George Manker Watters was an American playwright, screenwriter, and theatre executive whose career spanned the transition from live theatrical management to the golden age of Hollywood cinema. Born George Daniel Watters II in 1890, he grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, and entered the theatrical world at the age of eighteen as a manager for a traveling theatre company. By 1911, he had returned to Des Moines to manage the Princess Theatre, where he met and married actress Tamzon Manker, later adopting her surname to establish his professional identity as a writer.
Watters transitioned into the burgeoning film industry in 1918 by co-founding the New Art Film Corporation. Relocating to California, he wrote and produced the silent film The Solitary Sin (1919). Following the company's dissolution in 1921, Watters spent several years managing theatres across the American South and Midwest before returning to prominent theatrical management in New York.
His major breakthrough came in 1927 when he co-authored the Broadway play Burlesque with Arthur Hopkins. The production became a major success, prompting Paramount Pictures to acquire the film rights and hire Watters as a screenwriter in 1928. He remained an active Hollywood writer for nearly a decade before transitioning into executive roles for Fox Theatres. During World War II, Watters served as the director of the Los Angeles Theater Defense Bureau and was a leader in the War Activities Committee of the Motion Pictures Industry until his death in 1943.
