Aleen Leslie

Aleen Leslie (née Wetstein; February 5, 1908 – February 2, 2010) was a screenwriter, playwright and novelist.^[1] She died in 2010, three days before her 102nd birthday.^[2] At that time, she was the oldest member of the Writers Guild of American-West. Leslie was also the author of the novels The Scent of the Roses and The Windfall, and wrote various plays for the Pasadena Playhouse.

Biography[]

Aleen was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and was the daughter of Nat Wetstein (a traveling salesman) and Eugenie Mandel (a dressmaker). She began attending Ohio State University, but dropped out during the Great Depression. After becoming secretary of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, she began writing a weekly column called "One Girl Chorus" for The Pittsburgh Press. The column was eventually adapted by Leslie and Jerome Lawrence as a radio domestic comedy titled A Date with Judy, which she adapted and exploited across all entertainment forms possible at that time, including theatre, film, television, and comic books.

Leslie moved permanently to Hollywood in the late 1930s,^[3] and by 1938, she had talked her way into a job at Columbia Pictures. She also wrote for Universal and RKO Pictures, and built a career writing teen-driven entertainment, including films like Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour and Father Was a Fullback.

Selected filmography[]

• The Doctor Takes a Wife (1940)
• Affectionately Yours (1941)
• The Stork Pays Off (1941)
• It Comes Up Love (1943)
• Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour (1943)
• Henry Aldrich Plays Cupid (1944)
• Henry Aldrich's Little Secret (1944)
• Rosie the Riveter (1944)
• Go Chase Yourself (1948)
• A Date with Judy (1948)
• Father Was a Fullback (1949)
• Father Is a Bachelor (1950)
• The Living North (1956)

References[]

External links[]

• Aleen Leslie at IMDb
• Deadline.com
• Hollywood Reporter obit