C. Fields
W. C. Fields
William Claude Dukenfield , better known as W. C. Fields, was an American comedian, actor, juggler and writer...

 daughter in the comedy It's a Gift
It's a Gift
It's a Gift is a 1934 comedy film starring W. C. Fields, considered by film historians to be one of Fields' best and funniest films.It concerns the trials and tribulations of a grocery store owner as he battles a shrewish wife, an incompetent assistant, and assorted annoying children, customers,...

(1934). She continued to perform mainly in supporting roles, making another eleven films until 1940 when she married screenwriter Hugo Butler
Hugo Butler
Hugo D. Butler was a Canadian born screenwriter working in Hollywood who was blacklisted by the movie studios in the 1950s.-Biography:Born in Calgary, Alberta, his father had acted and written scripts in silent films...

.

With four children coming in quick order, Rouverol did not return to film acting but throughout the 1940s performed on radio, including playing Betty Carter on One Man's Family
One Man's Family
One Man's Family, is a long-running American radio soap opera. It was heard for almost three decades, from 1932 to 1959. Created by Carlton E. Morse, it was the longest-running uninterrupted serial in the history of American radio...

While her husband was away serving in the U.S. military during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, Rouverol wrote her first novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...

 which she sold to McCall's
McCall's
McCall's was a monthly American women's magazine that enjoyed great popularity through much of the 20th century, peaking at a readership of 8.4 million in the early 1960s. It was established as a small-format magazine called The Queen in 1873...

magazine in 1945. By 1950, she had her first screenplay made into a film, but her career was interrupted as a result of the investigations by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) into Communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 influence in Hollywood.

In 1943, Rouverol and her husband had joined the American Communist Party. In 1951, when agents for HUAC attempted to subpoena them, Rouverol and her husband chose self-exile to Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 with their four small children rather than face a possible prison sentence as endured by some of their friends who were dubbed the 'Hollywood Ten'. Labeled as subversives and dangerous revolutionaries by the U.S., government, they did not return to the United States on a permanent basis for thirteen years, during which time they had two more children.

While in exile, Rouverol continued to write screenplays. She also wrote short stories and articles for various American magazines to help earn money. Three screenplays she co-wrote with her husband were accepted for filming by the Hollywood studios because agent Ingo Preminger
Ingo Preminger
Ingwald "Ingo" Preminger was a film producer. He was also the literary agent for several writers, including Dalton Trumbo and Ring Lardner Jr., both of whom were blacklisted in the McCarthy era...

 (brother of director Otto Preminger
Otto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...

) arranged for friends from the Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....

 to put their names on the scripts.

In 1960 the family moved to Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 so Rouverol and her husband could work on a film script. After a few years, in 1964 they briefly lived in Mexico again, and then returned to the United States for good. Living in California again, she and her husband continued their screenplay collaboration. She also wrote a book on Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...

. However, her husband was diagnosed with arteriosclerotic brain disease and died in 1968.

In the 1970s, Rouverol returned to writing. She scripted an episode of Little House on the Prairie
Little House on the Prairie (TV series)
Little House on the Prairie is an American Western drama television series, starring Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert, about a family living on a farm in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, in the 1870s and 1880s. The show was an adaptation of Laura Ingalls Wilder's best-selling series of Little House books...

, and after publishing three books in three years, she was hired as co-head writer for the CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

 soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

 Guiding Light
Guiding Light
Guiding Light is an American daytime television drama that is credited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest running drama in television and radio history, running from 1937 until 2009...

. For this show she received a Daytime Emmy nomination and a Writers Guild of America Award
Writers Guild of America Award
The Writers Guild of America Award for outstanding achievements in film, television, and radio has been presented annually by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America, West since 1949...

. Rouverol, by then sixty years old, left the show in 1976. In 1984 Jean authored "Writing for the Soaps." She taught writing at the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

 and at UCLA Extension
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...

. She also wrote scripts for Search for Tomorrow
Search for Tomorrow
Search for Tomorrow is an American soap opera which premiered on September 3, 1951 on CBS. The show was moved from CBS to NBC on March 29, 1982. It continued on NBC until the final episode aired on December 26, 1986, a run of thirty-five years. At the time of its final broadcast it was the...

and As the World Turns
As the World Turns
As the World Turns is an American television soap opera that aired on CBS from April 2, 1956 to September 17, 2010. Irna Phillips created As the World Turns as a sister show to her other soap opera Guiding Light...

.

Rouverol served four terms on the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America and in 1987 she received the Guild's Morgan Cox Award as a member "whose vital ideas, continuing efforts and personal sacrifice" best exemplified the ideal of service to the guild.

In 2000, the very active eighty-four-year-old Rouverol published Refugees from Hollywood: A Journal of the Blacklist Years, that told the story of her family's life in exile.

Filmography

  • It's a Gift
    It's a Gift
    It's a Gift is a 1934 comedy film starring W. C. Fields, considered by film historians to be one of Fields' best and funniest films.It concerns the trials and tribulations of a grocery store owner as he battles a shrewish wife, an incompetent assistant, and assorted annoying children, customers,...

    (1934)
  • Bar 20 Rides Again (1935)
  • Mississippi (1935) (uncredited)
  • Private Worlds
    Private Worlds
    Private Worlds is a drama film which tells the story of the staff and patients at a mental hospital, and the chief of the hospital who has problems dealing with a female psychiatrist. It stars Claudette Colbert, Charles Boyer, Joel McCrea, Joan Bennett, and Helen Vinson.The movie was written by...

    (1935)
  • Fatal Lady (1936)
  • The Leavenworth Case (1936)
  • Stage Door
    Stage Door
    Stage Door is a RKO film, adapted from the play by the same name, that tells the story of several would-be actresses who live together in a boarding house at 158 West 58th Street in New York City. The film stars Ginger Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Adolphe Menjou, Gail Patrick, Constance Collier,...

    (1937)
  • The Road Back
    The Road Back (film)
    The Road Back is a 1937 drama film made by Universal Pictures, directed by James Whale. The screenplay is by Charles Kenyon and R.C. Sherriff from the eponymous novel by Erich Maria Remarque.The novel on which the film is based was banned during Nazi rule...

    (1937)
  • Western Jamboree (1938)
  • The Law West of Tombstone (1938)
  • Annabel Takes a Tour
    Annabel Takes a Tour
    Annabel Takes a Tour is a 1938 comedy directed by Lew Landers, starring Lucille Ball and Jack Oakie. Annabel is on a promotional tour and as a publicity stunt, leaks a story that she is having a romantic fling with a famous romance novelist....

    (1938)
  • Jack Pot (1940)

Screenplays

  • So Young So Bad (1950)
  • The New Pioneers (1950)
  • The First Time
    The First Time (1952 film)
    The First Time is a 1952 film directed by Frank Tashlin. It stars Robert Cummings and Barbara Hale.-Cast:*Robert Cummings as Joe Bennett*Barbara Hale as Betsy Bennett*Bill Goodwin as Mel Gilbert*Jeff Donnell as Donna Gilbert...

    (1952) (uncredited)
  • Autumn Leaves (1956) (front Jack Jevne
    Jack Jevne
    Jack Jevne was an American screenwriter. He wrote for 58 films between 1919 and 1956.He was born in Provo, Utah and died in Los Angeles, California.-Selected filmography:* Air Raid Wardens * Barnacle Bill...

    )
  • The Miracle (1959) (originally uncredited)
  • Face in the Rain (1963)
  • The Legend of Lylah Clare
    The Legend of Lylah Clare
    The Legend of Lylah Clare is a 1968 Metrocolor film directed by Robert Aldrich. The film stars Peter Finch, Kim Novak, Ernest Borgnine, Michael Murphy and Valentina Cortese. The film was based on a 1962 Dupont Show of the Week TV drama co-written by Wild in the Streets creator Robert Thom.-Plot...

    (1968)

Books

  • Harriet Beecher Stowe: Woman Crusader (1968)
  • Pancho Villa: a biography (1972)
  • Juárez, a son of the people (1973)
  • Storm Wind Rising (1974)
  • Writing for the soaps (1984)
  • Refugees from Hollywood: A Journal of the Blacklist Years (2000)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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