DeWitt Bodeen (July 25, 1908 – March 12, 1988) was an American film

screenwriter A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...

and

television writer A screenwriter (also called scriptwriter, scribe, or scenarist) is a person who practices the craft of writing for visual mass media, known as screenwriting. These can include short films, feature-length films, television programs, television ...

best known for writing '' Cat People'' (1942).

Biography

Born Homer DeWitt Bodeen on July 25, 1908, in

Fresno Fresno (; ) is a city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County, California, Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley (California), Central Valley region. It covers a ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, he began his career as an actor and wrote more than 20 plays before entering the film business. He began his career in the film industry when his stage work drew the attention of film writer and producer

Val Lewton Val Lewton (May 7, 1904 – March 14, 1951) was a Russian-American novelist, film producer, and screenwriter best known for a string of low-budget horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s. His son, also named Val Lewton, was a pai ...

, who arranged for Bodeen to work as a research assistant to British novelist

Aldous Huxley Aldous Leonard Huxley ( ; 26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction novel, non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems. Born into the ...

. He published his first book-length contribution to entertainment history in 1937, ''Ladies of the Footlights'', a slim volume of theater celebrity profiles. Republished in 2013 by Literary Licensing. In the late 1930s, he began working for RKO and worked his way up to a script writer. His screenwriting credits include ''Cat People'' (1942), ''

The Curse of the Cat People ''The Curse of the Cat People'' is a 1944 American psychological supernatural thriller filmEggert, Brian (October 22, 2017)"The Curse of the Cat People" Deep Focus Review. Retrieved 2019-03-16. directed by Gunther von Fritsch and Robert Wise, ...

'' (1944), '' The Seventh Victim'' (1943), '' The Enchanted Cottage'' (1945), '' I Remember Mama'' (1948), '' Night Song'' (1948), and ''

Billy Budd ''Billy Budd, Sailor (An Inside Narrative)'', also known as ''Billy Budd, Foretopman'', is a novella by American writer Herman Melville, left unfinished at his death in 1891. Acclaimed by critics as a masterpiece when a hastily transcribed vers ...

'' (1962). His play ''Harvest of Years'' premiered on Broadway in January 1948. It ran for two weeks. Beginning in the 1950s he moved to television, writing mainly for anthology shows including ''

Robert Montgomery Presents ''Robert Montgomery Presents'' is an American drama (film and television), drama television series which was produced by NBC from January 30, 1950, until June 24, 1957. The Live television, live show had several sponsors during its eight-year run ...

'', ''

Climax! ''Climax!'' (later known as ''Climax Mystery Theater'') is an American television anthology series that aired on CBS from 1954 to 1958. The series was hosted by William Lundigan and later co-hosted by Mary Costa. It was one of the few CBS pro ...

'', and ''

Schlitz Playhouse of Stars ''Schlitz Playhouse of Stars'' is an anthology series that was telecast from 1951 until 1959 on CBS. Offering both comedies and drama, the series was sponsored by the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company. The title was shortened to ''Schlitz Playh ...

'' among others. Bodeen was gay. In the 1950s he was

Val Dufour Albert Valéry Dufour II (February 5, 1927 – July 27, 2000), known as Val Dufour, was an American actor. Early years Dufour was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. A. V. Dufour, were of Parisian French descent. He m ...

's companion, living with him. In his later years he became a historian of Hollywood and the film industry. He wrote articles for the journal ''

Films in Review The National Board of Review of Motion Pictures is a non-profit organization of New York City area film enthusiasts. Its awards, which are announced in early December, are considered the first major harbinger of the film awards season that ...

'' and ''Focus on Film''. His books included ''The Films of Cecil B. DeMille'' (1969), ''The Films and Career of Maurice Chevalier'' (1973), ''From Hollywood!: the careers of 15 great American stars'' (1972), and ''More from Hollywood!: the careers of 15 great American stars'' (1977). He wrote one novel, the 1975 gothic ''

roman à clef A ''roman à clef'' ( ; ; ) is a novel about real-life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people and the "key" is the relationship between the non-fiction and the fiction. This m ...

'' mystery ''13 Castle Walk'', which fictionalized the unsolved 1922 murder of film director

William Desmond Taylor William Desmond Taylor (born William Cunningham Deane-Tanner; 26 April 1872 – 1 February 1922) was an Anglo-Irish-American film director and actor. A popular figure in the growing Cinema of the United States, Hollywood motion picture colony o ...

. He was still writing in 1979 at the age of 70, when he lived at the Motion Picture Country Home in

Woodland Hills, Los Angeles Woodland Hills is a neighborhood bordering the Santa Monica Mountains in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California, United States. History The area was inhabited for around 8,000 years by Native Americans in the United States, ...

. He died there on March 12, 1988.

Notes

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bodeen, Dewitt 1908 births 1988 deaths American male screenwriters American television writers American male television writers 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American screenwriters Hugo Award–winning writers American gay writers