Paul Perez (born Paul Friedenberg) was an American screenwriter active primarily during the 1920s and 1930s; he wrote for both English- and Spanish-language films over the course of his career, and often worked on Westerns. He also had several credits as an actor and editor.
Biography
Paul was born in New York City to art dealer Robert Fridenberg and his wife, Mariam Barnett. He grew up in Manhattan near his extended family of German extraction; as a boy, he accidentally shot a nurse who was attending to his mother in their home while playing with his uncle's gun.[1]
He married England-born actress Molly O'Sullivan in the early 1920s; the pair had one son, Paul Powers Perez.[2] While living in New York City and London, after appearing in a few acting roles[3] and working as a newspaperman, he worked in the publicity department at Universal.[4][5][6] By the late 1920s, the family had moved to Los Angeles; by 1926, Perez was employed at Universal as a scenarist, where he was known for writing titles.[7][8] He later worked as a screenwriter at First National.[9][10]
Perez was more or less retired by the early 1950s, when he moved to Oaxaca, Mexico, and pursued his passion for photography. He reportedly traveled extensively through southern Mexico, where her purchased masks and other artifacts at local markets.[11]
