Roberts was born in 1905 in
Clarks, Nebraska. In the early 1920s, Roberts and her first husband traveled in the
South selling imitation pearls. In California when their business failed, she found work at an
El Centro local newspaper, The
Imperial Valley Press. and sold her first script in 1931. In 1933, she collaborated on the screenplay of ''
Sailor's Luck'', directed by
Raoul Walsh. That year she signed the first of a string of contracts with
MGM, which made her one of the best paid screenwriters of Hollywood at $2500 per week. She explained how she preferred to write scenarios for tough men: "I was weaned on stories about gunfighters and their doings, and I know all the lingo too. My grandfather came West as far as Colorado by covered wagon. He was a sheriff in the state's wildest days." After Sanford joined the
Communist Party in 1939, Roberts followed him but left in 1947. She encouraged him to pursue his independent writing and supported them both by her screenwriting. Blacklisted in 1951 for refusing to answer the
House Un-American Activities Committee, Roberts had to wait nine years before working again in Hollywood. In 1957 she and Sanford moved to
Montecito, California. In 1962, she was hired by
Columbia Pictures to work on
Diamond Head (1963). She also wrote the screenplay for
True Grit (1969), which earned its actor,
John Wayne, his only Oscar. She wrote steadily through the next decade and had many of her films produced. She died on February 17, 1989, at 83 years old from arteriosclerosis. ==Filmography==