Helen Deutsch

Deutsch entered films in 1944, collaborating on the adaptation of Enid Bagnold's novel "National Velvet" which catapulted the young Elizabeth Taylor to stardom. In the same year, she scripted "The Seventh Cross," which starred Spencer Tracy as a refugee from a Nazi death camp. Deutsch's work ranged from espionage fluff ("Golden Earrings" 1947) to epic adventures ("King Solomon's Mines" 1950), psychological melodrama ("I'll Cry Tomorrow" 1955) and musicals ("The Unsinkable Molly Brown" 1964). Her best-loved film is "Lili" (1953), the charming classic about a childlike waif (Leslie Caron) smitten with a womanizing magician and loved by a crippled puppeteer (Mel Ferrer). Deutsch not only wrote the lyrics for the movie's hit song "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo" but later wrote the libretto for "Carnival," the 1961 Bob Merrill Broadway musical based on the film.