Harriet Frank Jr.

Harriet Frank Jr.

Harriet Frank Jr. (born March 2, 1917) is an American film writer and producer. Working alongside her husband, Irving Ravetch, Frank received numerous awards during her lengthy career, including the New York Film Critics Circle Awards and the Writers Guild of America Award, and several nominations. Frank began her writing career after World War II, under Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's young writer's training program, where she first met her future husband. She married Ravetch in 1946 but worked independently for ten years, finally collaborating with him in 1957, a relationship that continued for the remainder of her career. During 33 years of collaboration, they created the screenplays for a variety of films, mainly adaptations of the works of American authors. Frank and Ravetch maintained a close working relationship with director Martin Ritt throughout their career, collaborating with him on eight occasions; after initially being suggested by Ravetch to direct The Long, Hot Summer (1958), Ritt would eventually draw the couple out of inactivity on three occasions, hiring them to write the screenplays for Norma Rae (1979), Murphy's Romance (1985) and Stanley & Iris (1990). The latter was both the last film directed by Ritt (who died later that year) and the last for which Frank and Ravetch wrote the screenplay. Frank is one of the "leading characters" in the 2017 memoir The Mighty Franks: A Memoir, written by her nephew Michael Frank, an essayist and short-story writer; the book was critically acclaimed by many international publications.

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