1875-1956
Writer George Moore Scarborough was born on this day in Mount Carmel, Texas. His family eventually settled in Waco, after a living in Sweetwater, Texas for several years. His father was a fairly prominent lawyer, and wanted his son to follow him in the profession; which he did after obtaining a law degree from the University of Texas. He joined his father's law firm in 1897 and stayed there until his father's death in 1905. After this, he moved to New York and had a change of career--this is when his writing started. He got a job as a reporter and stayed in this line of work until 1909, when he went to work with the Secret Service--but continued to write while serving his country. In 1914, he left the service and devoted his life to full time writing, when one of his plays was made into a film. The Lure was adapted and directed by the grande dame of early cinema herself: Alice Guy. He the became primarily a playwright, with subject matter drawn from his days in the secret service; though he also wrote short stories as well. He quickly hit stride with his material becoming motion pictures. In fact, the second film to feature his writing was also Ethel Barrymore's second film: The Final Judgement (1915). Starting in 1917, he was added to Fox's "scenario staff" and he wrote the story that the J. Gordon Edwards directed film Under The Yoke (1917) was based on; it starred the darling of Fox herself: Theda Bara. He also had a number of works produced at the Norma Talmadge Film Corporation, the first of which was Her Only Way (1918). As his career progressed in the 1920's, he began penning westerns, as a sort of sub-subject of his stories/scenarios. Scarborough is probably most well known from his collaboration in both marriage and writing with his second wife, fellow playwright, Annette Westbay. Although they married in 1920 and wrote several successful plays together during the decade, they had only one of their collaborations (that we know of) adapted for film...but it is a well known one. The Boob is a 1926 MGM romantic comedy directed by legendary William A. Wellman, starring Gertrude Olmstead and George K. Arthur as Peter Good, or The Boob (the film also features one Joan Crawford). The first full sound film to feature his work is also his last work on a film in the 1920's and also his only uncredited work--he provided extra dialog for the Barbara Stanwyck vehicle entitled The Locked Door a 1929 mystery thriller that featured sound by MovieTone. The last film (to date) utilize one of his plays as source material came in 1932 in The Son-Daughter. Addition to his work "making the pictures," many of his plays ran in New York both on and off Broadway (several of these were written with Westbay). At some point along the way, he and Westbay had relocated to California. It's not known if they remained married until his death or not. It is not even completely certain when Scarborough passed away. He is thought to have remained in California after retirement, dying there. While some sources list is death date as "early 1950's," other sources place it as November 1, 1950; while yet another source puts his death at Mount Kisco, New York on the 16th of December in 1951. It is not then a surprise that burial details are likewise unknown.
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