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Tag Archives: Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay


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George Bernard Shaw Refuses Nobel Prize Money

On November 18, 1926, George Bernard Shaw refuses to accept the Nobel Prize in Literature prize money of £7,000 awarded to him a year earlier. He says, “I can forgive Alfred Nobel for his invention of the explosive but only the devil can think of the Nobel Prize.”

Shaw is born in Dublin on July 26, 1856, the third child of George Carr Shaw, a civil servant who later turns to a failed grain business to become an alcoholic, and Lucinda Elizabeth Shaw, a professional singer and sister of the famous opera singer Lucinda Frances. He is initially poor but is gifted with music and soon understands and loves the work of famous musicians and learns more about painting in Dublin. At the age of 15, he works as an apprentice and cashier for a real estate firm.

In 1876, Shaw follows his mother and two sisters to London. There he writes music reviews for newspapers to earn money, self-studies and actively participates in social activities. In 1884, he joins the founding of Fabian Society, an organization of British intellectuals advocating transition from capitalism to socialism by way of peace. From 1879 to 1883, he writes his first novel, Immaturity, and five other works that are not printed. An Unsocial Socialist is the first novel to be printed in 1887. Considered the father of “conceptual drama,” he begins writing plays in 1885, but achieves initial fame with Widowers’ Houses (1892). By 1903, his drama takes over the American and German stage, and in 1904 dominates the domestic stage. He becomes even more famous when Edward VII, the King of England, attends the performance of John Bull’s Other Island (1904), after which his drama spreads to European countries.

In addition, Shaw is also considered the best playwright in Britain at the time. He wants to use art to awaken people first to require changing the bourgeoisie order with all its institutions and customs. He emphasizes the educational function of the theater, but seeing the function of education is not an imposition from the playwright but arousing the aesthetic needs of the audience. The harsh problems of contemporary society such as the island’s predominant power, exploitative patterns, and the poverty of the people lead to social evils clearly reflected in his drama. His drama style tends to be satirical, sarcastic, finding its way to truth through paradoxes.

Shaw’s youngest dream is to earn a sum of money, then marry a wealthy wife. However, before becoming so wealthy that he can spend $ 35,000 on charity and enough money to travel around the world, he goes through many years of hardship. In the first nine years of his career, he receives only $30 USD in royalties. He is so poor that he does not even have the toll to get his manuscript to publishers. His clothes are tattered, his shoes open. All of his spending comes from his mother’s allowance. When he gets his name and remembers the miserable days, he often frowns, “I should have supported my family, the results are the opposite. I have never done anything for my family, and my mother has to work, raising me even though I was an adult.” Shaw, however, decides not to give up writing.

Realizing that, Shaw looks at the real royalties by publishing novels and the journey to the desired destination seems far away. He then turns to writing plays. He calculates that if the script is made public, the author will have revenue through the number of tickets issued and the number of shows. At the same time, the name of the author is also quickly known to the public. On the other hand, he says, only theater can “awaken people before the change of modern social order with all its institutions and customs.” He also judges that in addition to entertainment functions, the drama also contains the function of education, through arousing the aesthetic needs of the audience. He does not hesitate to bring to the stage all the most pressing issues of contemporary society such as the money’s inertia, the poverty of the people, and the social evils.

Saint Joan (1923) is judged to be the culmination of Shaw’s writing career. It is performed throughout European stages and is very popular. Two years after the release of Saint Joan, he is awarded the Nobel Prize for “the ideological and highly humanistic compositions, especially the spectacular satirical plays, combined with looks. Strange beauty of poetry.” When notified of his winning of the Nobel Prize, he humorously says, “The Nobel Prize for literature is like a float thrown to a swimmer.” Although he thinks he is the “swimmer to the shore,” he never leaves the pen. Thirteen years after receiving the Nobel Prize, Pygmalion, a script he wrote in 1912, is made into a film and receives the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

In terms of scenario remuneration, Shaw receives an average of $100,000 a year, enough to spend on life, “reproduce” writing and traveling. It is only possible to marry a wealthy wife until the age of 40 years old. He always thinks that he “has no marriage status because he always worries others.” In terms of form, he is not very attractive because of his skinny body, but watching as the sisters do not allow him to carry out his intention to preserve his “absolute freedom.” Many beautiful female actors actively proclaim marriage proposal to Shaw, but he always uses humorous sentences to refuse.

Describing the George Bernard Shaw, Albert Einstein‘s physical genius after having met him has to say, “There are rare people who are so independent that they can see the weaknesses and absurdities of contemporaries. and at the same time do not let me get into it, but even so, when I encounter the hardships of life, these lonely people often lose their courage in helping humanity, with subtle humor and gentleness, can enthrall contemporaries and deserve to be torchbearers on the way of art’s unfavorable ways, today, with a passionate affection, I salute celebrate the biggest teacher on that path – the one who taught us and made us all feel happy.” It is a rare meeting of two great people in London in the fall of 1930.

(From: “November 18, 1926 – George Bernard Shaw refuses to receive a Nobel prize,” ScienceInfo.net, updated December 17, 2018)


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Birth of Emma Donoghue, Playwright, Historian, Novelist & Screenwriter

Emma Donoghue, an Irish Canadian playwright, literary historian, novelist, and screenwriter, is born in Dublin on October 24, 1969. Her 2010 novel Room is a finalist for the Man Booker Prize and an international best-seller. Her 1995 novel Hood wins the Stonewall Book Award and Slammerkin (2000) wins the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction. She is a 2011 recipient of the Alex Awards. Room is adapted by Donoghue into a film of the same name. For this, she is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Donoghue is the youngest of eight children, the daughter of Frances (née Rutledge) and academic and literary critic Denis Donoghue. She has a first-class honours Bachelor of Arts degree from University College Dublin (UCD) in English and French as well as a PhD in English from Girton College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge she lives in a women’s co-operative, an experience which inspires her short story “The Welcome.” Her thesis is on friendship between men and women in 18th-century fiction.

At Cambridge, she meets her future wife, Christine Roulston, a Canadian who is now professor of French and Women’s Studies at the University of Western Ontario. They move permanently to Canada in 1998 and Donoghue becomes a Canadian citizen in 2004. She lives in London, Ontario, with Roulston and their two children.

Donoghue has spoken of the importance of the writing of Emily Dickinson, of Jeanette Winterson‘s novel The Passion and Alan Garner‘s Red Shift in the development of her work. She says that she aims to be “industrious and unpretentious” about the process of writing, and that her working life has changed since having children.

Donoghue’s novels include Stir Fry (1994), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in 1994, Slammerkin (2000), a finalist in the 2001 Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Fiction and winner of the 2002 Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction, Landing (2007), The Sealed Letter (2008), joint winner of the 2009 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, Room (2010), winner of the Irish Book Award 2010, Frog Music (2014), The Wonder (2016), shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, Akin (2019), The Pull of the Stars (2020), longlisted for the Giller Prize in 2020, and Haven (2022).


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Death of Christy Brown, Writer & Painter

christy-brown

Christy Brown, Irish writer and painter who has cerebral palsy and is able to write or type only with the toes of one foot, dies on September 7, 1981, in Parbrook, Somerset, England. His most recognized work is his autobiography, My Left Foot (1954).

Brown is born into a working-class Irish family at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin on June 5, 1932. He is one of 22 siblings of parents Bridget Fagan and Patrick Brown. After his birth, doctors discover that he has severe cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder which leaves him almost entirely spastic in his limbs. Though urged to commit him to a hospital, his parents are unswayed and subsequently determined to raise him at home with their other children. During his adolescence, social worker Katriona Delahunt becomes aware of his story and begins to visit the Brown family regularly. She brings him books and painting materials as, over the years, he has shown a keen interest in the arts and literature. He has also demonstrated extremely impressive physical dexterity since, soon after discovering several household books, he had learned to both write and draw himself with his left leg, the only limb over which he has unequivocal control.

Brown quickly matures into a serious artist. Although he famously receives almost no formal schooling during his youth, he does attend St. Brendan’s School-Clinic in Sandymount intermittently. At St. Brendan’s he comes in contact with Dr. Robert Collis, a noted author. Collis discovers that Brown is also a natural novelist and, later, helps use his own connections to publish My Left Foot, by then a long-gestating autobiographical account of Brown’s struggle with everyday life amidst the vibrant culture of Dublin.

When My Left Foot becomes a literary sensation, one of the many people who write letters to Brown is married American woman Beth Moore. Brown and Moore become regular correspondents and, in 1960, he holidays in North America and stays with Moore at her home in Connecticut. When they meet again in 1965, they began an affair. Brown journeys to Connecticut once more to finish his magnum opus, which he had been developing for years. He finally does so in 1967 with help from Moore, who introduces and administers a strict working regimen, mostly by denying him alcohol until a day’s work is completed. The book, Down All the Days, is published in 1970. It is an ambitious project drawn largely from a playful expansion of My Left Foot. It becomes an international best-seller, translated into fourteen languages. The Irish Times reviewer Bernard Share claims the work is “the most important Irish novel since Ulysses.”

Down All the Days is followed by a series of other novels, including A Shadow on Summer (1972), Wild Grow the Lilies (1976) and A Promising Career (published posthumously in 1982). He also publishes three poetry collections: Come Softly to My Wake, Background Music and Of Snails and Skylarks. All the poems are included in The Collected Poems of Christy Brown.

Brown’s fame continues to spread internationally, and he becomes a prominent celebrity. Upon his return to Ireland, he is able to use proceeds from the sales of his books to design and move into a specially constructed home outside Dublin with his sister’s family. Though he and Beth had planned to marry and live together at the new home, and though Moore had informed her husband of these plans, it is around this time that he begins an affair with Englishwoman Mary Carr, whom he meets at a party in London. He then terminates his affair with Moore and marries Carr at the Registry Office, Dublin, in 1972. They move to Stoney Lane, Rathcoole, County Dublin, to Ballyheigue, County Kerry and then to Somerset. He continues to paint, write novels, poetry and plays. His 1974 novel, A Shadow on Summer, is based on his relationship with Moore, whom he still considers a friend.

Brown’s health deteriorates after marrying Carr. He becomes mainly a recluse in his last years, which is thought to be a direct result of Carr’s influence and perhaps abusive nature. He dies at the age of 49 on September 7, 1981, after choking during a lamb chop dinner. His body is found to have significant bruising, which leads many to believe that Carr had physically abused him. Further suspicions arise after Georgina Hambleton’s biography, The Life That Inspired My Left Foot, reveals a supposedly more accurate and unhealthier version of their relationship. The book portrays Carr as an abusive alcoholic and habitually unfaithful. He is buried in the Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

A film adaptation of My Left Foot directed by Jim Sheridan is produced in 1989 from a screenplay by Shane Connaughton. Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Brown and Brenda Fricker as his mother. Both win Academy Awards for their performances. The film also receives Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

The Anglo-Irish rock band The Pogues pay tribute to Christy Brown with a song titled “Down All the Days.” It is the seventh track on their 1989 recording Peace and Love. Similarly, U2 releases a song titled “Down All the Days” with the 20th anniversary edition of Achtung Baby. The Men They Couldn’t Hang also writes a song “Down All the Days” which appears on their Silver Town album also released in 1989.


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Birth of Kenneth Branagh, Actor, Director & Producer

kenneth-branagh

Sir Kenneth Charles Branagh, British actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, is born in Belfast on December 10, 1960.

Branagh is the middle of three children of working-class Protestant parents Frances (née Harper) and William Branagh, a plumber and joiner who runs a company that specialises in fitting partitions and suspended ceilings. He lives in the Tiger’s Bay area of the city and is educated at Grove Primary School.

At the age of nine, Branagh moves with his family to Reading, Berkshire, England, to escape the Troubles. He is educated at Whiteknights Primary School, then Meadway School, Tilehurst, where he appears in school productions such as Toad of Toad Hall and Oh, What a Lovely War!. He attends the amateur Reading Cine & Video Society (now called Reading Film & Video Makers) as a member and is a keen member of Progress Theatre for whom he is now the patron. He goes on to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and in 2015 succeeds Richard Attenborough as its president.

Branagh has both directed and starred in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare‘s plays, including Henry V (1989) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and Academy Award for Best Director), Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Othello (1995), Hamlet (1996) (for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay), Love’s Labour’s Lost (2000), and As You Like It (2006).

Branagh stars in numerous other films and television series including Fortunes of War (1987), Woody Allen‘s Celebrity (1998), Wild Wild West (1999), The Road to El Dorado (2000), Conspiracy (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Warm Springs (2005), as Major General Henning von Tresckow in Valkyrie (2008), The Boat That Rocked (2009), Wallander (2008–2016), My Week with Marilyn (2011) as Sir Laurence Olivier (nominated for Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), and as Royal Navy Commander Bolton in the action-thriller Dunkirk (2017). He directs such films as Dead Again (1991), in which he also stars, Swan Song (1992) (nominated for Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994) in which he also stars, The Magic Flute (2006), Sleuth (2007), the blockbuster superhero film Thor (2011), the action thriller Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit (2014) in which he also co-stars, the live-action film Cinderella (2015), and the mystery drama adaptation of Agatha Christie‘s Murder on the Orient Express (2017), in which he also stars as Hercule Poirot.

Branagh narrates the series Cold War (1998), the BBC documentary miniseries Walking with Dinosaurs (1999), Walking with Beasts (2001) and Walking with Monsters (2005). He has been nominated for five Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, and has won three BAFTAs, and an Emmy Award. He is appointed a Knight Bachelor in the 2012 Birthday Honours and is knighted on November 9, 2012. He is awarded the Freedom of the City of his native city of Belfast in January 2018.