William A. Drake
American screenwriter (1899–1965)
William A. Drake (December 9, 1899 – October 28, 1965), was an American screenwriter, playwright, and translator. He translated several German language plays for Broadway, and also adapted several German language works for the stage, including Vicki Baum's novel Grand Hotel. He subsequently adapted his stage play version of Baum's book into the 1932 film Grand Hotel, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. He also wrote several screenplays for RKO Pictures.
Life and career
William Absalom Drake was born in Dayton, Ohio, United States on December 9, 1899. He translated Franz Werfel's German-language play Schweiger into English for Broadway. It premiered at the Mansfield Theatre on March 23, 1926. This was followed by a translation of another German language play, Bruno Frank's 12,000, which Drake penned for a production at the Garrick Theatre in 1928.
Drake adapted Vicki Baum's Grand Hotel into a play of the same name. It premiered at the National Theatre on November 13, 1930.
“William A. Drake” enters the record as american screenwriter (1899–1965). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what William, Drake and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “William A. Drake” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.