Edna G. Riley

{{short description|American screenwriter (1880–1962)}} {{Infobox person | name = Edna G. Riley | birth_name = Edna M. Goldsmith | birth_date = April 29, 1880 | birth_place = Lower Lake, California, U.S. | death_date = May 3, 1962 (aged 82) | death_place = New York, New York, U.S. | occupation = Screenwriter, playwright, author, assistant film director | spouse = Edward Patrick Riley }}

'''Edna G. Riley''' (also known as '''Edna Goldsmith Riley''') (1880–1962) was an American screenwriter, author, activist, and assistant film director who worked in Hollywood primarily during the 1910s.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1qEbAQAAMAAJ&q=%22edna+g.+riley%22&pg=PA101|title=The Moving Picture World|date=1916|publisher=World Photographic Publishing Company|language=en}}</ref>

== Biography == Edna was born in Lower Lake, California, April 29, 1880, to William Goldsmith and Martha Asbill.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/51716481/?terms=%22edna+g.+riley%22|title=Dies After 70 Years of Living in Same Home|last=|first=|date=6 Dec 1923|website=Woodland Daily Democrat|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-02-04}}</ref> As a young woman, she worked as a schoolteacher in her hometown. She later married playwright Edward Patrick Riley; the pair had no children together.

She wrote a string of scenarios for the fledgling motion pictures in the 1910s, and she continued writing into the 1930s. In 1935, she protested against censorship in motion pictures by picketing in front of a cardinal's home in Manhattan.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|url=http://www.newspapers.com/image/577514040/?terms=%22edna+goldsmith+riley%22|title=Woman Pickets Cardinal's Home|last=|first=|date=3 Apr 1935|website=Times Union|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-02-04}}</ref> Her script ''All Flags Flying'' had been purchased by Paramount, but the cardinal had objected to the film's content and gotten censors to bar it from production.<ref name=":1" />

== Selected filmography == As writer:

* ''All Flags Flying'' (1935) (unproduced script)<ref name=":1" /> * ''Before Morning'' (1933) * ''The Crystal Gazer'' (1917) * ''The Law of Compensation'' (1917)<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ARIDAAAAYAAJ&q=%22edna+g.+riley%22&pg=PA451|title=Catalogue of Copyright Entries: Pamphlets, leaflets, contributions to newspapers or periodicals, etc.; lectures, sermons, addresses for oral delivery; dramatic compositions; maps; motion pictures|date=1917|publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office|language=en}}</ref> * ''The Libertine'' (1916) * ''The Prima Donna's Husband'' (1916)<ref name=":0" /> * ''On the Brink of Shame'' (1916)<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1qEbAQAAMAAJ&q=%22on+the+brink+of+shame%22+1916&pg=PA653|title=The Moving Picture World|date=1916|publisher=World Photographic Publishing Company|language=en}}</ref>

As assistant director:

* ''The Blindness of Love'' (1916)

== References == {{Reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Riley, Edna G.}} Category:1962 deaths Category:1880 births Category:American women screenwriters Category:Screenwriters from California Category:20th-century American women writers Category:20th-century American screenwriters