Sonya Levien (born Sara Opesken; 25 December 1888 – 19 March 1960) was a Russian-born American screenwriter.

Sara Opesken (Sonya being the Russian diminutive)[1] was born in Panimunik, a small village, now part of Kaunas, Lithuania, in the Pale of Settlement on 25 December 1888 (later changing the date to 1898.

[3] During this period, Russian authorities kept a watchful eye over citizens, especially Jewish people with radical affiliations.

[4] Sonya's father had a remote connection with a radical newspaper as well as agreeing with the anarchist ideas of Prince Peter Kropotkin.

[4] Julius Opesken also joined a Narodnik study circle before being arrested and put to work in the Siberian mines.

[5] Her grandfather instructed her in Russian, French, German, and Hebrew as well as encouraged her to read from the Talmud and the Shulhan' Aruk on a daily basis.

[6] In 1891, her father escaped exile and made his way to America, choosing to take on the surname of his German rescuer, Levien.

Not only did Pastor hire her as a secretary, she was also a member of the Socialist Party and the Women's Trade Union League, giving Sonya access to a whole library of texts on these subjects she could read.

[9] Levien began to write her own work by sending in short comedic squibs to Life and with these earnings was able to contribute to her college tuition and her family's well-being.

[11] In 1909, she went for admission to the New York State Bar Association, but discovered she was too sympathetic in character to work in a court of law.

[13] Towards the end of 1912 she sent a short story to Carl Hovey, who was a co-editor at the time, and began work at The Metropolitan.

[15] However, when World War I commenced, Levien was working in London covering the British Suffragist movement for fourteen months [16] in 1913 and 1914.

[3] Here she wrote editorials urging women to demand for more than just suffrage and ask for education, as well as other institutional reforms and better living conditions.

She sent stories to a number of publications including Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, Harpers, Cosmopolitan, Atlantic Monthly, and Century.

[19] Yet, by 1923, she missed her young son Serge and felt she had the duty to support her husband's career over her own, so she broke her contract by Famous Players–Lasky and returned to her family.

She made a great many changes to the plot, however reviews for the film highlighted the directing and not the script work.

[23] Not only did she write for film, but she also continued as an author for magazines and even tried her hand at plays, such as the one-act "By the Sword" which was performed by The Writer's Club.

Footloose Widows featured mistaken identities, mix ups between poor and wealthy people, and even gold digging- all elements of the screwball comedy genre.

[27] Nonetheless, Sonya became one of the top writers which allowed her to work alongside big stars and well-known directors.

[27] Sonya garnered a reputation for being able to adapt all kinds of material into a film screenplay, although she was not known for her prowess at dialogue.

[34] Sonya garnered an impressive filmography, having worked on over 70 films spanning her career, a great deal of the time without a collaborator.

[1] Although Levien has stated that her instincts told her she should have six or seven children, she found that a large family would take years away from her career and was not financially suitable for her.

[41] Levien was a Secular Jew who was very interested in activism in her early years, living on the East Side of New York.

She describes her natural pull to more radical views, joining a group of agitators formed majorly of socialists but which also included anarchists and single-taxers.

In fact, shortly after 1950, her daughter Tamara and her husband, Lee Gold, were blacklisted as members of the Communist Party, Sonya chose never to comment publicly.