Gregory Allen Howard, the screenwriter behind Harriet and Remember the Titans, dies at age 70

dailymail.co.uk:

Gregory Allen Howard, the screenwriter who penned Harriet and Remember the Titans, died in Miami on Friday.The news was confirmed by his rep Jeff Sanderson, according to The Hollywood Reporter.It came after Howard battled a brief illness.

He was 70-years-old. Sad loss: Gregory Allen Howard, the screenwriter who penned Harriet and Remember the Titans, died in Miami on FridayHoward moved to Los Angeles in the ’90s to chase his dream of becoming a screenwriter.Originally from Norfolk, Virgina, talented writer gained notoriety in the early 2000s after writing the Denzel Washington-led film Remember the Titans.

The true story follows Herman Boone, an African American football coach who is tasked with training a high school team during their first racially integrated season of the sport in 1971.The film earned him the accolade of being the first African American screenwriter to write a $100 million script for a drama, Variety reported.

Dream come true: Howard dreamed of bringing the action-adventure movie Harriet to life for two decades; pictured with the film's star Cynthia Erivo in 2019Howard, who earned a bachelor's degree in American history from Princeton University, dreamed of bringing the action-adventure movie Harriet to life for two decades.The idea came to him after he studied the historic figure during his time at Princeton.The film, which starred Cynthia Erivo, Leslie Odom Jr., and Janelle Monae, earned two Oscar nominations.In a 2019 Focus Features interview the writer-producer said about the feature, 'For me, this film is my valentine to Black women.