Borden Chase

Biography: After dropping out of school at age 14, American screenwriter Borden Chase worked a variety of odd jobs including boxer and cabby before serving a year in the navy. During Prohibition in the early '20s, Chase admits to being a chauffeur for a crime lord who was subsequently found shot to death. Next he went on to help build the Holland Tunnel in New York. While there, a co-worker was accidentally killed, and that experience provided the plot for Under Pressure (1935), his first screenplay. Born Frank Fouler, he created his pen name by combing the names of a popular milk company ("Borden") and a powerful bank ("Chase"), and began churning out a series of short stories and novels, many of which became the basis of his later screenplays. In 1943, Chase returned to writing screenplays for high-quality westerns and actioners. His daughter Barrie Chase became an actress/dancer and appeared in films during the early 1960s.