WRITER

Melissa Mathison

1950 - 2015

Photo of Melissa Mathison

Icon of person Melissa Mathison

Melissa Marie Mathison (June 3, 1950 – November 4, 2015) was an American film and television screenwriter and an activist for the Tibetan independence movement. She was best known for writing the screenplays for the films The Black Stallion (1979) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), the latter of which earned her the Saturn Award for Best Writing and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. Mathison later wrote The Indian in the Cupboard (1995), based on Lynne Reid Banks's 1980 children's novel of the same name, and Kundun (1997), a biographical-drama film about the Dalai Lama. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Melissa Mathison has received more than 5,118,984 page views. Her biography is available in 23 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 19 in 2019). Melissa Mathison is the 4,010th most popular writer (up from 4,528th in 2019), the 5,243rd most popular biography from United States (up from 6,387th in 2019) and the 427th most popular American Writer.

Memorability Metrics

  • 5.1M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 50.24

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 23

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 2.45

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 3.61

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Melissa Mathison ranks 4,010 out of 7,302Before her are Akram Aylisli, Cora Sandel, Hans Carossa, Abel Bonnard, Edith Bruck, and Karin Michaëlis. After her are Lloyd Alexander, Amir Hamzah, Sibylle Riqueti de Mirabeau, Michael Morpurgo, Kim Sowol, and Diego Durán.

Most Popular Writers in Wikipedia

Go to all Rankings

Contemporaries

Among people born in 1950, Melissa Mathison ranks 276Before her are Maggie MacNeal, Dann Florek, Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, Om Puri, Jeff Conaway, and Joe Bugner. After her are Richard Berry, Francisco Fernández Ochoa, Dino Meneghin, Kenneth Cockrell, Billy Ocean, and James Redfield. Among people deceased in 2015, Melissa Mathison ranks 231Before her are Walter Burkert, Elizabeth Wilson, Tadahiko Ueda, Henri Coppens, Miroslav Ondříček, and Giovanni Canestri. After her are Dimitar Iliev Popov, Ludvík Vaculík, Józef Oleksy, Gurgen Dalibaltayan, Franjo Mihalić, and Pino Daniele.

Others Born in 1950

Go to all Rankings

Others Deceased in 2015

Go to all Rankings

In United States

Among people born in United States, Melissa Mathison ranks 5,243 out of 20,380Before her are Jeff Chandler (1918), Dexter Jackson (1969), Dee Snider (1955), Charles Demuth (1883), Robert Keohane (1941), and Richard Sheldon (1878). After her are Stand Watie (1806), Lloyd Alexander (1924), Louis Jordan (1908), Wes Unseld (1946), Rosalind E. Krauss (1941), and Jack Kramer (1921).

Among WRITERS In United States

Among writers born in United States, Melissa Mathison ranks 427Before her are John Norman (1931), Susanna Kaysen (1948), Pauline Kael (1919), Maxwell Anderson (1888), Ralph Ellison (1914), and Tad Williams (1957). After her are Lloyd Alexander (1924), Syd Field (1935), Elbert Hubbard (1856), Murray Leinster (1896), Russell Banks (1940), and V. C. Andrews (1923).