Ardel Wray

Ardel Wray
Ardel Wray, circa 1941
Born	(1907-10-28)October 28, 1907 Spokane, Washington, U.S.A.
Died	October 14, 1983(1983-10-14) (aged 75) Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
Resting place	Ashes scattered at sea
Occupation	Screenwriter, story editor
Years active	1933–1972

Ardel Wray (October 28, 1907 – October 14, 1983) was an American screenwriter and story editor, best known for her work on Val Lewton’s classic horror films in the 1940s. Her screenplay credits from that era include I Walked with a Zombie, The Leopard Man and Isle of the Dead. In a late second career in television, she worked as a story editor and writer at Warner Bros. on 77 Sunset Strip, The Roaring 20s, and The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters.

Wray died at the age of 75 in Los Angeles.

Born Ardel Mockbee on October 28, 1907, in Spokane, Washington, Wray was the only child of Virginia Brissac and Eugene Mockbee, both stage actors working in west coast stock companies in the early 1900s. When her parents separated, she was brought to live with her maternal grandparents in San Francisco while her mother continued her career. She spent most of her childhood moving back and forth between her grandparent’s home and a boarding school, and was raised primarily by her grandfather, B. F. Brisac, a prominent San Francisco businessman who was a surrogate father and mentor throughout her life.

Divorced from Mockbee, her mother married theatre director-manager John Griffith Wray in 1915 and moved with him to Los Angeles when he accepted a directing job at the Thomas Ince Studios. Ardel came to live with them in 1920, later taking her stepfather’s last name. After graduating from high school, she worked as a model for Hollywood fashion designer Howard Greer, briefly attended the University of California at Los Angeles, and lived for a while at The Rehearsal Club in New York, where she considered and ultimately rejected the idea of becoming an actress. She had two short-lived marriages in the decade following high school, both to California artists, Henry D. Maxwell (1928-~1930) and Don Mansfield Caldwell (1933-1939).