JOHN HOWARD LAWSON

circa 1930's

 

I wonder how many people in the Mastic Beach area in the '50's tuned into say the Million Dollar Movie on WOR channel 9 or Picture For A Sunday Afternoon on CBS on 2 or The DUMONT Network on 5 and caught a Humphrey Bogart , Hedy Lamarr, Charles Boyer , Jackie Cooper or Susan Hayward flick and realized that the screenwriter of that movie once lived in their town during the era those films were produced? I would think very few including my father who helped TV Repairman Paul Fueling install many antennas on Mastic Beach rooftops.

TV Listing For NYC metropolitan area July 11, 1956

 

Or better yet

how many Mastic Beach summer residents in the '30's & '40's may of driven west to Patchogue to catch a first run of say "Sahara" at The Rialto or "Algiers" at the Granada or east to the Centre Moriches Theatre to see Wally Beery sail away as Long John Silver to "Treasure Island" while the man who put words in Wally's mouth may of been sailing over Pattersquash Island?

 

 

The first time I ever heard the name Lawson Estate was from Mrs. Estelle Schulz. Estelle's father, Bill Parr as web site readers should know by now, was the chief auto and marine engine mechanic for all the estate owners back then. He made house calls and little Estelle often went along with him, so she got to know who was living where back then. I was asking her about the Clune Family as I thought they might of been taking care of the Knapp estate in the 1920s and very early 30's prior to The Schluders. She told me No ... that the Clunes worked for The Lawson Estate...which now makes perfect sense as I have since found out that they also worked for both the Roberts and the Laniers prior to that on Doctors Point..... nothing like staying on the ranch. I've been told that it's a Mr. Clune resting under the tree in the 3 kids & 5 corners photo taken circa 1912. So now I had another name of another estate owner to look into and unlike the ultra private Knapps, who so few ever even heard of, John Howard Lawson's life was literally an open book, play and movie both during his life time from 1894 - 1976 and continues far beyond into the 21st Century with recent movies that have made references to him and about him.

 

According to the deed I have of when they sold it, John and Susan Lawson purchased the now Richard Floyd / Dr. Robert and Robert Family et al / John L. Lawrence ?/ Henry & Josephine Lanier / Sydney Raphael / Ludwig Freudenthal / estate in August of 1930 from one Ludwig B. Freudenthal . Ludwig who did a whole lot of horse trading with the Smadbecks on property all over New York, was a real estate speculator as I believe Sydney Raphael was. (Sid conveyed the joint Lud). Between Raphael & Fruedenthal both of them only owned it for less than three years between 1927-30.

In the 1920's & early 30's John Howard Lawson lived in New York City where he was working as a playwright. In 1933 he moved to Hollywood and was one of the founding members of The Screenwriters Guild. He still continued to vacation and retreat to Mastic.

 

greatly enlarged from a 1937 photo of the manor house that appears here, that is most likely John Howard Lawson (arrow)

walking out his front door with his guests in Mastic Beach.

 

CLICK HERE TO READ A LETTER HE WROTE

TO THE NY TIMES FROM THE ESTATE IN 1935

 

Poster from 1936..... 25 - 83 cents for a seat off Broadway

Born September 25, 1894, Lawson graduated from Williams college and was an ambulance driver in WWI along with Ernest Hemingway and poet / playwright e.e. cummings. His plays began to appear in New York in the early '20's. He also became a civil rights activist participating in demonstrations at the Sacco -Vanzetti trial in Massachusetts during that time and writing articles condemning the State of Alabama and The White Legion, a Ku Klux Klan group in connection with the Scottsboro Boys. He was arrested in both states.

 

IN 1939 HE WAS NOMINATED FOR AN ACADEMY AWARD
FOR HIS SCREENPLAY "BLOCKADE" A FILM THAT STARRED HENRY FONDA
ABOUT THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

 


 

 

HERE IS HIS 1942-43 LISTING FROM THE
MASTIC BEACH DIRECTORY

 

NOVEMBER 11, 1943

CLICK HERE FOR FULL PAGE AD FOR "SAHARA"

"See 'Swinging' Lawrence Welk In Person"

 

LAWSON HAD TWO SCREENPLAYS ON THIS NY TIMES LIST
Click Here To Read The Article

 

Things seemed to go very well for the Lawsons during the years they spent in Mastic Beach.

But soon after the close of WWII something happened that would change their lives forever.

 

CONTINUED