Mildred Cram, author of short fiction and novels, was born in DC. A number of her stories and novels were made into films, and she also wrote screenplays. Her work includes Stars Over Broadway (1935), Love Affair (1939), and An Affair to Remember (1957).
Cram’s first book was the travelogue, Old Seaport Towns of the South (1917). Her short story “Stranger Things” won a 1921 O. Henry Award. A flapper in the 1920s who moved to Hollywood to become a screenwriter, some speculate that Cram was the inspiration for F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s character Nicole Diver in Tender is the Night. She was co-winner, with Leo McCarey, of an Academy Award for Best Writing, Original Story in 1939.
Gerald Clarke wrote in his biography Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland that Judy Garland memorized Cram’s novella Forever, and could “quote [it] word for word.”
The Homes
1227 S St. NW, Washington, DC
Mildred Cram
1227 S St. NW, Washington DC
Located in U Street/Strivers Section neighborhood, Northwest - East of Rock Creek