20th-century American screenwriters

Arthur C. Pierce (September 8, 1923 – November 17, 1987) was an American screenwriter and director specialising in low budget science fiction films.

James Frederick Thurman (March 13, 1935 – April 14, 2007) was an American actor, voice actor, writer, director, cartoonist, and producer. He is best known for the writings of TV gags for the likes of Bob Hope, Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett, Bill Cosby, and Dean Martin.

Edwin A. "Bud" Shrake, Jr. (September 6, 1931 – May 8, 2009) was an American journalist, sportswriter, novelist, biographer and screenwriter. He co-wrote a series of golfing advice books with golf coach Harvey Penick, including Harvey Penick's Little Red Book, a golf guide that became the best-selling sports book in publishing history. Called a “lion of Texas letters” by the Austin American-Statesman, Shrake was a member of the Texas Film Hall of Fame, and received the Lon Tinkle lifetime achievement award from the Texas Institute of Letters and the Texas Book Festival Bookend Award.

A. J. Carothers (October 22, 1931 – April 9, 2007) was an American playwright and television writer, best known for his work with Walt Disney.

Zoë Tamerlis Lund (February 9, 1962 – April 16, 1999), also known as Zoë Tamerlis and Zoë Tamerlaine, was an American musician, model, actress, author, producer, political activist and screenwriter. She was best known for her association in two films with film director Abel Ferrara: Ms .45 (1981), in which she starred, and Bad Lieutenant (1992), for which she co-wrote the screenplay.

Thomas Lockyear Graeff (September 12, 1929 – December 19, 1970) was an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, film editor and cinematographer. He is best known for writing, directing, producing and starring in the 1959 B-movie Teenagers from Outer Space.

Donald Clarence Simpson (October 29, 1943 – January 19, 1996) was an American film producer, screenwriter, and actor. Simpson and his producing partner Jerry Bruckheimer produced hit films such as Flashdance (1983), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Top Gun (1986), and The Rock (1996). At the time of his death in 1996, Simpson's films' total gross was $3 billion worldwide.

John Gregory Dunne (May 25, 1932 – December 30, 2003) was an American writer. He began his career as a journalist for Time magazine before expanding into writing criticism, essays, novels, and screenplays. He often collaborated with his wife, Joan Didion.

Paul Bern (born Paul Levy; December 3, 1889 – September 5, 1932) was a German-born American film director, screenwriter, and producer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he became the assistant to Irving Thalberg. He helped launch the career of Jean Harlow, whom he married in July 1932; two months later, he was found dead of a gunshot wound, leaving what appeared to be a suicide note. Various alternative theories of his death have been proposed. MGM writer and film producer Samuel Marx believed that he was killed by his ex-common-law wife Dorothy Millette, who jumped to her death from a ferry days afterward.

Thomas Richard Martin (January 30, 1922 – May 24, 2008) was an American comedian and director. He was known for his role as the co-host of the sketch comedy program Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In from 1968 to 1973.