Joseph Jay Dratler was born September 14, 1911 in New York City. He attended the University of North Carolina in the late 1920s, then studied at the Sorbonne in France and the University of Vienna. After his return to the U.S. in 1932, he worked as an editor for a New York publisher. Dratler then moved to Hollywood, where he became a successful novelist and screenwriter during the classic film noir era of the 1940s. He wrote six novels and many screenplays, winning both an Academy Award and an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Call Northside 777, and an Oscar nomination for the 1944 film, Laura. Dratler moved to Mexico with his wife and two children in the 1960s. He died in Mexico City of a heart attack on September 25, 1968.