Introduction
Luci Ward (1907–1969) was an American screenwriter. She mostly worked on B crime and Western films.
Biography
Luci was born and raised in Monroe, Louisiana, the daughter of Edgar Ward and Lucille Pipes. She had a brother, Royce, and two step-siblings from her father's second marriage (her mother died when she was young).
Ward began her career as a secretary to First National executives and screenwriters (including Ben Markson) before becoming a script girl. Later, she got a chance to pen her own scripts. She also wrote articles for publications like Cosmopolitan, sometimes using the pen name Brooks Nevins.
She testified at a National Labor Relations Board hearing that she was hired as a stenographer at Warner Brothers for $25 a week and wasn't given a raise when she was promoted to screenwriter. Warner Brothers then hired her a personal secretary at $32.50 a week.
She was married to fellow screenwriter Jack Natteford and co-wrote several films with him.
Selected filmography
- Murder by an Aristocrat (1936)
- Mountain Justice (1937)
- Melody for Two (1937)
- Call the Mesquiteers (1938)
- Red River Range (1938)
- The Kansas Terrors (1939)
- The Arizona Kid (1939)
- Beyond the Sacramento (1940)
- Bad Men of the Hills (1942)
- The Fighting Buckaroo (1943)
- Law of the Northwest (1943)
- Riding West (1944)
- Raiders of Ghost City (1944)
- Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (1946)
- Return of the Bad Men (1948)
- Rustlers (1949)