Connie Lee (born 1918) was an American screenwriter and songwriter known for her work on the Blondie films, as well as a number of B-Westerns (one of few women working in the genre at the time).[1][2]
Biography
Lee came out of the Tin Pan Alley school of songwriting, and was given a contract by Ambassador Pictures to write songs for a few of its films.[3] By the time she was 19, she began writing screenplays; her first feature, Swing It, Professor, was released in 1937. She often collaborated on scripts with Karen DeWolf: As a duo, the two penned Nine Girls and many of the Blondie titles.
Lee married screenwriter Seymour Bennett (born Seymour Berkowitz) at some point in the early 1950s; the pair collaborated on the story for 1953's The Last Posse.
In 1953, Lee's and Bennett's careers came to an end when they were named by fellow screenwriter David Lang[4][5][6] (30 November 1913 — 11 May 2007).[7] and were placed on the Hollywood blacklist for alleged Communist ties.[8][9]
^"11 Mar 1939, 7 - Wilmington Daily Press Journal at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2019-01-01. Women Dominate Series Led by Carole Lombard, women will have their day in a world heretofore governed by men, during the "Screen Guild Show," when the blonde glamour girl portrays the first feminine designei of men's suits in "Tailored By Toni." Hollywood's only woman director, Dorothy Arzner, will direct the comedy drama, an original by Connie Lee, only feminine writer of western films. Spring Byington, Edward Everett Horton, and James Stewait complete the cast Dial KNX at 4:30
^"6 Feb 1937, Page 3 - Corsicana Daily Sun at Newspapers.com". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2019-01-01. America's appetite for the plaintive melodies of the plains Is both whetted and appeased in "Gallop- Ing Dynamite," the new Maurice Conn production for Ambassador Pictures, Inc., which Is showing at the Ideal theatre, In which Kermlt Maynard, popular outdoor star, has the leading role. Connie Lee wrote the two open- space songs which are Introduced In "Galloping Dynamite." The tunes which are destined to become hits, are "Cactus Joe" and "My Heart's On the Plain," both of which have already become familiar to radio audiences throughout the .country.
^"David Lang". Kinorium. Archived from the original on 26 February 2023. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
^"David Lang". Catalog. AFI. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
^"25 Mar 1953, Page 24 - Muncie Evening Press". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2019-01-01. In his testimony Lang named 90 persons who attended closed meetings of the writers cell "definite Communist meetings where no one was allowed in unless he was a member of the Comunist Party." All but eight of those named already had been mentioned to the committee. Those whose names had never appeared before were: Milliard Lampell, John Stanford, Connie Lee Bennett, Seymour Bennett, Henrietta Martin, Eunice Mindlen, Julian Zimet and Frank TarlofL
