Vincent Sheean (5 December 1899, Pana, Illinois – 16 March 1975, Arolo, Frz. of Leggiuno, Italy), born James Vincent Sheean, American journalist and novelist.His most famous work was Personal History (New York: Doubleday, 1935). It won one of the inaugural National Book Awards: the Most Distinguished Biography of 1935. Film producer Walter Wanger acquired the political memoir and made it the basis for his 1940 film production Foreign Correspondent, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.Sheean served as a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune during the Spanish Civil War.Sheean wrote the narration for the feature-length documentary Crisis (1939) directed by Alexander Hammid and Herbert Kline. He translated Eve Curie's biography of her mother, Madame Curie (1939), into English. Sheean wrote Oscar Hammerstein I: Life and Exploits of an Impresario (1955) as well as a controversial biography of Dorothy Thompson and Sinclair Lewis, Dorothy and Red (1963).Vincent and Diana Forbes-Robertson Sheean were friends of Edna St. Vincent Millay and her husband Eugen; they spent time together on Ragged Island off the coast of Maine during the summer of 1945.
Film producer Walter Wanger bought the rights to Sheean's "Personal History" (New York: Doubleday, 1935) for $10,000 in 1935. Wanger then went through 16 writers and five years before he could get the script as he wanted -- the film version of Sheean's book was finally released as Alfred Hitchcock's "Foreign Correspondent" (1940).
Writer
Title
Year
Status
Character
Crisis
1939
Documentary commentary
Ambassador Bill
1931
suggested by story "Ambassador from the United States" - uncredited
$1.9 Million
