Born in 1898, Edward Bartlett Cormack wrote his first play as a nineteen year-old college student before taking a job as a newspaper reporter. In 1927, he wrote The Racket as a stage play; a year later he created the silent screen version of the story for Howard Hughes. The film was nominated for a best picture award in 1929. Bartlett would go on to write twenty-five plays and screenplays before his death in 1944.

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