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The Top Ten Female Screenwriters of the 70s and 80s

By Tessa Chudy · March 17, 2015

Name ten female screenwriters. I am sorry to say I struggled to come up with three, female directors I could name more, but screenwriters, no. Narrowing it down to female screenwriters from the nineteen seventies and eighties and I could only name one – Nora Ephron. This is a disappointing reflection of not only the film industry, but also the social bias where the artistic and creative achievements of women are still often under-valued.

A quick Google search reveals quite a few prominent female scriptwriters working today, but there were many female writers active during the seventies and eighties (and throughout film history), but they do not seem to have received the same recognition as their male counterparts of the same period.

As with any list, this one is very subjective and is open to debate. Precedence was given to screenwriters with a number of screenplays filmed during the seventies and eighties and to writers who wrote significant films of the era. I have not focused on writers of so called ‘women’s films’ as to do so would be to miss the larger picture of the contribution of female screenwriters across genres and styles. Nor have I excluded directors who film their own screenplays or serial collaborators.

 

10. Kathryn Bigelow

Bigelow is best known as the first (and so far only) female director to win an Academy Award. Bigelow emerged in the nineteen eighties with a series of edgy and stylishly intense genre films that she co-wrote and directed and which foreshadowed her later works. Bigelow’s debut was the retro The Loveless (1981), followed by the vampire re-interpretation Near Dark (1987), which remains a minor classic of the genre, and the cat and mouse cop thriller Blue Steel (1989).

9. Joan Tewkesbury

Tewkesbury makes the list on the strength of Nashville (1975). Previously she had written the dour Thieves like Us (1974) also for Robert Altman. Nashville set the scene for numerous later films with its sprawling canvas filled with the interconnecting tales of diverse characters and events. It is also a movie that is inextricably linked with its era, Nashville is an iconic seventies film. Tewkesbury also worked uncredited on The Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), but for the rest of her career worked largely in television.

8. Melissa Mathison

Mathison wrote one of the most enduringly popular films of the nineteen eighties in E.T. the Extra Terrestial (1982). She also wrote The Black Stallion (1979), the film adaptation of the novel of the same name. Both E.T. and The Black Stallion are classic crowd pleasers, perhaps lacking in surprises, but very palatable. They push all the right buttons and remain strong films of their kind. Mathison also wrote The Escape Artist (1982) and Twilight Zone: the Movie (segment 2) (1983).

7. Nancy Meyers

Now Meyers is a successful writer/director responsible for films like Something’s Gotta Give (2003) and It’s Complicated (2009). Meyers’ films both as a writer and a director form a cohesive body of work – romantic comedies with a strong feminist bent. Meyers emerged in the nineteen eighties as a screenwriter. She makes the list because her screenplays of the eighties feature strong female characters and deal comically with serious issues facing women. The yuppie comedy Baby Boom (1987) is probably her best known work, but she also wrote Jumpin’ Jack Flash (1986), Irreconcilable Differences (1984) and Private Benjamin (1980).

6. Elaine May

A comedian, actress, director and screenwriter, May wrote and directed the quirky comedy A New Leaf (1971) and Mikey and Nicky (1971), she also wrote screenplays for Such Good Friends (1971) and Heaven Can Wait (1978). May was an uncredited writer on Tootsie (1982) before writing and directing the disaster that was Ishtar (1987). May never directed another movie, but wrote several screenplays in the nineties. May represents both the best and the worst of the seventies/eighties, she wrote both fresh and quirky work and in Ishtar – one of the most notorious misfires of the eighties.

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5. Lina Wertmuller

The formidable Italian filmmaker Lina Wertmuller is best known as a director, but she wrote her own screenplays. Her films are highly stylised often with an emphasis on the grotesque, with strong underlying political agendas and cynical examinations of sexual politics that can confound straight forward readings. Wertmuller worked throughout the nineteen sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties. It is her seventies output that has had the most impact internationally particularly the films she made with actor Giancarlo Giannini – The Seduction of Mimi (1972), Love and Anarchy (1973), Swept Away…(1974) and Seven Beauties (1975).

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4. Leigh Brackett (1915-1978)

Brackett was primarily a science fiction novelist. Her screenplays are surprisingly masculine, westerns, detective stories and even a Star Wars entry. Brackett was one of several writers to work on the infamously complex Raymond Chandler adaptation The Big Sleep (1946). She also wrote a number of screenplays for John Wayne in the nineteen sixties the last of which was Rio Lobo (1970). Brackett wrote the revisionist Raymond Chandler adaptation The Long Goodbye (1973) that drags a bewildered Philip Marlowe into the seventies. She also co-wrote the screenplay for Star Wars: Episode V – the Empire Strikes Back (1980).

3. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1927-2013)

Prawer Jhabvala was a successful novelist before she became the scriptwriter for the Merchant Ivory production team. Her screenplays form a cohesive body of work characterised by understatement, emotional and sexual repression and period settings. Her career spanned from 1963 until 2009.

Her best known screenplay of the seventies and eighties is Room with a View (1985), one of Merchant Ivory’s warmer more playful productions. Other screenplays from this period include The Europeans (1979), Heat and Dust (1983), The Bostonians (1984) and Madame Sousatzka (1988).

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2. Jay Presson Allen (1922-2006)

Presson Allen began her career writing for television in the nineteen fifties. Presson Allen was a prolific writer and her filmed screenplays include Marnie (1964) for Alfred Hitchcock and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969).

In the nineteen seventies she wrote Cabaret (1972), Travels with my Aunt (1972), Funny Lady (1976), and was an uncredited writer on the remake of A Star is Born (1972). The early eighties saw her write four screenplays for Sydney Lumet Just Tell Me What You Want (1980), Prince of the City (1981), Deathtrap (1982), and The Verdict (1982, uncredited). She wrote for television for the rest of her career.

1. Nora Ephron (1941-2012)

Ephron was an essayist, novelist, screenwriter and film director. She is perhaps an obvious choice for number one, but her works all feature strong female characters and while her screenplay for Rob Reiner’s When Harry Met Sally (1989) remains a high point in the often erratic genre of romantic comedy. Ehpron also wrote the scripts for Silkwood (1983), Heartburn (1986) based on her own semi-autobiographical novel and Cookie (1989)