Born: 26 December 1906, United States
Died: 9 September 1998
Country most active: United States
Also known as:
The following is excerpted from Infinite Women creator Allison Tyra’s book Uncredited: Women’s Overlooked, Misattributed, and Stolen Work.
1940s film writer Catherine Turney was known for writing great women characters—strong, independent, and funny. Her films included The Man I Love (1947), A Stolen Life (1946), My Reputation (1946) and Mildred Pierce (1945). Even though Warner Brothers, film historians, and the Screenwriters Guild all agree Turney was the primary script writer, she did not receive on-screen credit for Mildred Pierce. So, when it was nominated for Best Screenplay Writing at the 1946 Academy Awards, she was not named—only Ranald MacDougall was.
“At Warner Bros., women writers were not particularly highly thought of. We were seen as a necessary evil and were seldom paid as much as the men,” Turney told The Advocate in 1984. “I think the only reason that they put up with women writers, certainly at Warner’s, was that they had big women stars. At one time they had Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Ann Sheridan, and Ida Lupino. All of them were under contract and demanded stories slanted toward women.”