Audrey Wells
Audrey Ann Wells (née Lederer; January 25, 1960 – October 4, 2018) was an American screenwriter, film director, and producer.[2] Her 1999 film Guinevere won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award.
Audrey Wells | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Audrey Ann Lederer January 25, 1960[1] |
| Died | October 4, 2018 (aged 58) Santa Monica, California, U.S. |
| Occupation |
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| Years active | 1996–2018 |
| Spouse(s) | Brian Larky |
| Children | 1 |
Early life
Wells was born in San Francisco, California, to Austrian-American psychiatrist Wolfgang Lederer and Romanian-American psychologist Alexandra Botwin Lederer; her parents fled World War II-era Europe.
Career
Wells worked as a disc jockey at San Francisco jazz radio station KJAZ FM. She graduated from U.C. Berkeley and UCLA.[3]
She wrote a number of successful screenplays and directed three for which she had created the script. Her works were primarily comedies and romance films. Among her films are The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996) and Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), both of which she also produced. Her 1999 film Guinevere won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival.[4] Wells also co-wrote the script for the comedy The Game Plan.
Death
Wells died of cancer on October 4, 2018. The film The Hate U Give, for which she wrote the screenplay, was released the next day.[5] She is survived by her husband and daughter.[6]
She also wrote the screenplay for the 2020 Netflix/Pearl Studio animated feature Over the Moon, which was dedicated to her memory.
Filmography
- The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996), writer/executive producer
- George of the Jungle (1997), co-screenwriter
- Guinevere (1999), writer/director (feature directorial debut)
- Disney's The Kid (2000), writer
- Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), screen story writer/screenwriter/director/producer
- Shall We Dance? (2004), screenwriter
- The Game Plan (2007), co-story writer
- The Fugees (2012), director
- A Dog's Purpose (2017), co-screenwriter
- The Hate U Give (2018), screenwriter (film released posthumously)
- Over the Moon (2020), writer (film released posthumously) - The film was dedicated to her memory.
References
- "Audrey A Lederer, Born 01/25/1960 in California". CaliforniaBirthIndex.org. Retrieved October 3, 2020.
- Rebecca Flint Marx. "Audrey Wells". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 11, 2013.
- Mervosh, Sarah (October 7, 2018). "Audrey Wells, Screenwriter Behind 'The Hate U Give,' Dies at 58". The New York Times. Retrieved October 9, 2018.
- Turan, Kenneth. "Movie Review : A 'Guinevere' to Capture Any Man's Heart". The Los Angeles Times.
- Stedman, Alex (October 5, 2018). "'The Hate U Give' Screenwriter Audrey Wells Dies at 58". Variety. Retrieved October 5, 2018.
- Mike Barnes (October 5, 2018). "Audrey Wells, Screenwriter on 'Under the Tuscan Sun' and 'The Hate U Give,' Dies at 58". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved March 14, 2021.