Biography
Lenore J. Coffee (13 July 1896 – 2 July 1984) was an American screenwriter, playwright and novelist. Educated at Dominican College in San Rafael, California, she entered the film industry in 1919 after winning a screenplay contest for actress Clara Kimball Young, which led to her first credit on The Better Wife.
She received two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay: for Street of Chance (1930), shared with Howard Estabrook, and for Four Daughters (1938), shared with Julius J. Epstein. Coffee worked under contract at MGM from 1929 to 1936 and later at Warner Bros., where she contributed to films including The Great Lie (1941), Old Acquaintance (1943), Sudden Fear (1952) and Young at Heart (1954). She was married to writer and director William J. Cowen.
Coffee also wrote the play Family Portrait (1939) and novels including Another Time, Another Place (1956). She published her memoirs, Storyline: Reflections of a Hollywood Screenwriter, in 1973.
