Robert E. Sherwood first distinguished himself as a film critic producing a weekly column for the humor magazine Life for almost eight years (1921-1928). He next turned to drama, writing thirteen original plays during his career and winning the Pulitzer Prize for drama three times: for Idiot's Delight in 1936, Abe Lincoln in Illinois in 1939, and There Shall Be No Night in 1941. Intermittently from 1926 to 1953 he wrote for the movies, being involved in twenty-three films and winning an Academy Award for his screenplay for The Best Years of Our Lives in 1946. Sherwood also wrote television scripts, short fiction, one novel, and a nonfiction book, Roosevelt and Hopkins (1948), for which he won another Pulitzer Prize, in 1949.

Robert Emmet Sherwood was born in New Rochelle, New York, the fourth of five children born to Arthur Murray and Rosina Emmet Sherwood. A brilliant child, Sherwood was educated at Milton Academy in Massachusetts...