Biography
John Paxton (21 May 1911 – 5 January 1985) was an American screenwriter. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, he studied journalism at the University of Missouri before moving to New York, where he worked as a publicist and editor for a theatrical magazine. He entered screenwriting in Hollywood in 1943 after being hired by producer Adrian Scott at RKO Pictures.
Paxton’s early credits include the film noir Murder, My Sweet (1944) and Cornered (1945), both directed by Edward Dmytryk. He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay and a Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for his work on Crossfire (1947), an adaptation of Richard Brooks’s novel The Brick Foxhole. Later screenplays include The Wild One (1953), Fourteen Hours (1951), On the Beach (1959) and Kotch (1971), for which he won a Writers Guild of America Award.
