A successful Hollywood writer for thirty years, James Edward Grant is best represented by three works: Angel and the Badman (1947), Hondo (1953), and The Alamo (1960). All three films are in the Western genre and were produced by John Wayne. Although Grant demonstrated great versatility, particularly in his early career, the Western stimulated his finest creative work. He was also Wayne's favorite writer.

Grant was born in Chicago and worked as a journalist and magazine writer before coming to Hollywood. With the Chicago Herald, he was responsible for a syndicated column titled "It's a Racket". He received his first screen credit for the screen story to Grand Jury in 1936 and until 1940 worked mostly on undistinguished comedies, musicals, and melodramas. The most appealing of these is Big Brown Eyes (1936), for which Grant contributed the original story. The film is a comedy about newspaper publishing and reflects the writer's background better than...