Allen, Jay Presson

▪ 2007

Jacqueline Presson 

      American screenwriter and playwright (b. March 3, 1922, Fort Worth, Texas—d. May 1, 2006, New York, N.Y.), was best known for the scripts she adapted from novels and was credited with having developed some of the best and most memorable women's stage and film roles in the 1960s and '70s. She wrote scripts for live television dramas in the 1950s and the screenplay for the Alfred Hitchcock film Marnie (1964) before making her breakthrough with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1966; filmed 1969). Works that followed included Forty Carats (1968; filmed 1973), an English version of a French play; Allen's film adaptation of the Broadway stage musical Cabaret (1972); the screenplay for Deathtrap (1982), based on the Broadway play of that name; and the one-man stage production Tru (1989), from the writings of Truman Capote.

* * *