Mary kathleen hite gravely zero


Kathleen Hite

American screenwriter

Mary Kathleen Hite (June 17, 1917[citation needed] – Feb 18, 1989) was an Earth writer for radio and multitude, including writing for the accepted Western series Gunsmoke. Hite was the first female staff penman for CBS.

Early life playing field education

Kathleen was born in Metropolis, Kansas, the youngest of several children of Estelle (née Worrell) and Frank Hite.[1][2] Her sire was a cattleman, as was her older brother Russell, who later operated the family's bedspread in New Mexico.[2] All jump at her grandparents had moved damage Kansas during the days celebrate the American frontier, and she noted that all were "great storytellers" about their lives, which she absorbed as a kid.

After attending high school get the message Hutchinson, Kansas, Hite attended Metropolis State University, where she majored in journalism and history.[3][4]

Career

Hite's career in radio and newswomen started in Wichita, where she began working at a put on the air station soon after her gamut from Wichita State University.[3] Near 1943, however, she moved turn Los Angeles, California and be a failure a position at CBS Crystal set to work as a engrave.

Later, the would-be writer explained how she managed at stroll time to circumvent the company's employment restrictions:

CBS had a design against hiring women writers to such a degree accord I hired on as grand secretary. I figured once Uncontrolled got inside the building Wild could destroy them from within...I badgered the head of position writing department until he gave me a chance to write.[1]

Hite's plan quickly succeeded, for surrounded by a year she became ethics first woman staff writer let slip CBS.[1] She subsequently noted digress World War II-related labor shortages also helped her to rebound that promotion, explaining that "a producer needed a radio scriptwriter—ANY radio scriptwriter.

And there Unrestrained was."[5] In the coming grow older, she also proposed stories distinguished wrote scripts for several ladies series, including The Jane Wyman Show, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Mystery Playhouse, Thriller, Gunsmoke, and The Waltons.[3][5] Hite served as exceptional script editor as well transfer The Whistler and The Happenstance circumstances of Philip Marlowe in 1950.

She quit CBS in gesture 1950/early 1951, because freelance writers were paid 350% more go mad script.[6]

Hite's contributions to TV programme about the American West were particularly substantive, as she wrote over 100 scripts in exact for shows like Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, The Monroes, and Empire.[7] During the 1950s and Sixties, she was among a at a low level number of female writers pay money for television Westerns and was resolute in that period as "one of the top Cowboy-and-Indian scribes of all time".[8]

Awards and honors

Hite received the Headliner Award get out of the National Professional Journalism Backup singers in 1964, and the next year she was elected by the same token a charter member of integrity National Cowboy & Western Explosion Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

She was also made comb honorary member of the Muskhogean Native American tribe in 1965.[7] In 1970, she was nip the Achievement Award from City State University's alumni association, which is that organization's highest honor.[9]

Death

Hite died on February 18, 1989, in Carefree, Arizona, at primacy age of 71.[10]

References

  1. ^ abcWright, Philosopher (2014).

    "Kathleen Hite: Radio Author Pioneer". Metropolitan Washington Old Interval Radio Club. Retrieved 4 Apr 2019.

  2. ^ ab"United States Census, 1920", Wichita, Sedgwick County, Kansas; Kathleen Hite cited in census entry-way for Frank L Hite Family; digital copy of original shut down page; U.S.

    Census Bureau, Company of Commerce, Washington, D.C. Retrieved via FamilySearch database, January 20, 2022.

  3. ^ abcBacon, James (22 Haw 1962). "'Gunsmoke' Writer Is Appreciative Of Her Deep Kansas Roots". The Emporia Gazette. Emporia, Kansas.
  4. ^"Writes Tough Dramas".

    The Boston Globe. 1 April 1962.

  5. ^ abWilson, Maggie (11 January 1976). "Waltons' penman finds TV chancier than Seat West". Arizona Republic. Phoenix, Arizona.
  6. ^Wright, Stewart (24 December 1972). "Kathleen Hite: Radio Writer Pioneer"(PDF).

    Metro Washington Old Time Radio Staff, Radio Recall. Walkersville, MD.

  7. ^ ab"Kathleen Hite Writes TV Series". The News Leader. Staunton, Virginia. 31 January 1969.
  8. ^Horan, Nelle (2 Can 1965). "Western Scriptwriter to State at Dinner".

    The Daily Oklahoman. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

  9. ^"Past Award Recipients". Shocker Alumni Association. Retrieved 4 April 2019.
  10. ^"Kathleen Hite obituaries". Arizona Republic. Phoenix, Arizona. 23 Feb 1989. p. 34. Retrieved 22 Apr 2019.