Treadwell, Sophie, 1885-1970

American playwright.

American journalist, playwright, and author.

On October 3, 1885, Sophie Anita Treadwell was born in Stockton, California, to Alfred B. Treadwell and Nettie Fairchild. From 1902 to 1906, she attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she participated in the theater arts. After graduation, she sought work in California as an actress and performer, and assisted Helena Modjeska in writing her Memoirs . Treadwell returned to San Francisco and began her newspaper career for the Bulletin . She married another journalist, William O. McGeehan, in 1910. She traveled to France as a war correspondent, and, by 1918, had moved to New York to work for the Tribune and other periodicals. She went to Mexico in the 1920s to cover the last days of Venustiano Carranza, and scooped other papers with her interview of Francisco Villa in 1921. In the 1930s, Treadwell traveled extensively. She circled the world in a steamer, and crossed the Atlantic several times to Europe while Machinal played in London, Moscow, and other venues. Lone Valley and Plumes in the Dust reached the New York stages. She published a novel, Lusita, and wrote another, Hope for a Harvest . In the next two decades, Treadwell continued to produce and revise her materials for publication, and for the emerging media of televi-sion. She retired to Tucson in 1965, and brought her final version of Women with Lilies to the stage of The University of Arizona. She died of a stroke on February 20, 1970.

William O'Connell McGeehan was born in San Francisco, California, to Hugh McGee-han and Theresa O'Connell in 1879. He attended Stanford University, and served in the Philippines during the Spanish American War. He worked as a journalist in San Francisco for the Evening Post, Examiner and Bulletin . Around 1914, he moved to New York and became a noted sports reporter for the New York Journal, the Herald Tribune and Herald . He traveled widely, hunted, wrote novels and short stories, and commuted between residences in Connecticut and New York. He died at Sea Island, Georgia, of a heart ailment on November 29, 1933.