Elmer Harris

Elmer Harris was born on January 11, 1878, in Chicago, Illinois. He attended the University of California and graduated in 1901 with a Bachelor of Science in Writing, also gaining Phoebe Apperson Hearst as his patron. Because she backed him financially, Harris was able to study in New York City and Europe for the next four years. In 1906 Harris moved to New York City and began writing numerous articles, reviews, and short stories. He later founded the Carmel-by-the-Sea artist colony, where he dramatized his first play, SHAM. Some of his later plays included THE OFFENDERS (1908), TRIAL MARRIAGE (1909), and THY NEIGHBOR’S WIFE (1911). Altogether Harris collaborated on, directed, adapted, and supervised the production of amost thirty-five films and wrote seven original screenplays of his own. On September 6, 1966, Harris died at the age of eighty-eight in Washington, D.C.