Leigh Brackett, American author and screenwriter (b. 1915)
Leigh Douglass Brackett (December 7, 1915 – March 18, 1978) was an American science fiction writer called "the Queen of Space Opera." She was also a screenwriter known for The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959), and The Long Goodbye (1973). She also worked on an early draft of The Empire Strikes Back (1980), elements of which remained in the film; she died before the film went into production. She was the first woman shortlisted for the Hugo Award. In 2020, she won a Retro Hugo for her novel The Nemesis From Terra, originally published as "Shadow Over Mars" (Startling Stories, Fall 1944).