Frances Marion was an American journalist, author, film director and screenwriter often cited as the most renowned female screenwriter of the 20th century alongside June Mathis and Anita Loos. She was the first writer to win two Academy Awards.
Marion was born Marion Benson Owens in San Francisco, California. Her parents divorced when she was ten, and she lived with her mother. She dropped out of school at age twelve, after having been caught drawing a cartoon strip of her teacher. She then transferred to a school in San Mateo, and then to art school in San Francisco when she was sixteen years old. This school was destroyed by an earthquake in 1906.
Source: Wikipedia