author
Marie Coolidge-Rask
Remembered today mainly for a handful of silent-era movie tie-in novels, this little-known American writer helped preserve stories from films that are now rare—or even lost. Her work offers a small but fascinating window into 1920s popular culture.
1 Audiobook
Sparrows
by Marie Coolidge-Rask, Winifred Dunn
About the author
Born Marie Coolidge in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, on August 15, 1872, she later wrote under the name Marie Coolidge-Rask. Reliable bibliographic sources connect her with several photoplay novelizations from the 1920s, including La Bohème, Sparrows, and London After Midnight.
Those books were part of a lively period when popular films were adapted into novels for readers to enjoy at home. That gives her work an added interest now, especially in the case of London After Midnight, since the original 1927 film is famous as a lost silent movie.
Marie Coolidge-Rask died on November 20, 1949. Although not much biographical detail appears to survive, her name continues to surface in film history and genre bibliography because her novelizations remain part of the record of early Hollywood storytelling.