"Birds of Prey" John Monk Saunders Signed 3X5 Card Mounted For Sale

Up for sale "Birds of Prey" John Monk Saunders Signed 3X5 Card Mounted. 

ES-7522E

John

Monk Saunders (November 22,

1897 – March 11, 1940) was an American novelist, screenwriter, and film

director. Born in Hinckley, Minnesota, to

Robert C. Saunders and Nannie Monk Saunders, his family (6 children) moved to

Seattle, Washington in 1907 where his father served as US Attorney. John

attended Broadway High School, where he excelled as both student and athlete.

Saunders, a member of Sigma Chi Fraternity, received his education at University

of Washington in Seattle where he was president of his freshman

class and quarterback on the freshman football team. He served in the Air Service during World War I as a flight instructor in

Florida, but was never able to secure a posting to France, a disappointment

that frustrated him for the remainder of his life. After the University of

Washington, he was a Rhodes Scholar at

Oxford, entering in the fall of 1919 where he was the first American to

attend Magdalen College. Saunders was a member of their championship

swimming team and played on the Rugby squad. He completed his 3-year degree

there in just 11⁄2 years. While at Oxford, he formed

friendships with John Masefield and Rudyard Kipling. After graduation, he served as attaché at the

American Relief Association in Vienna, Austria. After the war he spent time in

Paris then returned to Oxford, completing his master's degree in 1923. He

worked as a journalist in the US, including stints with the Los Angeles

Times and New York Tribune. Saunders began selling short

stories to magazines such became editor of American magazine. e

first sold the movie rights to one of his stories in 1924, and in 1926, Famous

Players-Lasky/Paramount purchased the rights to Saunders's unfinished novel

about WWI pilots. Wings garnered $39,000 for the writer - the highest sum paid

for film rights at that time - as well as the first Academy Award for Best

Picture.