Wanda Tuchock

Wanda Tuchock

Personal Life

Wanda Tuchock was born on March 20, 1898 in Pueblo, Colorado. Tuchock attended the University of California at Los Angeles. She married George DeNormand, who was born on September 22, 1903 in New York and died on December 23, 1976 in California. He was an actor and director. Tuchock retired in 1973 at the age of 75. She died on February 10, 1985 at the Motion Picture and Television Hospital of an “undisclosed illness.”

Career

Wanda Tuchock began her career as an advertising copy editor. In 1927, at the age of 30, she entered the silent film industry. Tuchock only had one silent film credit which allowed her to become “one of the few women who began her career in the silent era and was able to maintain her career in Hollywood during the early sound years” (Koerner 2013). Wanda Tuchock worked at Metro-Goldyn-Mayer, also known as MGM. She was one of the few female screenwriters who worked at Metro-Goldyn-Mayer in the early 1930s. Between the 1930s and the 1950s, she drew in thirty-one writing credits, two directing credits, and one producer credit. In the 1950s, she produced, wrote, and directed a short called Road Runners.

Milestones

Tuchock had many milestones for a woman in the film industry during the early to mid 20th century. She wrote the adaptation film “Susan Lenox: Her Rise and Fall”. Tuchock co-directed and wrote the film “Finishing School” with George Nichols Jr. She penned the screenplay for “Hallelujah” which was the first black-cast film produced in Hollywood. She wrote the musical “Youth Will Be Served”. Tuchock penned the screenplay for the film “The Foxes of Harrow”. She also scripted the original adaptation of the film “Little Orphan Annie”. The film was based on the original comic strip “Little Orphan Annie” by Harold Gray.