Kate Corbaley (born Kate Alaska Hinckley Hooper) was a pioneering American screenwriter and development executive active from the silent era through her death in the 1930s.^[1]

Biography

Kate was born at sea off the coast of Mazatlan, Mexico, to William Hooper and Mary Caldwell.^[2] Her family was financially well-off, and she attended Stanford University, where she studied English.^[2] After graduation, she taught at San Bernardino High School before marrying engineer Charles Corbaley. The pair had four daughters before divorcing 12 years later.^[3]

After the split, she turned to writing. She won several contests in the 1910s, went to work at MGM as a story editor after working for Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew.^[2][4] She wrote a string of films through the 1920s, and published a book on screenwriting called Selling Manuscripts in the Photoplay Market. She eventually became a consultant at the Palmer Photoplay Institute, and worked as a development executive, evaluating scripts and making them more commercial.^[5] She died on September 23, 1938, in her Cheviot Hills, Los Angeles, home after a brief illness.^[3]

Selected filmography

• The Fire Brigade (1926)
• The Bad Lands (1925)
• Silent Sanderson (1925)
• The Girl of Gold (1925)
• Desert Blossoms (1921)
• Smoldering Embers (1920)
• The False Code (1919)
• Gates of Brass (1919)
• Mr. Briggs Closes the House (1918) (uncredited)^[6]
• Real Folks (1918)

References