Winifred Dunn

Winifred Dunn
Born	1898 Squirrel Lake, Wisconsin
Died	Unknown
Nationality	American
Occupation	screenwriter, editor, radio scenario writer and art critic
Known for	Sparrows (1926) Twinkletoes (1926)

Sparrows (1926)

Winifred Dunn was an American screenwriter, editor, radio scenario writer and art critic in the early 20th century. She was one of the youngest scenario editors of the silent era and was credited with writing over 40 productions.

Born around 1898, Winifred Dunn spent her childhood on an island at Squirrel Lake, Wisconsin. Coming from a family of writers, Dunn made her decision to be a writer at the age of six. She moved out to Chicago, Illinois at a young age, starting a career that would lead her to be one of the youngest scenario editors in the film industry.

At the age of 18, Winifred Dunn wrote her first film, Too Late, which launched her formal writing career with the production company Selig Polyscope. Her talent for writing and formatting entertainment pieces became apparent when Dunn translated a German play into English, as well as formatted the production aspects to fit a natural setting on the American stage.

In 1921, Dunn made the big move out to Hollywood, California to continue the expansion of her career with Sawyer-Lubin Productions. It was there that her 1922 production of Quincy Adams Sawyer (1922) was edited and titled, and also where she wrote a screen adaptation of Your Friend and Mine (1923) by Willard Mack. In February 1923, Dunn began a new position with Metro Pictures, later known as Metro Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, with formal tasks of a scenario editor. It wasn’t long before Dunn was known as one of the “busiest scenario editors in Hollywood." A 1924 issue of The Los Angeles Times, Journal As Text-Book, quotes Dunn encouraging other writers to read many newspapers in order to “keep a metaphorical finger on the pulse of life everywhere.”

With her quickly growing popularity, Dunn was recruited by big-name actress Mary Pickford in 1925 to work collaboratively on future projects. The first collaboration of Dunn and Pickford was the 1926 hit Sparrows. The role played by Pickford was out of the ordinary for her often light-hearted work, and therefore was a significant driver for its success. The film was later criticized for copyright issues by Harry Hyde who claimed the plot of Sparrows was eerily similar to his film The Cry of the Children and sued both Dunn and Pickford for $100,000.

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