Adele Buffington

Adele Buffington (born Adele Burgdorfer, and sometimes billed as Jess Bowers) was an American screenwriter of the silent and sound film eras of Hollywood.

Adele Buffington
Buffington in 1922
Born
Adele Burgdorfer

(1900-02-12)February 12, 1900
St. Louis, Missouri, USA
DiedNovember 23, 1973(1973-11-23) (aged 73)
Woodland Hills, California, USA
OccupationScreenwriter
Years active1919–1958
Spouse(s)Edward Vore (m. 1926)

Early life

Adele was born in St. Louis to Adolph Burgdorfer and Mary Elizabeth Frederick, both of whom were immigrants from Germany. Before moving to Los Angeles at the age of 16, she worked in a movie theater, where she got to watch countless films.[1][2] Once she arrived in L.A., she got a job selling tickets at a theater in Hollywood; she worked as a treasurer for several theaters during this time period.[3][4][5]

Career

Before she was out of her teens, she sold her first screenplay, 1919's L’Apache, which was produced by Thomas Ince for the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation.[1][6] After being added to the studio's scenario department, she continued to pen silent screenplays throughout the 1920s.[7][8]

She easily transitioned into sound films, and in 1933 would become one of the founding members of the Screen Writers Guild.[9] Over her 40-year career, she accumulated over 100 writing credits.[7] Buffington's specialty was the Western genre, with almost half of her films falling into that category.[9]

From the 1930s through the 1950s, she was one of the busiest writers in Hollywood.[10] She wrote screenplays for most of the well-known Western actors of the period, including Tom Keene in Freighters of Destiny (1931),[11] John Wayne in Haunted Gold (1932),[12] Hoot Gibson in A Man's Land,[13] Buck Jones in 1932's High Speed,[14] Whip Wilson in Range Land (1949),[15] and Tim Holt in Overland Telegraph (1951).[16] She also occasionally wrote comedies for well-known actresses like Lucille Ball (Beauty for the Asking).[17]

In the early 1940s, under her pseudonym, Jess Bowers, she wrote two separate Western series. The first was for Buck Jones, who appeared as his character, Buck Roberts, in eight "Rough Riders" films, beginning with Arizona Bound,[18] and finishing with Dawn on the Great Divide in 1942.[19] The second series was with Johnny Mack Brown, for his character Nevada Mackenzie, for which she authored 10 scripts between 1943 and 1945.[7][20]

Personal life

Buffington married Edward Vore in Los Angeles in 1926.[21]

Filmography

(Per AFI database)[7]

Later life

In the late 1950s, Buffington would also write a single episode for two different television series: Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok in 1955 and The Restless Gun in 1959. Buffington's final screenplay was for 1958's Bullwhip, which starred Guy Madison and Rhonda Fleming,[22] after which she retired from the film industry. She spent her later years living at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital, in Woodland Hills, California, where she died on November 23, 1973.[10]

References
  1. McCreadie, Marsha (1995). "Pioneers". Films in Review. 46.1–2: 58.
  2. "Movie Writer Visits the Old Home Town". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. October 26, 1951. Retrieved March 24, 2020.
  3. Motion Picture Studio Directory and Trade Annual, 1921; Page: 284
  4. "Becomes Scenario Writer". Akron Evening Times. June 25, 1919. Retrieved March 24, 2020.
  5. "Are Hollywood Scenario Writers Lucky?" (PDF). Screenland.
  6. "L'xx Apache". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on April 2, 2014. Retrieved January 26, 2015.
  7. "Adele Buffington". American Film Institute. Retrieved January 26, 2015.
  8. "Authoress Elated at Success". The Billings Gazette. December 7, 1919. Retrieved March 24, 2020.
  9. "Adele S. Buffington". Women Film Pioneers Project. Archived from the original on December 8, 2014. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  10. "Adele Buffington, biography". AllMovie. Archived from the original on April 14, 2014. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  11. "Freighters of Destiny". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on March 29, 2014. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  12. "Haunted Gold". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on December 23, 2014. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  13. "A Man's Land". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on March 29, 2014. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  14. "High Speed". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on April 2, 2014. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  15. "Range Land". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on March 29, 2014. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  16. "Overland Telegraph". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on April 2, 2014. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  17. "Beauty for the Asking". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on March 29, 2014. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  18. "Arizona Bound". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on January 22, 2015. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  19. "Dawn on the Great Divide". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on April 3, 2014. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  20. "Frontier Feud". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on April 3, 2014. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
  21. "Writers Ask Accounting of Miss Allen". Los Angeles Evening Express. January 11, 1928. Retrieved March 24, 2020.
  22. "Bullwhip". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on April 3, 2014. Retrieved January 27, 2015.
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