Ravetch worked mostly on Westerns such as Vengeance Valley (1951). With Frank, he approached producer Jerry Wald and proposed they adapt the William Faulkner novel The Hamlet (1940) for the screen.
The result was The Long, Hot
Summer (1958), which primarily was an original story with one of Faulkner's
characters at its center. When Wald greenlighted the film and asked Ravetch to
choose a director, he suggested Martin Ritt, whom he knew from the Group
Theatre and the Actors Studio in New York City.
The Long, Hot Summer proved to be the first of
eight projects – including The Sound and the Fury (1959), Hud (1963), Norma Rae
(1979), Murphy's Romance (1985), and Stanley & Iris (1990) – written by
Ravetch and Frank and directed by Ritt. Additional screenwriting credits
include Home from the Hill (1960), The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (also
1960), The Reivers (1969), The Cowboys (1972), and The Spikes Gang (1974).
Ravetch and Frank were nominated
for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and won both the New York
Film Critics Circle Award for Best Screenplay and the Writers Guild of America
Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Hud. He was a recipient of the Bronze
Wrangler for The Cowboys, the Screen Laurel Award, and additional Oscar, WGA,
and Golden Globe nominations.
Ravetch died from pneumonia on
September 19, 2010.
Frank and Ravetch collaborated on
two films released in 1960, Home from the Hill, an adaptation of the novel of
the same name, and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, an adaptation of a Tony
award-winning play.
Frank and Ravetch reunited with
Martin Ritt to write the screenplay for Hud (1963), adapted from the novel
Horseman, Pass By (1961) by Larry McMurtry. The film received positive reviews
by the critics, with the couple sharing a New York Film Critics Circle Award
for "Best Screenplay" and a Writers Guild of America Award (WGA Award)
for Best Written American Drama. They were nominated for an Academy Award in
the category of Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.
Frank worked alongside her
husband and Ritt on Hombre (1967), a Revisionist Western based on the novel of
the same name.
The next year, Frank and Ravetch
wrote the screenplay for House of Cards (1968, released in the U.S. the
following year and directed by John Guillermin. For House of Cards, Frank was
credited, together with her husband, under the pen name of James P. Bonner. Frank
and Ravetch returned to the works of William Faulkner, writing the screenplay
for a film adaptation of his last novel The Reivers (1969).
Frank and Ravetch wrote the
screenplay for The Cowboys (1972), based on the novel of the same name, and The
Carey Treatment (also 1972), based on the novel A Case of Need by Michael
Crichton.
For the latter, the couple were
credited under James P. Bonner, the last time they adopted the pen name. The
couple reunited with Martin Ritt to write the screenplay for Conrack (1974),
based on the autobiographical book The Water Is Wide, with Frank also working
as producer. The film was commercially and critically well-received, winning a
BAFTA award. The couple wrote for an adaptation of the novel The Bank Robber,
released as The Spikes Gang (also 1974). Around this time, Frank also wrote the
novels Single: a novel (1977), and Special Effects (1979).
Frank and Ravetch next project,
Norma Rae (1979), was another collaboration with director Martin Ritt. The film
tells the story of a factory worker from the Southern United States who becomes
involved in labour union activities. Unusually, for the couple, the film was
based on a true story, that of Crystal Lee Jordan. It was arguably their best
received film, winning numerous awards, including two Academy Awards.
Another six years passed before
the couple's next filmed screenplay, this time for the romantic comedy Murphy's
Romance (1985), based on a novel by Max Schott. They worked again with director
Martin Ritt, their seventh project together, and with Sally Field, who played
the titular lead role in Norma Rae. Despite Murphy's Romance being
well-received (it was nominated for two Academy Awards), it was five years
before another Frank and Ravetch screenplay was shot; hired by Martin Ritt, the
couple wrote the screenplay for Stanley & Iris (1990), loosely based on the
novel Union Street by British writer Pat Barker.
Frank Jr. died at her home in Los
Angeles on January 28, 2020 at age 96.