Lenore Jackson Coffee (July 13, 1896 – July 2, 1984) was an American screenwriter, playwright, and novelist.
Born in San Francisco, in 1896, Lenore Coffee attended Dominican College in San Rafael, California. In 1918, she answered an ad in the Motion Pictures Herald Exhibitors, requesting a screen story for actress Clara Kimball Young. Coffee wrote a story treatment titled The Better Wife (1919), which was acquired by Harry Garson. He paid Coffee one hundred dollars and gave her screen credit. Garson soon hired her on a yearly contract, where she served as a continuity girl, assistant director, and made editing suggestions.
By 1920, Garson closed his studio, and Coffee found subsequent work in writing title cards and editing several films. In 1923, she was hired by Irving Thalberg, then working for Louis B. Mayer Pictures, to write title cards and adapt novels into scripts. A year later, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) was formed and Coffee continued her screenwriting career there. However, she left MGM after she had a salary dispute with Louis B. Mayer. Cecil B. DeMille later hired Coffee to write several films for him, including The Volga Boatman (1926). When sound films emerged, DeMille joined MGM and Coffee returned to writing numerous MGM films.
In 1937, Coffee left MGM again and wrote numerous scripts for Fox Film Corporation and Warner Bros. In 1939, she was jointly nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Four Daughters (1938) alongside Julius J. Epstein. Meanwhile, Coffee co-wrote a play titled Family Portrait: A Play in Three Acts with her husband William J. Cowen. At Warner Bros., Coffee wrote several women's films, including The Great Lie (1941) and Old Acquaintance (1943).
By the 1950s, Coffee published her first novel Weep No More. It was retitled in the United States as Another Time, Another Place and adapted into a 1958 film starring Lana Turner. Coffee then relocated her family to England. After her husband's death in 1964, she returned to California and retired to the Motion Picture And Television Home in Woodland Hills. In 1984, Coffee died at the age of 87.
Early life Lenore Jackson Coffee was born in San Francisco in 1896 to Andrew Jackson Coffee Jr. and Ella Muffley. Her parents were frequent attendees for the Orpheum Theatre. She relates one story when her grandmother's maid (who was known as Old' Annie") became lost on their way to the Orpheum and arrived at the Alcazar. There, they saw the play Camille.
When Coffee was sixteen, she felt determined to become an actress. Her mother took her to a play, which starred Henry Miller. Coffee performed a monologue before Miller, who was seated on the front row of an empty theatre. Impressed, Miller asked her to join him to New York next April. By this time, Coffee was studying at the Dominican College in San Rafael, California. Her father arranged a deal, in which she would finish her last year in college first and then travel to New York. When the time arrived, her parents had divorced and her father felt she should pursue writing. When she was not interested, Coffee took her writings, tore the pages into pieces, and handed them to her father inside a cardboard box.
Disappointed at the lost opportunity, Coffee became interested in motion pictures. She wrote: "They took my mind off the theatre in one way, for the form was new, yet they satisfied the dramatic and emotional demands of my nature." She resumed her writing career and worked in advertising for a newspaper in Chinatown. She next worked as an assistant for the Emporium department store. There, she was asked to write a copy advertisement for the Sunday newspaper. Coffee stated, "I built the ad on the premise of how to dress well on a medium salary. I started out by saying, 'How would you like to buy a full wardrobe at the Emporium for $300? You'd think: Hopeless! And so it would be if it weren't for the Emporium'..." The next day, the ad caused an influx of customers. The store owner praised Coffee's ad and gave her a three-week vacation.
One day, she answered an advertisement in the Motion Pictures Herald Exhibitors, requesting a screen story for actress Clara Kimball Young. She submitted her original story treatment titled The Better Wife (1919) and was later paid $100 (). She also requested through telegraph to be given screen credit. In March 1918, she introduced herself to Harry Garson at the St. Francis Hotel. There, she was hired on a one-year contract at $50 a week. The film was released in 1919, which premiered at the Criterion Theatre.
Career 1919–1920: Writing for Harry Garson Coffee relocated to Los Angeles. By the time she arrived, Garson and Young had left for New York. She was instead taken to Louis B. Mayer Pictures, where its namesake founder dropped her weekly salary to $30 a week. She was hired to review the studio's optioned properties and selected the appropriate titles to be adapted into films. She selected a novel titled The Fighting Shepherdess, intended for Anita Stewart. After eight weeks, Coffee received a call from Garson requesting her availability. Because Mayer was unavailable, she explained the situation to his assistant Benny Zeidman. She left and reported back to Garson and was given her back pay.
At Garson's studio, she was hired in a position known today as a script supervisor (also called the "continuity girl") where she read the fan mail for Clara Kimball Young, submitted original stories, made editing notes, and wrote screen title cards. There, her first work was for Eyes of Youth (1919), in which she contributed editorial suggestions. She wrote: "I became so interested in production details that I began, on my own, to make cutting notes. For example, when the director called to the cameraman for a close-up, I would make a note of where he intended it to be used in the picture."
Coffee wrote her second story for The Forbidden Woman (1920), with Young and Conway Tearle in the leading roles. Two days were spent filming on location in San Francisco, with the remainder shot in studio. Coffee next co-wrote the story for Hush (1921) with Sada Cowan. In 1920, Garson purchased the screen rights to the play Mid-channel by Arthur Wing Pinero. An English director had been fired due to creative differences and Garson became the new director. During filming, Garson feuded with an assistant director who did not understand his instructions. The assistant director was also fired, and Coffee was promptly hired to take his place. Her responsibility involved script breakdown for the various departments during the production, including the actors.
1920–1923: Titling and editing jobs
After Mid-Channel (1920) was released, Garson decided to close his studio and moved to the East Coast for more financing. Sometime later, Louis Anger hired Coffee after a friend had recommended her to write title cards and re-edit two films. She was hired at her proposed salary of $1,000 on each film. Within ten days, she had reassembled a rough cut and screened it to Anger and Lew Cody. Both men were pleased and made further suggestions. Coffee restructured the second film and had the actors return for iris shots, which she directed.
Following this job, Coffee was approached by Sam Roark to write title cards and edit six films, starring Australian actor Snowy Baker. The editing job was done at Colonel Selig's Zoo. There, Coffee received a message to see Irving Thalberg in his office at Universal Studios. Thalberg offered to hire her on a yearly contract for $200 a week to write film scenarios. By then, Coffee had only written original stories. Meanwhile, she received a counteroffer from Metro Pictures, with a proposed salary of $250 a week. She informed Thalberg she had accepted Metro Pictures' offer.
At Metro Pictures, Coffee spent two years working with playwright Bayard Veiller, which she considered as her apprenticeship as a scenarist. During her time there, Roscoe Arbuckle had been accused of rape and manslaughter, which indirectly caused the formation of the Motion Production Code. By winter 1921, Coffee handed her first completed script to Veiller, with Bert Lydell intended to star. She and Veiller made further revisions, which included polishing the dialogue. However, Metro Pictures foreclosed and Veiller moved back to New York. With one year left on her contract, Coffee relocated to New York with Veiller and Lydell.
In New York, she stayed there for three years. She worked as a playwright and was later paid six times her starting salary. Coffee was approached by Max Karger, the former financial head of Metro Pictures, and was given a three-picture deal in Hollywood. Karger left on a train to Hollywood, but Coffee stayed behind. She went to the Ambassador Hotel and met Thomas Ince. He wanted her to write a script for him, but she informed Ince that Karger had already hired her. However, Karger was found dead from a heart attack on a train.
With her contract now void, Coffee signed a six-week contract with Ince and worked on a story acquired by Parker Reid. In Pasadena, she clashed with Clark Thomas, the studio production manager, whom Coffee claimed, resented her hiring. Her contract expired and her job was left unfinished. Afterwards, Irving Thalberg, now working for Mayer Pictures, hired her to write title cards for John Stahl's The Dangerous Age, which starred Lewis Stone and Florence Vidor.
By 1923, Coffee wrote the scenario for Daytime Wives and was again involved in the editing. She also wrote the first script draft for the 1926 film adaptation of The Winning of Barbara Worth, though Frances Marion received the film's sole writing credit.
1924: Career at MGM In the spring of 1924, Coffee collaborated with Thalberg, his assistant Paul Bern, Bess Meredyth, and director Fred Niblo on a script adaptation of Captain Applejack. In April of the same year, Metro Studios (then owned by Loews Theatres), Goldwyn Studios, and Louis B. Mayer Pictures merged to form a conglomerate studio known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM).
Relocated in Culver City, Thalberg employed as many as 108 screenwriters so he would not have to borrow them from a rival studio. After the merger, Thalberg requested Coffee's opinion on the script for The Great Divide (1925). She recommended Norma Shearer for the lead female role, but Thalberg disagreed stating: "Impossible. No one would believe that she would allow herself to be raped, in any circumstances. She looks too well able to take care of herself." Alice Terry was cast instead.
In 1924, Coffee married William J. Cowen. When she returned from her honeymoon, Coffee wrote a story outline titled Stepmother and submitted it to Harry Rapf. He liked the story, though he was reluctant to pay her the $5,000 salary she requested. The next day, Mayer called her into his studio office. There, he harshly scolded her to accept a $2,500 salary or "get the hell out of the studio." Coffee declined to take a lower salary, in which Mayer called her a "cold, selfish, mercenary, unscrupulous woman." Offended, she packed her belongings and left the studio lot.
1924–1928: Working for Cecil B. DeMille During her honeymoon, Coffee learned that Paramount Pictures had acquired the screen rights to Ferenc Molnár's 1920 play The Swan, with Dimitri Buchowetzki to direct. The Swan (1925) went into production at Paramount with Clare Eames as Alexandra, but she was deemed too mature for the role after a few days of filming. She was replaced by Frances Howard, who later became the second wife of producer Samuel Goldwyn. Months after she left MGM, Coffee was asked by Fox Film Corporation to write the script for East Lynne (1925). She wrote: "It was a terribly old-fashioned story but I was so glad to be at work again that I took it."