Veteran Writers Guild Foundation Leader Angela Wales Kirgo Dies at 78
Angela Wales Kirgo, who led the Writers Guild Foundation for nearly two decades, passed away in Sydney after battling cancer.
Angela Wales Kirgo, aged 78, died in Sydney following a cancer fight, ending a career that shaped the Writers Guild Foundation into a premier educational body. After moving from Australia to Los Angeles in 1990, she joined the foundation in 1993 and later directed its expansion, including the Shavelson-Webb Library that houses over 50,000 scripts. Her tenure saw fundraising increase tenfold and a dramatic boost to oral-history projects and public programming.
Industry figures like Tom Schulman and Dan Petrie lauded her behind-the-scenes leadership. Kirgo, formerly the first executive director of the Australian Writers’ Guild, also maintained strong ties to Australian writers and, after retirement, published a memoir before returning home to support her elderly mother.
Why it matters
Her death marks the loss of a key figure who preserved and promoted screenwriting heritage across Australia and the U.S.
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