Achmed Abdullah (12 May 1881 – 12 May 1945) was an American writer and screenwriter, most noted for his pulp stories of crime, mystery, and adventure, as well as his work on Hollywood films. He gave his full name variously as "Achmed Abdullah Nadir Khan el-Durani el-Iddrissyeh" or as "Alexander Nicholayevitch Romanoff."
Biography
Abdullah's early biography is based largely on his own writings and interviews and is not verified by independent sources. He claimed to have been born in Yalta, Russia, to a Russian Orthodox father and a Muslim Afghan mother. He stated that he was educated at Eton and Oxford, though no records of his attendance exist. He claimed to have served in the British Army for 17 years, rising to the rank of acting colonel, and to have been deployed in Afghanistan, Tibet, Africa, China, and India.
Sometime before 1912, he emigrated to the United States, where he became a writer and playwright, and later a Hollywood screenwriter. His work appeared in numerous US magazines, including Argosy, All-Story Magazine, Munsey's Magazine, and Blue Book.
Film Work
Abdullah wrote the screenplay for the 1924 film The Thief of Bagdad. He was the author of the progressive Siamese drama Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness (1927), which received an Academy Award nomination. He earned an Academy Award nomination for collaborating on the screenplay for the 1935 film The Lives of a Bengal Lancer.
Personal Life
Abdullah married at least three times and had two daughters. He died of a heart attack on May 12, 1945, his 64th birthday, at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York.
