Charles Brackett
Charles William Brackett (November 26, 1892 – March 9, 1969) was an American screenwriter and film producer. He collaborated with Billy Wilder on sixteen films.
Also recorded as Charles William Brackett
Charles Brackett
- Name
- Charles Brackett
- Born
- 26 November 1892
- Birthplace
- Saratoga Springs, New York, U.S.
- Died
- 9 March 1969
- Place of death
- Beverly Hills, California, U.S.
- Education
- Williams College
- Occupation
- Screenwriter, producer
- Nationality
- United States
- Honours
- Writers Guild of America Award · Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay · Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay · Academy Award for Best Writing and Adapted Screenplay · Academy Honorary Award
- Languages
- English
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Documentary summary
Charles William Brackett (November 26, 1892 – March 9, 1969) was an American screenwriter and film producer. He collaborated with Billy Wilder on sixteen films.
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Note VALÉORINE
Charles Brackett (1892–1969) was a film director, producer and screenwriter, among other activities, of American nationality. The film director was born in Saratoga Springs and died in Los Angeles. Charles Brackett was educated at Harvard Law School and Williams College.
Languages used include English. Works are held at Harvard Film Archive. Honours include Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay, Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay and Academy Honorary Award, among others.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 27 September 2026
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wikidata · Q385055 · wikipedia · Charles Brackett
In this article
Biography
Biography
Charles Brackett studied at Williams College and Harvard Law School. The recorded working language is English. Work by Charles Brackett is recorded in the collections of Harvard Film Archive. Distinctions recorded are Writers Guild of America Award, Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay, Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay and Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Charles Brackett • Born — 26 November 1892 • Birthplace — Saratoga Springs, New York, U.S. • Died — 9 March 1969 • Place of death — Beverly Hills, California, U.S. • Education — Williams College • Children — 2 • Occupation — Screenwriter, producer • Years Active — 1925–1962
Life and career
Life and career
Brackett was born in Saratoga Springs, New York, the son of Mary Emma Corliss and New York State Senator, lawyer, and banker Edgar Truman Brackett. The family's roots traced back to the arrival of Richard Brackett in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1629. His mother's uncle, George Henry Corliss, built the Centennial Engine that powered the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. A 1915 graduate of Williams College, he earned his law degree from Harvard University. He joined the Allied Expeditionary Force during World War I, and was awarded the French Medal of Honor. He was a frequent contributor to the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, and Vanity Fair, and a drama critic for The New Yorker. He wrote five novels: The Counsel of the Ungodly (1920), Week-End (1925), That Last Infirmity (1926), American Colony (1929),[1] and Entirely Surrounded (1934). Brackett was a president of the Screen Writers Guild (1938–1939) and for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (1949–1955). He either wrote and/or produced over forty films, including To Each His Own, Ninotchka, The Major and the Minor, The Mating Season (1951), Niagara, The King and I, Ten North Frederick, The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker and Blue Denim. Beginning in August 1936, Brackett worked with Billy Wilder, writing the film classics The Lost Weekend and Sunset Boulevard, both of which won Academy Awards for their respective screenplays. Brackett described their collaboration process as follows: "The thing to do was suggest an idea, have it torn apart and despised. In a few days it would be apt to turn up, slightly changed, as Wilder's idea. Once I got adjusted to that way of working, our lives were simpler."[2] His partnership with Wilder ended in 1950 and Brackett went to work at 20th Century-Fox as a screenwriter and producer. His script for Titanic (1953) won him another Academy Award. He received an Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1958. Brackett died on March 9, 1969.[3] His diaries covering his screenwriting and social life from 1932 to 1949 were edited by Anthony Slide into Slide's book It's the Pictures That Got Small: Charles Brackett on Billy Wilder and Hollywood's Golden Age.
Personal life
Personal life
Brackett married Elizabeth Barrows Fletcher in 1919. They had two daughters, Alexandra Corliss Brackett and Elizabeth Fletcher Brackett. His wife died in 1948, and in 1953, Brackett married Lillian Fletcher, her sister. They had no children.[4] Brackett was a Republican who voted for Alf Landon in 1936 and supported Barry Goldwater in the 1964 United States presidential election.[5]
Works
Works
*
Partial filmography
Partial filmography
• Tomorrow's Love (1925) – based on a story Interlocutory • Risky Business (1926) – based on a story Pearls Before Cecily • Pointed Heels (1929) – based on a story • Secrets of a Secretary (1931) – based on a story[6] • College Scandal (1935) – writer • Without Regret (1935) – writer • The Last Outpost (1935) – writer • Rose of the Rancho (1936) – writer • Woman Trap (1936) – writer • Piccadilly Jim (1936) – writer • Live, Love and Learn (1937) – writer • Bluebeard's Eighth Wife (1938)* – writer • What a Life (1939)* – writer • Ninotchka (1939)* – writer • Arise, My Love (1940)* – writer • Hold Back the Dawn (1941)* – writer • Ball of Fire (1941)* – writer • The Major and the Minor (1942)* – writer • Five Graves to Cairo (1943)* – writer, producer • The Uninvited (1944) – producer • The Lost Weekend (1945)* – producer, writer • To Each His Own (1946) – writer, producer • The Bishop's Wife (1947) – uncredited writer • A Foreign Affair (1948)* – writer, producer • The Emperor Waltz (1948)* – writer, producer • Miss Tatlock's Millions (1948) – writer, producer • Sunset Boulevard (1950)* – writer, producer • Edge of Doom (1950) – writer (uncredited) • The Mating Season (1951) – writer, producer • The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951) – writer, producer • Niagara (1953) – writer, producer • Titanic (1953) – writer, producer • Woman's World (1954) – producer • Garden of Evil (1954) – producer • The Virgin Queen (1955) – producer • The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955) – writer, producer • Teenage Rebel (1956) – writer, producer • The King and I (1956) – producer • D-Day the Sixth of June (1956) – producer • The Wayward Bus (1957) – producer • The Gift of Love (1958) – producer • Ten North Frederick (1958) – producer • The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker (1959) – producer • Blue Denim (1959) – producer • Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959) – writer, producer • High Time (1960) – producer • State Fair (1962) – producer ("*" indicates collaboration with Wilder)
Identity
Identity
Indexed under Global Cancer Incidence and Screening, Opioid Use Disorder Treatment, Colorectal Cancer Screening and Detection, Prostate Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment, Patient-Provider Communication in Healthcare. Associated with Dartmouth College, Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Dartmouth–Hitchcock Medical Center, Yale University. Recorded as screenwriter, writer, film director and producer.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1892
Charles Brackett born at Saratoga Springs.
1969
Charles Brackett died at Los Angeles.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Saratoga Springs.
Birth place
Los Angeles.
Death place
Recognition and collections
Where the work is held
Recognition and collections
Charles Brackett received Writers Guild of America Award, Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay, Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Screenplay, Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay and Academy Honorary Award.
Documents and archives
Primary material
Documents and archives
reference work
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q385055: Charles Brackett
Reputable secondary · Wikidata
- “Charles Brackett”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
scholarly index
- OpenAlex author record A5001097757 for Charles Brackett.
Unverified · OpenAlex
authority file
Academy Awards
• Year — Category — Film — Result — Shared with • 1939 — Best Adapted Screenplay — Ninotchka — Billy Wilder & Walter Reisch • 1941 — Best Adapted Screenplay — Hold Back the Dawn — Billy Wilder • 1945 — Best Picture — The Lost Weekend • 1945 — Best Adapted Screenplay — The Lost Weekend — Billy Wilder • 1946 — Best Story — To Each His Own • 1948 — Best Adapted Screenplay — A Foreign Affair — Billy Wilder & Richard L. Breen • 1950 — Best Picture — Sunset Boulevard • 1950 — Best Original Screenplay — Sunset Boulevard — Billy Wilder & D. M. Marshman Jr. • 1953 — Best Original Screenplay — Titanic — Richard L. Breen & Walter Reisch • 1956 — Best Picture — The King and I • 1957 — Honorary Award
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.See Drewey Wayne Gunn, Gay American Novels, 1870–1970: A Reader's Guide (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2016), 21-22.
- 2.Brackett, Charles, It's the Pictures That Got Small, Columbia University Press, 2015, pg. 92
- 3.Charles Brackett Dies at 77; Made Oscar-Winning Movies. 'Sunset Boulevard,' 'The Lost Weekend' and 'Titanic' among his successes. The New York Times. March 10, 1969.
- 4.Hopper, H. Charlie Brackett marries sister of his first wife. Los Angeles Times. December 27, 1953.
- 5.Critchlow, Donald T. When Hollywood Was Right: How Movie Stars, Studio Moguls, and Big Business Remade American Politics. Cambridge University Press. October 21, 2013. 978-1-107-65028-2.
- 6.Secrets of a Secretary. AFI Catalog of Featured Films.
References
Citations
References
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scholarly index
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Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolvedreference work
Partially resolved
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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