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Photo of Gene Markey

Gene Markey

Producer, Writer, Additional Credits
Born December 11, 1895Died May 1, 1980 (84 years)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eugene Willford "Gene" Markey (December 11, 1895 – May 1, 1980) was an American author, producer, screenwriter, and highly decorated naval officer.

Early life

Markey was born in Michigan in the year 1895. His father, Eugene Lawrence Markey, was a colonel in the United States Army. His uncle, Daniel P. Markey, had been Speaker of the Michigan House of Representatives. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1918.

Chicago

He was a skilled sketch artist, which gained him entry, after World War I, into the Art Institute of Chicago starting in 1919 and finishing in 1920. There, he claimed to have "studied painting and learned nothing". After that, he worked as a journalist in Chicago for several newspapers and magazines, including Photoplay magazine. It was during the 1920s that Gene Markey first became a writer, specializing in novels about the Jazz Age. Among his titles were Anabel; Stepping High; Women, Women, Everywhere; and His Majesty's Pyjamas. His book "Literary Lights" (March 1923, Alfred A. Knopf, New York) was a collection of fifty of America's most important literary authors of the day. He personally sketched each caricature.

Hollywood

He went to Hollywood in 1929 and became a screenwriter for Twentieth Century Fox. His screen credits included King of Burlesque (1936) starring Alice Faye, Girls' Dormitory (1936) featuring Herbert Marshall, and On the Avenue (1937), starring Dick Powell, Madeleine Carroll, and Alice Faye. He was also the producer of the 1937 Shirley Temple film, Wee Willie Winkie, among others.

Although he was not overly handsome, he was a very skilled conversationalist and he quickly became a popular fixture in Hollywood society. Among his good friends in Hollywood were producer John Hay Whitney, composer Irving Berlin, and actors Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Ward Bond and John Wayne. He would often go fishing with Bond and Wayne off Catalina Island. A 1946 article in the Washington Times Herald said, "Other Men Say: What's Gene Markey Got That We Haven't Got?" The article ran a photo of Rudolph Valentino with the caption, "NOT SO HOT – By Comparison. Though all American womanhood swooned over him in his day, Rudolph Valentino was no Markey." Soon after he arrived in Hollywood in 1929, it was also reported that, "Markey became the most sought after unattached man in the cinema firmament, so sprinkled with far handsomer, richer male stars." Markey was married three times to prominent film actresses. His first wife was Joan Bennett, from 1932 to 1937 (which produced a daughter, Melinda, in 1934). He was married to Hedy Lamarr from 1939 to 1940 and to Myrna Loy from 1946 to 1950. At first, Loy claimed mental cruelty, but later retracted it, saying, "He could make a scrubwoman think she was a queen and he could make a queen think she was the queen of queens."

More information can be found at Wikipedia.

Movies & Shows on Plex

  • The Little Princess

Known For

  • The Little Princess
  • The Hound of the Baskervilles
  • Baby Face
  • The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
  • The Blue Bird
  • Wee Willie Winkie
  • Female
  • The Florodora Girl
  • As You Desire Me
  • Kentucky
  • West of Broadway
  • Midnight Mary
  • Lillian Russell
  • Lilly Turner
  • Suez
  • Fashions of 1934
  • Glory
  • King of Burlesque
  • Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise)

Gene Markey Filmography

1947
1940
1940
Lillian Russell · as Associate Producer
1940
The Blue Bird · as Associate Producer
1939
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes · as Associate Producer
1939
1939
The Hound of the Baskervilles · as Associate Producer
1939
The Little Princess · as Associate Producer
1938
1938
Submarine Patrol · as Associate Producer
1938
Suez · as Associate Producer
1938
Josette · as Associate Producer
1938
1937
Wee Willie Winkie · as Associate Producer
1937
On the Avenue · as Associate Producer

1953
1949
If This Be Sin · as Screenplay
1947
Moss Rose · as Contributing Writer
1937
On the Avenue · as Screenplay
1936
Girls' Dormitory · as Screenplay
1936
1936
1936
King of Burlesque · as Screenplay
1934
A Lost Lady · as Screenplay
1934
The Merry Frinks · as Screenplay
1934
A Modern Hero · as Screenplay
1933
Baby Face · as Screenplay
1933
1933
Midnight Mary · as Screenplay
1933
Lilly Turner · as Screenplay
1933
Luxury Liner · as Screenplay
1931
West of Broadway · as Screenplay
1931
1931
1931
1930
1929

1956
Glory · as Story
1938
Submarine Patrol · as Contributor
1936
The Big Noise · as Story
1934
Fashions of 1934 · as Adaptation
1932
As You Desire Me · as Adaptation
1929
Close Harmony · as Story
1929
Syncopation · as Author
1927
Range Courage · as Story "blinky"

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