Biography

American novelist, several of whose stories became motion pictures. The daughter of a grocer, Strabel was born in Crown Point, Indiana, though she at times claimed her mother's birthplace of Pennsylvania as her own. She grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois and sold her first story at 10 to a Pittsburgh newspaper. After college, she worked as a fashion reporter and a fashion advertising copywriter before taking up fiction writing during an extended illness. Her first novel, "Smart Woman," was published in 1933. She sold a story, "You Can't Escape Forever," to Warner Bros. in 1938, but it is unclear whether it was ever filmed, and a later film of that title credits a different author. Her first, and greatest, success with a film adaptation of her work was Cecil B. DeMille's Reap the Wild Wind (1942), from her bestseller. That was followed the same year by The Forest Rangers (1942), adapted from her magazine story "The Forest Ranger." Concurrent with that tale, she met and married David P. Godwin, the chief of fire control for the U.S. Forest Service. Godwin died in a 1947 plane crash, soon after Strabel's last film adaptation was released, Undercurrent (1946), based on her magazine story "You Were There." Strabel's final novels, "Storm to the South" and "Caribee," were successful but to date have not been filmed. She died of cancer in 1959 in Washington DC, and was buried in Charleston, South Carolina, survived by her two younger siblings.
- IMDb mini biography by: Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>