Biography
Joel Sayre was an American reporter, novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for his screenplay for the 1939 adventure film Gunga Din, co-written with Fred Guiol from a story by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.
Sayre began his career as a crime reporter in New York during Prohibition. He later contributed to The New Yorker and wrote satirical novels including Rackety Rax (1932). In the mid-1930s he moved to Hollywood, where his screen credits included Annie Oakley (1935) and The Road to Glory (1936), the latter co-written with William Faulkner. His short story "The Man on the Ledge" was adapted as the 1951 film Fourteen Hours.
During the Second World War Sayre served as a foreign correspondent for The New Yorker. He died on 9 September 1979 in Taftsville, Vermont.
