Biography

Novelist and screenwriter, educated at Dominican College in San Rafael, California. An avid movie enthusiast in her youth, she came to films after replying to an advertising campaign launched by actress Clara Kimball Young, who was on the lookout for better scripts. Coffee won the competition and sold her the screenplay for The Better Wife (1919) for $100. Shortly after, she was offered a one-year Hollywood contract. Her initial work in the movie colony consisted of devising title cards and collaborating on adaptations from original material, invariably for romantic melodramas. By the end of the 1920's, Coffee had evolved into a sought-after 'script doctor', in addition to becoming a specialist in writing 'women's pictures' (her discernible talent being able to temper any inherent maudlin sentimentality with touches of humour or wit).

Coffee was under contract to MGM from 1929 to 1936. She eventually departed in 1937, following a dispute over salary. Her next stop was Warner Brothers, where she remained until 1944. Either as writer or co-writer, Coffee shared responsibility for the box-office success of two seminal Bette Davis vehicles: The Great Lie (1941) and Old Acquaintance (1943). Her work during the 1950's was less distinguished, though she had further hits with the suspense thriller Sudden Fear (1952) and the musical romance Young at Heart (1954).

Her husband was the novelist William J. Cowen, whom she had met while composing the script for The Volga Boatman (1926) for Cecil B. DeMille (Cowen was one of DeMille's assistants). Coffee retired to England during the 1970's. She wrote her memoirs in 1973, entitled "Reflections of a Hollywood Screenwriter".
- IMDb mini biography by: I.S.Mowis