Pulitzer Prize Winning Playwright and Hollywood Screenwriter
Frances Goodrich (1990-1984), who grew up in Nutley, won the Pulitzer Prize for co-writing the play “Diary of Anne Frank,” with her husband Albert Hackett.
Goodrich spent her formative years, and later was married, in the large family home at 187 Nutley Avenue. Her first play was “Up Pops the Devil,” which was the first play produced by the Nutley Little Theatre on November 28, 1934.
Born in Belleville, Frances moved to Nutley with her family when she was two years old. She attended private school while she lived in town, and then went to Passaic Collegiate School and later to Vassar. After graduating in 1912, she went into the theater. While working in Northampton, Massachusetts, Frances met actor William Powell who later turned up in “The Thin Man” series.
After two unsuccessful marriages, it was with Albert Hackett, an actor and writer that Frances life clicked for the best. The pair wrote plays, got married, and went to the new world of Hollywood to write the words for actors to say in the “talkies.”
The Hacketts, as they were known, wrote screenplays and plays for the next thirty years. They are best known for their work on “The Thin Man” films starring Myrna Loy and William Powell. Frances and Albert were the epitome of Nick and Nora. Frances had the refined taste for the good life and had grown up in Nutley with attending servants. Albert was the wise-cracking uncle everyone would hang around at parties.
At the “writers” table at MGM during Hollywood’s Golden Age, they forged friendships with Ogden Nash, Dashiell Hammett, Dorothy Parkter, F. Scott Fitzgerald and many others. Later, when they were well known, they were instrumental in establishing the Screen Writers Guild.
They worked on the Frank Capra classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but their crowning achievement was their work on “The Diary of Anne Frank,” for which they won the Pulitzer Prize. Frances, who never had children, thought of Anne Frank as hers. Whenever she was called upon to speak about the play, it would cause her to cry.
Frances died at 94 and Albert, ten years her junior, lived to be 95.