Donald Ogden Stewart
Donald Ogden Stewart (November 30, 1894 August 2, 1980) was an American writer and screenwriter best known for his sophisticated golden age comedies and melodramas, such as The Philadelphia Story (based on the play by Philip Barry), Tarnished Lady and Love Affair. Stewart worked with a number of the directors of his time, including George Cukor (a frequent collaborator), Michael Curtiz and Ernst Lubitsch. Stewart was a member of the Algonquin Round Table and, with Ernest Hemingway's friend Bill Smith, the model for Bill Gorton in The Sun Also Rises.
Donald Ogden Stewart
Nickolas Muray · Authors of the Day: Studies in Contemporary Literature, 1924, pages 132–133 · Public domain
- Name
- Donald Ogden Stewart
- Born
- 30 November 1894
- Birthplace
- Columbus, Ohio
- Died
- 2 August 1980
- Place of death
- London, England
- Awards
- Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay1940 The Philadelphia Story
- Nationality
- United States
- Occupation
- screenwriter · playwright · librettist · actor · art collector · writer
- Education
- Yale University
- Honours
- Academy Award for Best Writing and Adapted Screenplay
- Languages
- English
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
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Documentary summary
Donald Ogden Stewart (November 30, 1894 August 2, 1980) was an American writer and screenwriter best known for his sophisticated golden age comedies and melodramas, such as The Philadelphia Story (based on the play by Philip Barry), Tarnished Lady and Love Affair. Stewart worked with a number of the directors of his time, including George Cukor (a frequent collaborator), Michael Curtiz and Ernst Lubitsch. Stewart was a member of the Algonquin Round Table and, with Ernest Hemingway's friend Bill Smith, the model for Bill Gorton in The Sun Also Rises.
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Note VALÉORINE
Donald Ogden Stewart (1894–1980) was an American actor, art collector and dramaturge, among other activities. Born in Columbus, the actor died in London.
Donald Ogden Stewart studied at Yale University. The actor was a member of Algonquin Round Table.
Languages used include English. Works by Donald Ogden Stewart are held at Harvard Film Archive. The actor received Academy Award for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 29 September 2026
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Documentary evidence
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Authority files
wikidata · Q507861 · wikipedia · Donald Ogden Stewart
In this article
Biography
Biography
His 1922 parody on etiquette, Perfect Behavior, published by George H. Doran and Co., was a favorite book of P.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Donald Ogden Stewart • Born — 30 November 1894 • Birthplace — Columbus, Ohio • Died — 2 August 1980 • Place of death — London, England • Awards — Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay1940 The Philadelphia Story
Life and career
Life and career
His hometown was Columbus, Ohio. He graduated from Yale University, where he became a brother to the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Phi chapter), in 1916, and served in the U.S. Naval Reserve in World War I. After the war he started to write, and found success with A Parody Outline of History, a satire of The Outline of History (1920) by H. G. Wells. This led him to becoming a member of the Algonquin Round Table. Around that time a friend of his got him interested in theater and he became a playwright on Broadway in the 1920s. He was friends with Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley, George S. Kaufman, and Ernest Hemingway, who partly based the character of Bill Gorton in The Sun Also Rises on Stewart. In 1924, he wrote Mr. and Mrs. Haddock Abroad for the publishing house George H. Doran, a send-up of the "ugly American" tourist. He became interested in adapting some of his plays to film, but on first entering Hollywood he had to adapt the plays of others as his own were initially shelved. Once there he mostly wrote, but he also had a small acting part in the film Not So Dumb. By the 1930s, he had become known primarily as a screenwriter, and won an Academy Award for The Philadelphia Story (1940). As World War II approached, he became a member of the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, and admitted to being a member of the Communist Party USA at one of its public meetings. During the Second Red Scare, Stewart was blacklisted in 1950; the following year, he and his wife, activist and writer Ella Winter (they had married in 1939), emigrated to England. In 1968, he signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. His 1975 memoir is entitled By a Stroke of Luck. Stewart died in London on the 2nd August 1980. His widow died three days later. Stewart had two sons from a previous marriage.
As an actor
As an actor
• Holiday (1928) Nick Potter • Humorous Flights (1929) Donald Ogden Stewart • Night Club (1929/I) • Not So Dumb (1930) Skylar Van Dyke/Horace Patterson
Journalism
Journalism
• "The Love Life of Jimmy Durante", Photoplay, August 1932, p. 58.
Identity
Identity
Donald Ogden Stewart is recorded as screenwriter, playwright, librettist, actor and art collector.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1980
Donald Ogden Stewart died at London.
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.
Columbus.
Birth place
London.
Death place
As a writer
• Brown of Harvard (1926) (adaptation) • Humorous Flights (1929) • Traffic Regulations (1929) • Laughter (1930) • Rebound (1931) (based on his play of the same name) • Tarnished Lady (1931) • Finn and Hattie (1931) (novel Mr and Mrs Haddock Abroad) • Smilin' Through (1932) (dialogue) • Dinner at Eight (1933) (additional dialogue) • Going Hollywood (1933) • Another Language (1933) • The White Sister (1933) • Manhattan Melodrama (1934) • The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) • No More Ladies (1935) • The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) (additional dialogue) • Marie Antoinette (1938) (screenplay) • Holiday (1938) (screenplay) • The Night of Nights (1939) (also story) • Love Affair (1939) • Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman (1940) (additional dialogue), aka Kitty Foyle (USA: short title) • The Philadelphia Story (1940) (screenplay) • Smilin' Through (1941) (screenplay) • A Woman's Face (1941) • That Uncertain Feeling (1941) (screenplay), aka Ernst Lubitsch's That Uncertain Feeling (USA: complete title) • Keeper of the Flame (1942) (screenplay) • Tales of Manhattan (1942) • Forever and a Day (1943) • Without Love (1945) • Cass Timberlane (1947) (adaptation) • Life with Father (1947) • Edward, My Son (1949) • The Prisoner of Zenda (1952) (additional dialogue) (originally uncredited) • Summertime (1955) (uncredited) • An Affair to Remember (1957) (originally uncredited) • Love and Death (1975) (uncredited)
Film portrayal
Stewart was portrayed by the actor and playwright David Gow in the 1994 film Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle.
Literature
Literature
Literature
To Donald Ogden Stewart, 3 November 1924, The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2013
To Donald Ogden Stewart, [7 February 1931], The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2017
To Donald Ogden Stewart, 28 December [1930], The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2017
To Donald Ogden Stewart, [c. early July 1924], The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, 2013
Scholarly footprint
Literature
Scholarly footprint
A count of publications is evidence of attention, not of standing, and is given here only as a measure.
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.Donald O. Stewart, Screenwriter, Dies; Writer of Screenplay for the Movie 'Philadelphia Story' Was Also Well Known for Parodies. The New York Times. August 3, 1980. 0362-4331.
- 2.Writers and Editors War Tax Protest. New York Post. January 30, 1968. 1090-3321.
- 3.Cook, Joan. Ella Winter Stewart, Journalist and Widow Of Donald O. Stewart; Was War Correspondent Back After 17 Years. The New York Times. August 5, 1980. 0362-4331.
- 4.Allen, Woody. Woody Allen: Interviews, Revised and Updated. Univ. Press of Mississippi. xxxiii. 2016. 978-1-4968-0440-2.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Wikidata, structured authority record Q507861: Donald Ogden StewartWikimedia Foundation
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
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 15 August 2026.
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