Ethel Doherty

Ethel Doherty (February 2, 1889 – August 12, 1974) was an American screenwriter, author, and educator active primarily in the 1920s and 1930s.

Biography

Doherty, a native of Los Angeles County, was the daughter of Dr. Alonzo Doherty (a dentist) and Sara Armsden; she spent time in California and Arizona as a child.

She began working as a history teacher in Los Angeles public schools, but by night, she busied herself writing scenarios and screenplays with her friend Louise Long, who she met while attending the University of Southern California.

Frustrated with their lack of success at selling their stories, they taught themselves shorthand and stenography and got jobs at Paramount (then Famous Players-Lasky). At night, they'd spend their time learning how to edit films.

They eventually worked their way into editing roles at Paramount, making $15 a week, before moving into screenwriting at $450 a week. Doherty's first big picture was the screen adaptation of Zane Gray's The Vanishing American in 1925. Doherty and Long worked on a number of scripts together over the courses of their careers, although they also wrote many screenplays on their own.

They worked steadily in film through the late 1930s before deciding to turn their interests to writing magazines and novels (including 1938's The Seeds of Time). The two continued to live and work together in Laguna Beach.

Selected filmography

• Rocky Mountain Mystery (1935) (adaptation)
• Home on the Range (1935)
• Sailor Be Good (1933)
• Men Are Such Fools (1932) (continuity)
• It Pays to Advertise (1931) (adaptation)
• The Saturday Night Kid (1929)
• The River of Romance (1929)
• Innocents in Paris (1929)
• Marquis Preferred (1929)
• Manhattan Cocktail (1928)
• His Private Life (1928)
• The Fifty-Fifty Girl (1928)
• The Showdown (1928) (adaptation)
• Honeymoon Hate (1927)
• Figures Don't Lie (1927)
• Hula (1927)
• Stranded in Paris (1926)
• Mantrap (1926)
• Behind the Front (1926)
• The Vanishing American (1925)