This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Saunders, Sanders, Wray, Ray Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/pBC.2ACE/3972 Message Board Post: All rep. To MarkWakefield@hotmail.com Saunders was the son of a man who at one time served as U.S. District Attorney for the city of Seattle. He participated in World War I as a pilot in the U.S. Flying Corps and became a flight instructor. After the war, he attended the University of Washington, became a Rhodes scholar, and earned a master's degree from Oxford University in 1923. He returned to the United States to work as a journalist for several New York papers, and contributed stories to magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Liberty. Two of his early stories were bought by the Famous Players-Lasky production company and became the films Too Many Kisses (1925), which is about a wealthy young man who is sued for breach of promise, and The Shock Punch (1925), which concerns a rich man who poses as a boxer. Saunders next proposed a film project to Jesse L. Lasky based on his unfinished novel, Wings, the story of two American pilots fighting in France during World War I. Lasky bought the screen rights for the unpubl! ished novel for the unprecedented sum of $39,000 and hired William Wellman to direct a cast that included Charles "Buddy" Rogers and Richard Arlen as the American pilots, Clara Bow as the girl they both love, and a supporting cast of 3,500 servicemen and pilots on loan from the U.S. War Department. The film was an outstanding success, both critically and popularly, and won the first Academy Award ever presented for Best Picture in 1927-28. Saunders' book was published after the release of the film and included stills from motion picture. As a powerful screenwriter John Monk Sanders was known for his World War I aviator, stories, novels, and films. John was a flyer of military aircraft, and a natural leader. After John won his first Osker for the writing and filmography of Wings in 1931. He set a standard for presentation of the aviator movie genre for screenwriters in the industry. It was said John was born in New York his young life was stylized as a rich mans well educated son. At some point John was offered a scholarship to Oxford. See film Yank at Oxford 1938. Young Saunders soon becomes a Rhodes scholar. World War One may have just stopped John's collage progress at the Army recruitment stand. If John started in to collage in about 1915 there would hardly be enough time to finish more than 2 full years of collage. If John had not finish that much collage the US Army would not have offered a 21 year old. John Monk Saunders the placement in the Army Air Corps as a second lieutenant. The United States Army Air Corps entered WW 1 late in the war. This is why the Army Air Corps men and their aircraft really saw less participation in World War 1. The Untied States certainly from the begging of their participation in war didn't have many of there own aircraft to fly. Flying these early WW1 aircraft under wartime maintenance conditions was as terrifying as the air combat at times. In the early part of the Great War the French Government allowed Americans at Lafayette Escadrille to become flyers in the early world of air combat. Perhaps you would like to see Lafayette Escadrille (1958.) John Monk Sanders was a journalist he worked for the New York Tribune and then later possibly moved out to sunny California to work for the Los Angeles Times. So in the early 1920's John must have entered in to the work world. In Hollywood's growing film industry there was a need for better film writers. This may have been the very reason for John Monk Sanders note worthy appearance in the west. By late 1924 John had written his first story for screen known, "Too many Kisses 1925." End M M W All rep. To MarkWakefield@hotmail.com