She was born in Hitchin, Hertfordshire on 4 July 1908.[1]
Originally an actress, on stage from 1931, she made appearances in the Aldwych Farces (1930–34) and was involved with entertainment for the armed forces in WW II.[4][5] She gave up acting in 1945 to focus on writing.[6]
Her second husband was the scriptwriter John McCormick, with whom she collaborated on several screenplays.[7][8] They were both under contract to the Rank Organisation from 1956 to 1959.[6]
Green wrote and collaborated with her husband on screenplays for three of the "social issue" films of producer Michael Relph and director Basil Dearden: Sapphire (dealing with racial tension in 1950s London), Victim (the first mainstream examination of homosexuality) and Life for Ruth (religious intolerance).[4][9] They have been described as "three of the finest films in British cinema."[10] Of Sapphire, the New York Post wrote in 1959, "Perhaps the screenplay writer, one Janet Green, deserves her own special notice for a picture that is so special."[10]
