Graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Provided
the scholarship that allowed poet Sylvia Plath to attend Smith.
Paid for Plath's hospitalization following her attempted suicide in
1953, only to be caricatured as the fatuous Philomena Guinea in Plath's
novel 'The Bell Jar'.
Best known for her novel 'Now, Voyager', which was filmed with Bette Davis in 1942. The film drew upon her own experience of having suffered nervous breakdowns (1894 and 1925) and having undergone subsequent psychotherapy.