Mary Marr "Polly" Platt (January 29, 1939 – July 27, 2011) was an American film producer, production designer and screenwriter.
[1] In addition to her credited work, she was known as a mentor (for which she was honored with Women in Film Crystal Award) as well as an uncredited collaborator and networker.
Platt also suggested that director James L. Brooks meet artist and illustrator Matt Groening, sparking a collaboration from which the longest-running scripted prime-time series in American television history, The Simpsons, would be spun-off.
Platt worked in summer stock theatre as a costume designer in New York and there met Peter Bogdanovich, whom she later married.
[2][3] She co-wrote with him his first movie Targets (1968), conceiving the plot outline of a "Vietnam veteran-turned-sniper", and served as production designer on the film.
[3] She wrote the screenplay for Pretty Baby (1978), for which she was also an associate producer,[3] as well as Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff (1979), and A Map of the World (1999).
[2][3] Platt was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction for Brooks' film Terms of Endearment (1983).
She co-produced many of the films he worked on, which Gracie made, including Broadcast News (1987), The War of the Roses (1989) and Bottle Rocket (1996), as well as producing Say Anything... (1989) [2][3] in which she also had a bit part.
Platt gave Brooks the nine-panel Life in Hell cartoon, "The Los Angeles Way of Death"[6][7][8] by cartoonist Matt Groening.
Platt was the first woman to be accepted into the Art Directors Guild, in 1971,[1] a membership she required in order to receive credit on studio films.
Longworth argues that Platt played a pivotal role in the location, casting, and overall visual aesthetic of major films, including but not limited to Paper Moon, What's Up, Doc?