Aeneas MacKenzie


Aeneas MacKenzie, or Æneas MacKenzie, was a Scottish-American screenwriter. MacKenzie wrote many notable Hollywood films, including: The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, They Died with Their Boots On, Ivanhoe, and The Ten Commandments.

Biography

Maackenzie came from England to work on a film of East Lynne.
In January 1938 he was under contract to Warner Bros to write what would become Juarez. In February 1939 he was working on a biopic of John Paul Jones for James Cagney. He also wrote a biopic of Disraeli for Claude Rains. Neither were made but by July 1940 he was working on a biopic of George Custer which became They Died with Their Boots On. MacKenzie wrote The Widow of Devil's Island for Bette Davis. In March 1942 he was working on a movie about Sing Sing prison.
In October 1943 RKO announced they would make a film from his original story, The Spanish Main.
In July 1946 he wrote a script of Ivanhoe for Paramount. The project was postponed due to the Palestine Cris and instead MacKenzie was assigned to do a biopic on Ludwig II for producer Robert Fellows. A year later his Ivanhoe script was sold to RKO. They sold it to MGM who successfully filmed it several years later.
He worked on the script for The Black Book.
In January 1950 he sold a script to Douglas Fairbanks Jr which became Against All Flags. Several months later MacKenzie sold this story to Universal who hired him to write the script. Also at Universal he did The Prince Who Was a Thief.
MacKenzie later headed the script team on The Ten Commandments.
In July 1957 he was writing Peter and Catherine about Russia in the 18th century for Ross Hunter at Universal.
In late 1958 MacKenzie was reported as working on a biopic of William the Conqueror for Evyan Perfumes.

Filmography