Marguerite
Roberts was born on 21st February, 1905. She moved to Hollywood and
found work as a secretary at Fox. Her real desire was to be a screenwriter
and she sold her first script in 1931. This was followed by Jimmy
and Sally (1933), College Scandal
(1935), Men Without Names (1935),
Hollywood Boulevard (1936) and
Wild Money (1937).
In
1938 she married the writer John
Sanford.
She was now a $2,500-a-week contract writer at MGM. She later claimed
she preferred writing roles for tough men: "I was weaned on stories
about gunfighters and their doings, and I know all the lingo too.
My grandfather came West as far as Colorado by covered wagon. He was
a sheriff in the state's wildest days."
Other
screenplays by Roberts include Escape
(1940), Ziegfeld Girl (1941),
Somewhere I'll Find You (1942),
Dragon Seed (1944), Undercurrent
(1946), The Sea of Grass (1947),
Desire Me (1947),
If Winter Comes (1947), Ambush
(1949), Soldiers Three
(1951) and Ivanhoe (1951).
Roberts
was a member of
the American Communist Party and in
1951 she was ordered to appear before the House
of Un-American Activities Committee. Roberts and her husband refused
to name fellow members of the party and were both blacklisted.
After the blacklist was lifted Roberts wrote Diamond
Head (1963), Rampage
(1963), Love Has Many Faces (1965),
Five Card Stud (1968), True
Grit (1969), Norwood
(1970), Shoot Out (1971) and Red
Sky in the Morning (1971).
Marguerite
Roberts
died on 17th February, 1989. Her husband, John
Sanford,
published
a memoir of her, A Palace of Silver,
in 2002.
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