Wendell Mayes

Wendell Curran Mayes (July 21, 1919 – March 28, 1992) was an American screenwriter, best known for his skill in writing literary adaptations and his work with director Otto Preminger. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film Anatomy of a Murder (1959).

His other notable films included The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), The Enemy Below (also 1957), Advise and Consent (1962), In Harm's Way (1965), Hotel (1967), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Go Tell the Spartans (1978), and the original Death Wish (1974).

Mayes was born on July 21, 1919, in Hayti, Missouri. His father, Von Mayes, was a lawyer, and his mother, Irene (née Haynes), was a teacher. Wendell attended primary school in Caruthersville, Missouri; Battle Ground Academy in Franklin, Tennessee; and Central College in Fayette, Missouri. He had one year of law school at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee.

Mayes moved to Washington, D.C., to work as a filing clerk in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, then to New York, where he worked in the theater. Subsequently, he was an exterminator and gold prospector in Arizona, a truck driver in Texas. During World War II, he worked as a welder in a Baltimore shipyard, and joined the Navy as a petty officer shipbuilder. In 1945, he was discharged from the Navy and moved back to New York.

Mayes began as an actor, then turned to writing. An episode that he wrote for Pond's Theater received a good review in a Los Angeles newspaper, and led Billy Wilder to hire him to work on the script to the film The Spirit of St. Louis.

For Anatomy of a Murder, Mayes received a New York Film Critics Circle Award for best screenplay in 1959 and an Oscar nomination in 1960. It is claimed to be one of the best trial movies of all time.

His last script was Criminal Behavior which starred Farrah Fawcett.

Mayes died of cancer aged 72 on March 28, 1992, in Santa Monica, California.