Sidney Howard

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Sidney Coe Howard (June 26, 1891 – August 23, 1939) was an American playwright, dramatist and screenwriter. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1925 and a posthumous Academy Award in 1940 for the screenplay for Gone with the Wind.

Sidney Howard was born in Oakland, California, the son of Helen Louise (née Coe) and John Lawrence Howard. He studied playwriting at Harvard University under George Pierce Baker in his legendary "47 workshop." Howard volunteered with Andrew's American Field Service, serving in France and the Balkans during World War I. After the war, Howard made use of his proficiency at foreign languages and translated a number of literary works from French, Spanish, Hungarian, and German. He was a liberal intellectual whose politics became progressively more left-wing over the years.