Elmer Blaney Harris

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Elmer Blaney Harris
Chicago, Illinois
DiedSeptember 6, 1966(1966-09-06) (aged 88)
OccupationAuthor - Dramatist - Playwright

Elmer Blaney Harris (January 11, 1878 – September 6, 1966) was an American author,

dramatist
, and playwright.

Biography

Harris's summer home in Prince Edward Island.

Harris was born in

Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the mother of William Randolph Hearst
. With her financial backing, Harris was able to study in New York City and Europe for the next four years.

When he returned to San Francisco, he became a newspaper reporter for the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, and lectured at clubs and universities on authors and playwrights, such as

Carmel-by-the-Sea artists' colony. At Carmel he dramatized his first play, Sham, a short story by Geraldine Bonner
.

Harris was married in 1908, and after his honeymoon he built a summer home in Fortune Bridge, Prince Edward Island, helping to establish a second artists' colony there. At Fortune Bridge he worked on his next three plays, The Offenders (1908), Trial Marriage (1909), and Thy Neighbor's Wife (1911). During this period, he divided his time between Fortune Bridge and New York City.

When

Fosdick Commission
. He was also stationed in San Diego.

After the war he wrote his first screenplay, Lottery Man, in 1919. For the next twenty years he would be very prolific, collaborating on, directing, adapting, or supervising the production of almost 35 silent and "sound" films. He would live half the time in New York City, writing for the

talkies
".

His best known film was probably Johnny Belinda, released in 1948. He would base the story on the residents of the local area of his summer home in Fortune Bridge, and actual events that occurred there. The title character was based on Lydia Dingwell (1852–1931) of Dingwells Mills, Prince Edward Island.

Elmer Blaney Harris died at age 88 in Washington, D.C.

Partial filmography

External links