Thelma Strabel(1900-1959)
- Writer
American novelist, several of whose stories became motion pictures. The
daughter of a grocer, Strabel was born in Crown Point, Indiana, though
she at times claimed her mother's birthplace of Pennsylvania as her
own. She grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois and sold her first story
at 10 to a Pittsburgh newspaper. After college, she worked as a fashion
reporter and a fashion advertising copywriter before taking up fiction
writing during an extended illness. Her first novel, "Smart Woman," was
published in 1933. She sold a story, "You Can't Escape Forever," to
Warner Bros. in 1938, but it is unclear whether it was ever filmed, and
a later film of that title credits a different author. Her first, and
greatest, success with a film adaptation of her work was
Cecil B. DeMille's
Reap the Wild Wind (1942),
from her bestseller. That was followed the same year by
The Forest Rangers (1942),
adapted from her magazine story "The Forest Ranger." Concurrent with
that tale, she met and married David P. Godwin, the chief of fire
control for the U.S. Forest Service. Godwin died in a 1947 plane crash,
soon after Strabel's last film adaptation was released,
Undercurrent (1946), based on her
magazine story "You Were There." Strabel's final novels, "Storm to the
South" and "Caribee," were successful but to date have not been filmed.
She died of cancer in 1959 in Washington DC, and was buried in
Charleston, South Carolina, survived by her two younger siblings.
