Garrett Fort

Biography

Garrett Fort was an American playwright, screenwriter, and short story writer from New York City. He had an active writing career from the early 1920s to his death in the mid-1940s. He is primarily remembered for writing the scripts for the horror films "Dracula" (1931), "Frankenstein" (1931), and "Dracula's Daughter" (1936). He also wrote the script for the famous Western "The Mark of Zorro" (1940). In 1934, Fort was introduced to the Indian spiritual master Meher Baba (1894 -1969). His new mentor introduced him to a form of mysticism, with ideas influenced from Sufism and the philosophical movement of Universalism. Fort wanted to adapt Baba's philosophy to a screenplay. He devoted several years to his dream project. In 1937, Fort traveled to India in search on inspiration. He soon returned to the United States, without ever securing funding to turn his screenplay into a film. While continuing to regularly work as a screenwriter into the 1940s, Fort was often underpaid and faced recurring financial problems. In October 1945, Fort died in a hotel room of Los Angeles. The cause of death was an overdose of sleeping pills. His final film project was the war film "Blood on the Sun" (1945), which dramatized events surrounding the strategic document "Tanaka Memorial" (1927) and the Japanese war plans which it described. Several of Fort's screenplays were adapted into films after his death. He was also credited as a co-writer in the horror film "The Mad Room" (1969), which was a remake of one his films and reused elements from his script. A number of his films were selected for preservation in the National Film Registry, and have maintained cult followings into the 21st century.