‘World of Henry Orient’ writer Johnson dies at 84

LOS ANGELES — Nora Johnson, who wrote the screenplay for “The Worldofhenryorient”withherfather, writer-director Nunnally Johnson, died Oct. 5 in Dallas. She was 84.

Her daughter, Marion Siwek, said she died of natural causes.

Johnson based the story on her novel about two schoolgirls who have a crush on a concert pianist, informed by her experiences at private school in New York. Peter Sellers played the pianist; the film also starred Angela Lansbury and Paula Prentiss. It also became a Broadway musical, “Henry, Sweet Henry.”

Her memoirs about her father and growing up in show business included “Flashback,” “You Can Go Home Again” and “Coast to Coast,” a memoir of her childhood shuttling between her journalist mother in New York and her Hollywood-based father.

Nunnally Johnson was the writer and director of films, including “The Three Faces of Eve” and “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” and screenwriter of “The Dirty Dozen.”

Her 1959 essay “Sex and the College Girl,” based on her experiences at Smith College, was an influential look at mid-century young women. A piece she wrote for The New York Times, “Age is No Obstacle to Love or Adventure” became one of the paper’s most popular Modern Love columns ever. Her father died in 1977. Nora Johnson’s other novels included “Tender Offer” and “Perfect Together.”

In addition to Marion Siwek, she is survived by her daughter Paula Siwek, son Justin Milici, and nine grandchildren.