Zelda Sears

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Zelda Sears née Paldi January 21 1873 February 19 1935 was an American stage actress screenwriter novelist and businesswoman Zelda had various odd jobs including a writer for a Chicago newspaper before becoming an actress and writer In New York she played comic roles on stage learned shorthand and even opened her own typewriting business The impetus of her writing career occurred when she began to copy scientific articles for the noted surgeon Dr William Bull Sears observed life in his sanitarium and turned what she saw into a fictional story which she sold to a magazine Readers became privy to the inner workings of the institution by reading Zeldas The Name Above The Door Her income grew after several more short stories were accepted for publication Dissatisfaction led Sears to return to Chicago where she joined the acting troupe of John Stapleton Sears stage career was boosted by her acting in a production of Lovers Lane Other plays in which she appeared were Women and Wine Girls The Blue Mouse Love Among The Lions The Girl He Couldnt Leave Behind Him Keeping Up Appearances The Nest Egg Standing Pat The Truth The Show Shop The Scarlet Woman and Undertow Playwrights began to trust her to add dialogue to her roles in stage productions Sears learned to write stage speeches and construct scenes Over a period of eleven years she read more than one hundred plays She embellished ten of these for production As a writer she benefited greatly from her association with Clyde Fitch Earlier he had cast her in Lovers Lane Sears wrote dialogue for theatrical shows like Lady Billy Cornered The Clinging Vine and The Magic Ring She came to Hollywood to be a scenarist for Cecil B DeMille and MGM in the early 1930s Sears cowrote The Divorcee a 1930 American PreCode drama film along with Nick Grindé and John Meehan She died age 62 at her Hollywood home in 1935 and was survived by her second husband Louis Wiswell and a sister Marie Paldi She had taken her professional name from her first husband Herbert E Sears