---
name: "John Paxton"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/john-paxton-132577"
roles: ["Writer"]
born: "21 May 1911"
died: "5 January 1985"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "writer"
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-20T01:44:09.569231+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# John Paxton

Writer. Born 21 May 1911 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. Died 5 January 1985.

## Details

- **Work:** Writer
- **Born:** 21 May 1911, Kansas City, Missouri, USA
- **Died:** 5 January 1985
- **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Paxton, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q354295, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0668122/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/132577

## 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.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, latimes.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Crossfire* (1947), Fi1m 77, Screenplay — [page](https://film.one/film/crossfire.md)

## Complete filmography (22)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *On the Beach* (2000), Screenplay
- *On the Beach* (2000), series, Screenplay
- *I Am the Greatest: The Adventures of Muhammad Ali* (1977), series, Creator
- *The Great Man's Whiskers* (1972), Writer
- *Kotch* (1971), Screenplay
- *Aftermath* (1960), Writer
- *On the Beach* (1959), Screenplay
- *How to Murder a Rich Uncle* (1957), Screenplay
- *Interpol* (1957), Screenplay
- *A Prize of Gold* (1955), Screenplay
- *The Cobweb* (1955), Screenplay
- *The Wild One* (1953), Screenplay
- *General Electric Theater* (1953), series, Writer
- *Fourteen Hours* (1951), Screenplay
- *Of Men and Music* (1951), Writer
- *Rope of Sand* (1949), Additional Dialogue
- *Crossfire* (1947), Screenplay — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/film/crossfire.md)
- *So Well Remembered* (1947), Screenplay
- *Crack-Up* (1946), Screenplay
- *Cornered* (1945), Screenplay
- *Murder, My Sweet* (1944), Screenplay
- *My Pal, Wolf* (1944), Writer

## Awards

### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated

- 1948: Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay (nominated), for *Crossfire*

### Other awards — 1 won

- Edgar Awards 1946: Edgar Awards (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/john-paxton-132577