author

Thompson Buchanan

1877–1937

A journalist-turned-novelist who found even wider success on the stage, he moved easily between fiction, theater, film, and radio. Best remembered for early 20th-century popular writing, he built a career around telling lively stories in whatever form reached the biggest audience.

1 Audiobook

Making People Happy

Making People Happy

by Thompson Buchanan

About the author

Born in New York City on June 21, 1877, Thompson Buchanan was an American writer whose career crossed several forms of popular entertainment. He began in journalism, wrote novels, and then shifted into playwriting, where he scored an early success with A Woman's Way in 1909.

As the entertainment world changed, he changed with it. In addition to novels and stage work, he wrote for motion pictures beginning in the 1910s and also produced radio sketches, showing a knack for adapting his storytelling to new media.

Buchanan died in Louisville, Kentucky, on October 15, 1937. Reliable sources agree on the outline of his career, but easily confirmed biographical detail beyond that is fairly limited, so the clearest picture is of a versatile working writer who moved wherever audiences were gathering.