Davis, Owen (1874-1956), was one of the most successful American playwrights of the early 1900’s. Davis was especially noted for his melodramas. From 1899 to 1913, he wrote more than 100 melodramas, notably Nellie, the Beautiful Cloak Model (1906), one of the most popular plays of its day. Later in his career, Davis turned to more realistic playwriting. He won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for drama for Icebound (1923), a grim study of a New England family fighting over an inheritance.
Owen Gould Davis was born in Portland, Maine. He was educated at Harvard University and began his theater career writing a number of unsuccessful verse tragedies. Among his later works, only his 1936 adaptation of Edith Wharton’s novel Ethan Frome was successful. He adapted the Wharton novel for the stage with Donald Davis, his son. Owen Davis wrote two autobiographies, I’d Like to Do It Again (1931) and My First 50 Years in the Theatre (1950).
