Eleanor Perry was an American screenwriter and author. Film critic Charles Champlin fondly remembered Perry as the feminist who "discovered a ladder and a can of spray paint" to protest, deface and demonstrate her distaste for Federico Fellini's "she-wolf" Roma posters at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival, which she considered sexist. The outspoken Eleanor Perry was an advocate for women's rights and screenwriters' recognition, often criticizing the film industry.
Biography
Born and raised to a Jewish family in Cleveland, Ohio, she attended Western Reserve University, where she wrote for the college's literary magazine. Together with her first husband, attorney Leo G. Bayer, she wrote a series of suspense novels, including Paper Chase, made into the movie Dangerous Partners in 1945. After earning a master's degree in psychiatric social work, she began to write plays, enjoying Broadway success in 1958 with Third Best Sport, a collaboration with her husband. The two were divorced shortly after.
Career
Prior to working with Frank Perry, Eleanor had published numerous articles, plays and novels including Third Best Sport which was produced on Broadway. She won an Emmy award for her television screenplay adaptation of Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory. Perry and her then-husband were responsible for 1968's The Swimmer starring Burt Lancaster, Diary of a Mad Housewife starring Carrie Snodgrass and the Academy Award-nominated independent film, David and Lisa among other films. Perry was also a journalist and novelist who penned Blue Pages, a semi-autobiographical novel about her time writing screenplays in Hollywood and her marriage to Frank Perry. In 1977, she was among the first wave of honorees of the Women in FilmCrystal Award for outstanding women who, through their endurance and the excellence of their work, have helped to expand the role of women within the entertainment industry. Also in 1977, Perry became an associate of the Women's Institute for Freedom of the Press. WIFP is an American nonprofit publishing organization. The organization works to increase communication between women and connect the public with forms of women-based media.
Personal life
In 1960, she married aspiring film director Frank Perry, with whom she formed a long-lasting professional partnership. Their first film, the low-budget David and Lisa, for which she drew upon her psychiatric background, earned the couple Academy Award nominations for writing and direction. In 1966, she and Truman Capote adapted his novella, A Christmas Memory, for the anthology series ABC Stage 67, which earned her the first of two Emmy Awards.. Following her divorce from Perry in 1971, she wrote a roman à clef about her marriage, incorporating many of the problems she faced as a female screenwriter in Hollywood into her 1979 novel, Blue Pages. In 1972, she was head of the jury at the 22nd Berlin International Film Festival. Her son, William Bayer, is a crime fiction writer. On March 14, 1981, she died of cancer in New York City. Seventeen years after her death, she received screen credit again when her original screenplay of David and Lisa was refilmed for television.
