Lenore Coffee

In 1918, she answered an ad in the Motion Pictures Herald Exhibitors, requesting a screen story for actress Clara Kimball Young.

Garson soon hired her on a yearly contract, where she served as a continuity girl, assistant director, and made editing suggestions.

By 1920, Garson closed his studio, and Coffee found subsequent work in writing title cards and editing several films.

In 1923, she was hired by Irving Thalberg, then working for Louis B. Mayer Pictures, to write title cards and adapt novels into scripts.

In 1937, Coffee left MGM again, and wrote numerous scripts for Fox Film Corporation and Warner Bros.

After her husband's death in 1964, she returned to California and retired to the Motion Picture And Television Home in Woodland Hills.

[7] One day, she answered an advertisement in the Motion Pictures Herald Exhibitors, requesting a screen story for actress Clara Kimball Young.

[11] At Garson's studio, she was hired in a position known today as a script supervisor (also called the "continuity girl") where she read the fan mail for Clara Kimball Young, submitted original stories, made editing notes, and wrote screen title cards.

[17] Sometime later, Louis Anger hired Coffee based on the recommendation of a friend to write title cards and re-edit two films.

[19] Following this job, Coffee was approached by Sam Roark to write title cards and edit six films, starring Australian actor Snowy Baker.

[21] At Metro Pictures, Coffee spent two years working with playwright Bayard Veiller, considering it her apprenticeship as a scenarist.

[24] Coffee was approached by Max Karger, the former financial head of Metro Pictures, and was given a three-picture deal to return to Hollywood.

[26] In Pasadena, she ran into conflict with Clark Thomas, the studio production manager, whom Coffee claimed, resented her hiring.

[27] She was soon contacted by Irving Thalberg, now working for Mayer Pictures, who requested titles for John Stahl's The Dangerous Age, starring Lewis Stone and Florence Vidor.

In the spring of 1924, Coffee was collaborating with Irving Thalberg, his assistant Paul Bern, Bess Meredyth, and director Fred Niblo on a script adaptation of Captain Applejack.

[35] During her honeymoon, Coffee learned that Paramount Pictures had acquired the screen rights to Ferenc Molnár's 1920 play The Swan, with Dimitri Buchowetzki to direct.

[36] Months after she left MGM, Coffee was asked by Fox Film Corporation to write the script for East Lynne (1925).

[37] During filming, Coffee was contacted by DeMille Pictures Corp. asking her to attend a story conference, which concerned Hell's Highroad (1925) starring Leatrice Joy which was to begin shooting.

There, Coffee was called by Samuel Goldwyn, who had received DeMille's permission, requesting her input on The Night of Love (1927), which was set to star Ronald Colman and Vilma Bánky.

Coffee suggested incorporating the medieval practice droit du seigneur into the script to strengthen the characters' motivations.

[49] By New Year's Day 1931, Coffee had to decline an offer from Samuel Goldwyn as she decided to remain with MGM, though Thalberg slashed her weekly salary to $500.

Four years later, Thalberg revived the project as a sound film, and assigned Coffee to write the script, with Monta Bell to direct.

[54] According to Coffee's account, she sent a letter listing potential film adaptations, including a remake of Camille with Greta Garbo, on Thalberg's office.

[55] At Paramount Pictures, Berg brokered a three-picture deal for Coffee with her salary at $1,000 a week; her first project was rewriting the script for Torch Singer (1933), which starred Claudette Colbert.

[56] When her three-picture deal expired, Coffee returned to Fox Film Corporation to write a script adaptation for All Men Are Enemies (1934) based on the novel by Richard Aldington.

She subsequently co-wrote the script for Four Daughters (1938) with Julius J. Epstein, adapted from the 1937 story "Sister Act" by Fannie Hurst.

In his theatre review, Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times praised Anderson's performance but felt "the inadequacy of the writing is something to mourn.

"[67] In 1959, at the behest of her husband,[69] Coffee and her family relocated to England where she enrolled her children at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

While she praised the era as a golden time in her life,[64] Coffee quotes Samuel Hoffenstein on their reflection the Hollywood studio system: "They pick your brains, break your heart, ruin your digestion—and what do you get for it?

In 1981, Coffee returned to the United States to live in retirement at the Motion Picture And Television Home in Woodland Hills, California.