John Farrow wrote short stories and plays during his four-year career
in the navy. In the late 1920s he came to Hollywood as a technical
advisor for a film about Marines and stayed as a screenwriter, from
A Sailor's Sweetheart (1927)
through
Tarzan Escapes (1936). He
married Tarzan's Jane,
Maureen O'Sullivan, in 1936.
He began directing in 1937
(
Men in Exile (1937) and
West of Shanghai (1937)). He was
injured while serving as a Lieutenant Commander in the Royal Navy in
World War II. After that he converted to Catholicism and wrote a
biography of Thomas More, a history of the Papacy, a Tahitian/English
dictionary and several novels. He collaborated in the writing of
several of his films and shared the Academy Award for
Around the World in 80 Days (1956).