James Forbes

Who was James Forbes?

James Grant Forbes was a Canadian playwright who worked as a Hollywood movie screenwriter. Having started as an actor in the nineteenth century, Forbes achieved his distinction as a playwright-director. Before he turned to play-writing in 1904, he accumulated experience in the theatre in the 1890s by working as an actor, a drama critic, and a press representative for established theatre companies. He achieved his greatest success in 1919 with "The Famous Mrs Fair," a social comedy dealing with the adjustments a woman faces upon returning home from her work in the war effort in France during World War I. He scored other successes commercially and critically, but his interest and abilities in other aspects of theatre kept him from devoting all his time to writing. He also directed plays, mostly his own, but others as well, and tried his hand at producing. In the twenties and early thirties his two main interests, writing and directing, led him to Hollywood, where he either wrote the screenplays or directed the dialogue for a number of MGM films. Five of his own plays were made into movies. Forbes also combined latent administrative talent with his theatrical interests in aiding in the formulation of the Over There Theatre League during World War I to entertain American forces overseas and organizing and directing a stock acting company under the auspices of the League which toured bases in France. He subsequently aided in the founding of the Dramatists' Guild of the Authors' League of America and joined with fellow playwrights to form a producing organization called the Dramatists' Theatre, Inc. Of Scotch ancestry Forbes was born September 2, 1871, in Salem Ontario, and he received his education from the College institute of Galt, Ontario. Becoming a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1892, he had already begun his career as an actor in Chicago in 1891. Early in 1897 he accepted the position of drama critic for the Pittsburgh,Dispatch. In 1897 he became the assistant drama editor of the New York World and in 1898 he accepted the position of business manager for Henry W Savage's Castle Square Opera Company. In 1901 he became the assistant manager of the newly established Henry B Harris theatrical enterprises.