An American screenwriter, producer, and director, born on August 25, 1905, in New York, United States. He served in the Coast Guard and graduated from the University of Michigan, where he developed his skill in writing a column for the Michigan Daily and further refined his skills as a graduate student at Yale Drama School. He moved away from his family's successful real estate business in New York and relocated to Hollywood to become a screenwriter. He wrote a number of Broadway plays and was president of the Screen Writers Guild and general chairman of the Academy Awards program. He is known for Miracle on 34th Street (1947), which was given screen treatment by director George Seaton and earned him an Academy Award for Best Original Story, The Glenn Miller Story (1954), It Happens Every Spring (1949), and You Were Meant for Me (1948). He died on July 23, 1961, in Malibu, California. One year after his death, the Valentine Davies Award was established by the Writers Guild of America.