Andrew Lysander Stone (July 16, 1902 – June 9, 1999) was an American screenwriter, film director and producer. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for the film Julie in 1957 and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. Known for his hard-hitting, realistic films, Stone frequently collaborated with his first wife, editor and producer Virginia Lively Stone (m 1946). Though few of his films achieved mainstream success, Stone was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for his 1956 thriller Julie. Stone's stories frequently featured characters called Cole, Pringle and Pope, usually in law enforcement and interchangeably played by the same actors—Jack Kruschen, Barney Phillips and John Gallaudet. Roles with those names were included in A Blueprint for Murder, The Night Holds Terror, Julie, Cry Terror! and The Decks Ran Red. Career Born in Oakland, California, Andrew L. Stone attended the University of California. He built a movie theater in his back yard, with two projectors and seats for 50 kids. Films were bought at a dollar a reel. Stone worked for a film exchange for Universal after school and on Sundays. "I wanted anything I could get to do with films - rewinding, splicing, projecting," he once said. In the mid-'20s, he moved to Hollywood and worked in a laboratory. He also worked in Universal's prop department. Early movies In 1926, Stone financed his first directorial effort The Elegy (1926), a two-reel movie. It cost $3,200, which he had raised himself and was made on sets left over from Scaramouche. His first full-length feature was Dreary House (1928). He worked as director on Shadows of Glory (1930), Hell's Headquarters (1932) and The Girl Said No (1937). Paramount Stone says that MGM offered him a contract in the mid 1930s but he was reluctant to take it. He later said, “I’d have had to pacify the stars and keep them happy – like a priest who doesn’t believe a word of what he says. Then there was a Paramount contract — no big stars, but freedom. That’s the one I went for. It didn’t take me long to see I’d never make a nickel, but I didn’t give a damn.” Stone signed a contract at Paramount for whom he made Stolen Heaven (1938), Say It in French (1938) with Ray Milland, The Great Victor Herbert (1939), and The Hard-Boiled