Frank S. Nugent(1908-1965)

Frank S. Nugent was an American screenwriter known for his collaborations with director John Ford. For a writer with only 21 feature films credited to his name, his influence is surprisingly ubiquitous and far-reaching. During his lifetime Nugent won two WGA Awards for Best Written Comedy for L'homme tranquille (1952) and Permission jusqu'à l'aube (1955) respectively. He also wrote two films in Ford's famous "Cavalry Trilogy" and his script for La prisonnière du désert (1956) has been named by the WGA as one of the 101 greatest screenplays of all time. It's no exaggeration to say that every subsequent western movie bore the influence of Nugent's writing.

Nugent began his career as a film critic for The New York Times. He was very prolific and became known for his vicious reviews of popular movies. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck noticed his writings and decided to hire him as a script doctor. After working on a number of scripts, Nugent met John Ford (a director he liked) and the two decided to work together, thus beginning one of Hollywood's most fruitful writer-director collaborations. Nugent wrote for Ford for several decades, writing some of his best-known and most successful films.