Frederica Sagor Maas

Biography

Frederica "Freddie" Sagor Maas was an early story editor and script reader in the U.S. movie industry, and later a script/story writer. She was active from 1921 - 1950, in both the Silent and Talkie eras. In 1927 she married Ernest Maas (born 1891), another screenwriter who was also a documentary filmmaker. The two remained married until Ernest's death in 1986. The couple--who were avid progressives with sympathies for Left-leaning causes--found themselves locked out of the film industry by 1950, after being investigated by the FBI at the height of the McCarthy era. Frederica went on to work in the (non-film) insurance industry and Ernest went into ghostwriting for academics and also worked as a writing consultant. In 1999--at the age of 99--Frederica published a book about her experiences in the film industry, entitled The Shocking Miss Pilgrim. It took its name from the popular 1947 film of the same name, which was written by both Frederica and Ernest, their crowning achievement. Frederica Sagor Maas died in 2012, at the age of 111, one of the last surviving writers of the Silent film period.