Swicord was born in Columbia, South Carolina,[3] the daughter of Jean Carroll Swicord (née Stender) and businessman Henry "Hank" Grady Swicord II.[1] Swicord's father was in the military, so the family moved often and she spent a large part of her childhood in Barcelona, Spain, until eventually settling in Florida.[6] She has a brother, Steven Swicord.
Swicord said she always wrote as a child, and that later as she continued writing in college, became interested in screenplays because they were visual in nature.[7]
After college, while still in northwest Florida, Swicord made short films, eventually getting work as an industrial filmmaker in Atlanta, Georgia for IBM. IBM liked her work so much that they recommended Swicord for a job at their advertising agency in New York City where she worked as a copywriter.[7]
With fellow alumni of Florida State University who were starting a theater company, Swicord wrote and helped produce two plays.[9] An agent named Merrily Kane who saw one of the plays asked Swicord if she had considered writing for film. Swicord gave her a script called Stock Cars for Christ, which was sold to MGM, a job that required that she move to Los Angeles. Although the project was never produced,[8] at MGM she was mentored by Lynn Arost, an MGM development executive who Swicord said gave her the experience and time during which she taught herself the craft of rewriting scripts.[7] Another early mentor was Susan Froemke, an editor who often worked with the Maysles Brothers.[10]
Her directorial debut was the 1993 short film The Red Coat, for which she also wrote the screenplay. The film was about her grandmother and starred Theresa Wright and Bridget Fonda.[11]
For the 1994 film Little Women, Swicord conducted intensive research into Louisa May Alcott's personal diaries and family letters in order to recreate the period accurately.[7] For over twelve years, she developed the project with film executive Amy Pascal. The studio wanted Winona Ryder to star, so producer Denise Di Novi, who had a longstanding working relationship with Ryder, joined as a producer. Ryder wanted a female director, which was an additional challenge, as the list of women directors from the studio was short. Gillian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career), who was on the list, was hired to direct.[12]
During the process of writing the adaptation of The Perez Family, Swicord got to know the world of author Christine Bell's Miami.[7]
Swicord worked with her husband, Nicholas Kazan, on the screenplay to Matilda, adapted from the Roald Dahl book, a children's book the couple loved reading to their daughters. Dahl's daughter, Lucy Dahl, was given script approval.[13]
Swicord wrote the screenplay for Karen Joy Fowler's 2004 novel The Jane Austen Book Club and directed the film, which was released in the United States on September 21, 2007.[14] The film was her feature film debut.[15]
For 2005's Memoirs of a Geisha, Swicord worked collaboratively with director Rob Marshall to adapt Arthur Golden's novel.[16] Although the project had been with other writers and directors, and there were many previous drafts of the script, Swicord said that she and Marshall started from scratch.[12] Swicord was able to use Golden's original research and unedited manuscripts to construct the screenplay, which won a Golden Satellite Award for best adapted screenplay.[3]
For over 10 years, Swicord worked on the screen adaptation of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, based on the short story of the same name from F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1922 collection Tales of the Jazz Age.[17][18] The project had been in development by producer Ray Stark for 20 years before she began working on the script. Swicord said that the adaptation was so loose that she felt that her work almost became an original screenplay.[12] The script had a very long development period in Hollywood and was attached to many directors, actors, and studios.[19] The eventual director of the film, David Fincher, hired Eric Roth, who rewrote much of Swicord's script.[6][17]
Peter J. Barton Productions, Alabama, and Alabama Public Library Service. Private Lives: Illiteracy, We Can't Afford It. Tallahassee, FL: Peter J. Barton Productions, 1980. OCLC8467563
Swicord, Robin. "Pioneer know-how -- Script Girls: Women Screenwriters in Hollywood by Lizzie Francke." Sight and Sound. London: British Film Institute. Volume 5, No. 2. February 1995. Page 36. ISSN0037-4806
Swicord, Robin. "Blonde ambition -- All About Eve directed by Joseph Mankiewicz." Sight and Sound. London: British Film Institute. Volume 5, No. 11. November 1995. Page 59. ISSN0037-4806
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Architects of Dreams: Writers on Writing: Defeating the Blank Page. Beverly Hills, CA: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 2001. Academy seminar on August 15, 2001, at Academy Little Theater in Beverly Hills, California. Featured speakers Brian Helgeland and Robin Swicord moderated by Randy Haberkamp. OCLC801281666
Swicord, Robin. "Under the Skin: Adapting Novels for the Screen." Kranz, David L., and Nancy C. Mellerski. In/Fidelity: Essays on Film Adaptation. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Pub, 2008. Literature/Film Association conference at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 2005. ISBN978-1-847-18402-3OCLC474017773
^Morgan, Barbara; Perez, Maya (2013). "Structure and Format: A Conversation with Frank Pierson, Whit Stillman, Robin Swicord, and Nicholas Kazan". On Story: Screenwriters and Their Craft (First ed.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. pp. 63–80. ISBN978-0-292-75460-7. OCLC879547941.
