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American film actress and screenwriter

Bess Meredyth (born Helen Elizabeth MacGlashan, February 12, 1890 – July 13, 1969) was a screenwriter and silent film actress. The wife of film director Michael Curtiz, Meredyth wrote The Affairs of Cellini (1934) and adapted The Unsuspected (1947). She was one of the 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Meredyth began her involvement in performing and writing from an early age. Her father was the manager at a local theatre, and she studied piano throughout her childhood. After encouragement from her English teacher, Meredyth also pursued fiction writing. At the age of 13, she approached the local newspaper editor about writing a fiction column. Each story she wrote for the paper earned her a dollar, making this her first paid work as a writer.

Meredyth began her screen career as an extra at D. W. Griffith's Biograph Studios in New York, before moving to Los Angeles in 1911. Meredyth worked as an actress for five years, subsidizing her income with screenwriting. While most of this work was as an extra, her most prominent role was the titular character in the 4 reel Bess the Detectress (1914) serials.

Meredyth and director Michael Curtiz met soon after his arrival in the United States, while both were working at Warner Brothers Studios. Meredyth and Curtiz separated twice; once in 1941, and again in 1960. However, they remained in contact after this separation,

In 1934, Covei Friede published The Mighty Barnum by Meredyth and Gene Fowler. In a review in The New York Times, John Chamberlain wrote that the book "marks the first time that a motion picture scenario, or 'shooting script,' has been published in book form."

Throughout her time at MGM studios, Meredyth had mainly worked under Irving Thalberg. Upon his death in 1936, the new MGM executives dropped Meredyth's contract.