James Agee(1909-1955)

Writer
Actor
Director

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The African Queen

James Agee, Pulitzer Prize winning author, was born in Knoxville in 1909. The intense writer was to enjoy little real success in his lifetime, but after death won accolades. In 1958 he won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his uncompleted biographical novel A Death in the Family. Agee also wrote the classic Let Us Now Praise Famous Men with Walker Evans and the Oscar nominated screenplay for The African Queen with John Huston. Agee also appeared in a film and several TV shows while working in Hollywood. He died in 1955, only 45 years old, of a heart attack in NYC.

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Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 1 nomination total

Photos

Known for

The African Queen

7.7

Writer

1951

The Night of the Hunter

8.0

Writer

1955

All the Way Home

7.2

Writer

1963

Festival

8.0

TV Series

Writer

Credits

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Writer

A Death in the Family
5.9
TV Movie
- novel
- 2002
All the Way Home
7.2
TV Movie
- novel "A Death in the Family"
- 1981
All the Way Home
6.8
TV Movie
- novel "A Death in the Family"
- 1971
All the Way Home
7.2
- novel "A Death in the Family"
- 1963
Festival
8.0
TV Series
- teleplay
- 1961
Omnibus
8.3
TV Series
- screenplay
- novel
- writer
- 1952–1956
The Night of the Hunter
8.0
- screenplay by
- 1955
White Mane
7.2
Short
- commentary: english-speaking version
- 1953
Face to Face
6.1
- adaptation (segment The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky)
- 1952
The African Queen
7.7
- adapted for the screen by
- 1951
The Quiet One
6.5
- commentary and dialogue
- 1948

Actor

Director

Trivia
He never lived to see "The Night Of The Hunter" (1955), the film of perhaps his best screenplay. He died in the back of a New York taxi some four months before its opening. After his death, the director of the film, Charles Laughton, sent his widow a telegram simply saying, "I loved him".