Becky Gardiner

Gardiner was born into a prominent Maryland family; her father, Donald McLean, was a lawyer, and his wife, Emily Nelson Ritchie, was related to Maryland Gov. Albert Ritchie.^[2][3] On June 12, 1909,^[4] she married writer John D. W. Gardiner; they had one daughter, Emily, who became an author as well.^[5]

John died in 1936, and she remarried to Thomas H. Gillespie on March 16, 1949.^[6][7]

Gardiner got her start as an actress in New York City, performing in small roles in the early 1910s under the name Becky Bruce.^[8][9][10] She turned her attention to writing in the 1920s, studying in Paris at the Sorbonne and writing a column called "Footlights and Studio Lamps" for The Evening Sun; she eventually went under contract at Famous Players–Lasky, where she was the only woman on the East Coast writing staff.^[5][11] She also worked at Fox and Paramount.^[8]

Films for which Gardiner wrote adaptations included Sea Horses (1926) and Padlocked (1926).^[12] She also wrote the scenario for War Nurse (1930).^[13]

Her date of death is unknown.

• The Great Gatsby (1926)
• Padlocked (1926)
• Sea Horses (1926)
• Cabaret (1927)
• Love's Greatest Mistake (1927)
• New York (1927)
• Square Crooks (1928)
• The Sin Sister (1929)
• The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929)
• War Nurse (1930)
• A Free Soul (1931)
• Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) (1931)
• Coming Out Party (1934)
• Stingaree (1934)