Horace Jackson was an American Academy Award-nominated filmmaker of the silent and sound film eras.
Background
There are conflicting sources as to whether he was born in East Saint Louis or Venice, Illinois, both suburbs of Saint Louis, Missouri. His father died when he was five, and several years later his mother moved him and his sister, Helen, to the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles in approximately 1910.
Career
More well known for his screenwriting efforts, Jackson also worked as a set designer early in his career. Born Horace Atherton Jackson on March 29, 1898 to Harry South. Jackson and Lena Atherton Jackson in Illinois. Prior to working in films, Jackson was an architect.
Jackson broke into the film industry dressing sets on the 1923 silent film, The Unknown Purple.
Within months, he had moved up to the title of either "art director" or "set director". He would be the co-set director on the 1925 classic, Ben-Hur.
He continued in the set design arena during the remainder of silent era, however with the advent of talking pictures Jackson would move into the screenwriting profession. His first effort was the screenplay adaptation of Benjamin Glazer and Melchior Lengyel"s story for 1929"s Strange Cargo, directed by Arthur Gregor.
During 1929 through the beginning of the 1940s, Jackson would be the screenwriter or story creator on almost 30 films.
Some of his better known films are: Sin Takes a Holiday in 1930. 1937"s Breakfast for Two, starring Barbara Stanwyck. And his final two films in 1941, Model Wife (starring Joan Blondell and Dick Powell), and Bedtime Story with Fredric March and Loretta Young.
He was also reported as one of a plethora of writers who worked on the screenplay for the 1942 film The Night Before the Divorce, although he received no screenplay cartulary-register
In 1947, he sued Republic Pictures for plagiarism regarding the film Calendar Girl (1947). On January 26, 1952 Jackson would die in a car accident.