Galactic gasbag: “Brackett was also adept at other genres. Her first novel, ‘No Good From a Corpse’ (1944), was a mystery story couched in hard-boiled prose so convincing that director Howard Hawks told his secretary to contact ‘that guy Brackett’ to help on his adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s ‘The Big Sleep.’ Even when he found out she wasn’t a guy, Hawks liked her work well enough to use her on several other films: ‘Rio Bravo’ (1959), ‘Hatari!’ (1961), ‘El Dorado’ (1967), ‘Rio Lobo’ (1970) and ‘Man’s Favorite Sport’ (1962). When not writing screenplays, Brackett cranked out a stream of novels: Westerns and mysteries as well as science fiction. Prior to signing on with Lucas, she scripted Robert Altman’s 1973 version of ‘The Long Goodbye’ and wrote one episode of a short-lived television series based on Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer mysteries. “