| Bradley King | |
| Birth Date: | July 8, 1889 |
| Birth Place: | New York |
| Death Date: | August 24, 1977 (aged 83) |
| Death Place: | Century City, California |
| Yearsactive: | 1920 - 1947 |
| Birthname: | Josephine McLaughlin |
Bradley King (July 8, 1889 - August 24, 1977) was the pen name of Josephine McLaughlin. She was a screenwriter who wrote 56 scripts for films between 1920 and 1947. All but one of her 40 silent films are lost, but most of her 20 or so sound films still exist.
King was born in New York city, possibly on July 8, and most probably in 1889. Other sources give her birth date as 1894, but she was listed as age 16 in the 1905 census, and Dettwyler confirms her birth date with other extant records.[1] She was educated at the Academy of the Sacred Heart (later Kenwood) in Albany, New York.[2]
King recalled that she entered the business after selling a few short stories to pulp magazines and arranged a meeting with silent era filmmaker Thomas Ince. "I've read some of your stuff and I think your literary style is absolutely lousy," she later recounted Ince saying. "But you've got a good sense of drama, and I'll give you $50 a week." Five years later, she was making $1,500 a week.[3]
She was married four times.[4] One was a short marriage to silent film director John Griffith Wray, who died just nine months after their October 1928 wedding.[5] After a later husband, George Hiram Boyd, lost most of her $400,000 fortune ($ million today) to bad investments, she divorced him in 1940. She wrote her last screenplay for the 1947 movie That's My Man. She married Albert C. Windley in 1944, sometimes going by the name Bradley King Windley, and they remained married until his death in 1969. She died in 1977.