1898-1930
Younger brother of famed filmmaker Howard Hawks, Kenneth Neil Hawks was born on this day in Goshen, Indiana. He was the middle of three boys, with brother William (later a successful producer) being three years his junior. The trio also had two sisters. Unlike his two brothers, his film career was far too short. Kenneth had served his country in World War I in the brand new Army Aerial Air Service; he would become a lover planes ever after. After his return from the war, he attended and graduated from Yale. He then moved out to Hollywood, where his older brother had already relocated. He quickly gained work at Fox as a writer, though his first credit came in the form of a script supervisor on More Pay - Less Work a 1926 Fox comedy directed by Albert Ray and adapted by Rex Taylor. His first official writing credit came in 1927 on another comedy Ankles Preferred , where he shared the credit with three others. He would eventually be listed with only one other writer credit, though Ankles remains his only official such credit; he is one of two "script doctors" that were said to have cleaned up the script for anther Albert Ray film Thief in the Dark (1928). He has two additional credits as a supervisor, one as an editor and three credits as a director (co-direction on Masked Emotions 1929, the Fox talkie Big Time 1929, and Such Men Are Dangerous--released approximately two months after his death). He was also an active supervising producer on the World War One drama True Heaven (1929). While directing--from the air--the aerial scenes of Such Men on the 2nd of January, which required two planes, he and 9 others were killed instantly when the two air craft collided over the Pacific Ocean, plunging into the water in a fiery ball. His body was eventually recovered and cremated and scattered over the site of the crash. He was just 31 years of age at the time. At the time of his death, he was married to movie star Mary Astor, the two had wed on the 26th of February, 1928.
Both Kenneth and his brother Howard served in the Army Air Service in World War I
Find A Grave entry
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