American screenwriter and director Don McGuire was was born Don Rose in Chicago on February 28, 1919. He was a former Warner Brothers contract player and Hollywood press agent during the 1940s. He had a background in journalism, having begun his professional life as a reporter for the Hearst press. After four years of military service, he acted on screen in small roles as interns, barmen or drivers. After leaving Warners in 1948, he found good roles hard to come by and ended up being relegated to appearances in second features. Therefore, he decided on becoming a writer of film scripts instead.
During the 1950s, he became best known for adapting
Howard Breslin's story "Bad Time at
Hondo" into the highly regarded drama
Bad Day at Black Rock (1955),
with
Spencer Tracy. McGuire later
worked extensively in television and was writer and co-producer, with
Jackie Cooper, of Cooper's series
Hennesey (1959). He also had one
more big success on the big screen with
Tootsie (1982), for which he co-wrote the
original story with
Larry Gelbart.
However, he was not entirely happy with several changes made to his
original concept.