Howard, Sidney (Coe)

Howard, Sidney [Coe] (1891–1939), California‐born playwright, graduated from the state university (1915), studied at Harvard in the 47 Workshop of G.P. Baker, served in World War I, and returned to become a magazine editor. His first major play, Swords (1921), a romantic blank‐verse tragedy set in medieval times, was followed by adaptations from foreign dramas, including S.S. Tenacity (1922), Casanova (1923), and Sancho Panza (1923), and an original play, Bewitched (1924), written with Edward Sheldon. Although he continued to make adaptations, his reputation as an original dramatist was established with They Knew What They Wanted (1924, Pulitzer Prize), which was followed by Lucky Sam McCarver (1925), Ned McCobb's Daughter (1926), and The Silver Cord (1926). With Charles MacArthur, he wrote Salvation (1928), a play about a woman revivalist. A further series of adaptations included Olympia (1928); Marseilles (1930); and The Late Christopher Bean (1932), which transfers a French play to a New England setting and shows the triumph of a hired girl in recognizing the greatness of a struggling artist, who marries her when he becomes successful. Howard's next play was Alien Corn (1933), the story of a music teacher in a small college, who forsakes her dream of becoming a concert pianist because of her love for the married college president, and, when their affair ends, stifles her feelings and continues her teaching. Later plays include Dodsworth (1934), in collaboration with Sinclair Lewis; Yellow Jack (1934); Paths of Glory (1935), a dramatization of a war novel by Humphrey Cobb; and The Ghost of Yankee Doodle (1937), the story of a liberal's fight against war propaganda.