Eleanor Perry (née Rosenfeld; nom-de-plume Oliver Weld Bayer, 1914 - March 14, 1981) born in Cleveland, Ohio, was an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, Emmy award-winning author who was a part of a team with her then husband film director Frank Perry. She won the Emmy award for her television screenplay adaptation of Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory. The Perry duo was responsible for 1968's The Swimmer starring Burt Lancaster, Diary of a Mad Housewife starring Carrie Snodgrass and the Academy Award-nominated independent film, David and Lisa among other films. Eleanor Perry was also a journalist and novelist who penned Blue Pages, a semiautobiographical novel about her time writing screenplays in Hollywood. Prior to working with Frank Perry, Eleanor had published numerous articles, plays and novels including Third Best Sport which was produced on Broadway.Film critic Charles Champlin fondly remembered Perry as the feminist who, "discovered a ladder and a can of spray paint" to protest, deface and demonstrate her distaste for Federico Fellini's sexist "she-wolf" Roma posters at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival. The outspoken Eleanor Perry was an advocate for women's rights and screenwriters' recognition, often criticizing the film industry.
I have been far more discriminated against as a writer than as a woman.
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[interviewed in 1970]: In the not too distant past, we had Doris Day's virginity to worry about. Recently, we've had the sex-crazed Mrs. Robinson. Both extremes are dishonest. Both deny any humanity to the women characters. The changes are really coming about now in the attitudes of our society. Characters who are recognizable women are just beginning to appear in scripts.
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Playwright and screenwriter, often in collaboration with her former husband, the director Frank Perry. Held a master's degree in psychiatric social work from Western Reserve University.
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