Trumbo began writing professionally in the 1930s, publishing articles in Saturday Evening Post, Vanity Fair and Hollywood Spectator. He became The Spectator’s managing editor in 1934, published his first novel Eclipse, and worked as a script reader for Warner Bros.
In 1936, Trumbo received his first screenwriting credit for the crime drama Road Gang, and over the next decade became a successful and respected writer in Hollywood. A 2nd highspot was A Man to Remember (1938). In the meantime, he married Cleo Fincher in 1939 and had 3 children: Nikola, Christopher and Mitzi.
Hollywood 10 charged with contempt in Nov 1947
He also succeeded with the anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun (1939). The novel won a National Book Award and has been adapted many times for radio, stage and screen. Although Johnny’s success earned Trumbo fame, the work eventually gathered him unwanted attention as well. He received fan letters from Nazi sympathisers believed the writer was also pro-Nazi. So Trumbo reported the Nazis to the FBI but rather than pursue the Nazis, the Bureau investigated Trumbo!
The House Committee on Un-American Activities/HUAC was created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloyal activities by public employees and organisations suspected of having Communist ties. More about this later.
The 1940 romantic drama Kitty Foyle, starring Ginger Rogers, earned Trumbo his first Academy Award nomination for best adapted screenplay. Another much praised WW2 drama was Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), starring Spencer Tracy and Robert Mitchum.
Like many intellectuals, Trumbo had joined the Communist Party in 1943 for a few years, and during his career, had frequently proposed leftish political positions. From 1946 on, the number of FBI agents doubled, as part of President Truman’s loyalty-security programme, identifying government employees with communist sympathies.
In Oct 1947, as postwar paranoia about Communism was surging in USA. Trumbo was among 10 Hollywood directors and writers, The Hollywood Ten, called to testify before the HUAC. The Committee had to investigate whether Communist sympathisers had propagandised audiences. The HUAC began to subpoena screen writers and directors to testify about alleged communist links.
Dalton Trumbo might have been Hollywood's most famous screenwriter of his generation, yet he too had to testify before the HUAC. They all refused to give up the names of colleagues with ?communist sympathies; Trumbo was imprisoned for 11 months, guilty of Contempt of Congress. After release, he was Blacklisted by the major studio heads and could not work in his own name.
Dalton Trumbo grilled by the House Un-American Activities Committee
28th Oct 1947. NBC NewsOther witnesses called in front of the committee, including Elia Kazan, director of On The Waterfront, named names and could continue working. The playwright Arthur Miller, who had been lifelong friends with Kazan, never spoke to him again. But Trumbo couldn’t find work in California so the family moved to Mexico City. There he continued to write screenplays, which he could sell using pseudonyms.
Dalton Trumbo (glasses) prepared to fly to Wash DC to begin gaol
with family and protesters Los Angeles Airport, 1950.
SFGATE
SFGATE
Sen Joe McCarthy launched his most brutal campaign in 1950, when he accused 200+ state department staff of being communists. In Mexico City, Trumbo continued to write screenplays which he was able to sell by getting other writers to front for his work. During this time, Trumbo wrote 10+ screenplays that were made into films, including the classic Oscar-winning Roman Holiday (1953), starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn.
After years of working in exile, Trumbo at last returned to Hollywood, when his screenplay for The Brave One (1956), under the nick Robert Rich, received an Academy Award. But his earnings dwindled: over a two year period, Trumbo wrote 18 screenplays cheaply.
After years of working in exile, Trumbo at last returned to Hollywood, when his screenplay for The Brave One (1956), under the nick Robert Rich, received an Academy Award. But his earnings dwindled: over a two year period, Trumbo wrote 18 screenplays cheaply.
Trumbo was known for writing in his bathtub.
X.com
X.com
When McCarthy died in 1957, there was a sense of joy because the senator had managed the whole disaster. By 1959, HUAC was denounced even by former Pres Truman as “a most un-American thing”.
Trumbo was chosen by Kirk Douglas to write the screenplay for Spartacus, which went on to win four Academy Awards!! Trumbo was also hired to write the adaptation for the best-selling novel about the State of Israel, Exodus, directed by Otto Preminger. The Blacklist had lost all credibility!
Throughout the rest of his life, Trumbo continued his successful output and was reinstated in the Writers Guild of America. Of the many screenplays that he wrote in this post-Blacklist era, some highlights were the Douglas western Lonely Are the Brave (1962), Golden Globe–nominated crime drama The Fixer (1968), and a prison classic Papillon (1973) with Steve McQueen & Dustin Hoffman. Revisiting his old, once troubled works, Trumbo wrote and directed a 1971 film adaption of Johnny Got His Gun, and received two awards at the Cannes Film Festival. And in 1975, he finally received his Oscar for The Brave One.
A heavy smoker Trumbo was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1973. He died in care in Sept 1976 in Los Angeles.
In 1993, 40 years after the film’s release, Trumbo was posthumously awarded an Oscar for his Roman Holiday screenplay. Since his death, Trumbo has been the hero of other peoples’ works, including a 2003 Broadway play: Trumbo: Red, White and Blacklisted. In Sept 2015, a new biographical drama called Trumbo premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. The extraordinary story of his defiance in the face of political oppression was key.
Trumbo was chosen by Kirk Douglas to write the screenplay for Spartacus, which went on to win four Academy Awards!! Trumbo was also hired to write the adaptation for the best-selling novel about the State of Israel, Exodus, directed by Otto Preminger. The Blacklist had lost all credibility!
Throughout the rest of his life, Trumbo continued his successful output and was reinstated in the Writers Guild of America. Of the many screenplays that he wrote in this post-Blacklist era, some highlights were the Douglas western Lonely Are the Brave (1962), Golden Globe–nominated crime drama The Fixer (1968), and a prison classic Papillon (1973) with Steve McQueen & Dustin Hoffman. Revisiting his old, once troubled works, Trumbo wrote and directed a 1971 film adaption of Johnny Got His Gun, and received two awards at the Cannes Film Festival. And in 1975, he finally received his Oscar for The Brave One.
A heavy smoker Trumbo was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1973. He died in care in Sept 1976 in Los Angeles.
In 1993, 40 years after the film’s release, Trumbo was posthumously awarded an Oscar for his Roman Holiday screenplay. Since his death, Trumbo has been the hero of other peoples’ works, including a 2003 Broadway play: Trumbo: Red, White and Blacklisted. In Sept 2015, a new biographical drama called Trumbo premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. The extraordinary story of his defiance in the face of political oppression was key.
You might like to see the 2015 film, Trumbo, based on the 1977 biography by Bruce Alexander Cook.
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16 comments:
Dalton Trumbo’s life reads like a screenplay itself—brilliant success, political persecution, defiant resilience, and ultimate redemption
Remember Roman Holiday? I loved it but would never have known who the screenwriter was.
I recall some of his films. Amazing writer.
The Hollywood Ten were not the only Hollywood stars who suffered.
Chaplin Chaplin was blacklisted for refusing to co-operate when called before the House Un-American Activities Committee
Orson Welles was sidelined but not gaoled for his actions re the infamous War of the Worlds broadcast.
Pete Seeger was a member of the Communist Party, but refused to name anyone before HUAC in 1955. He was convicted of contempt of Congress and was sentenced to 10 years but released earlier.
Lena Horne was a singer and dancer labelled as a Communist sympathizer because of her civil rights activism etc etc
I used to think nothing like the HUAC could ever happen in the US again. However, now I am not so confident. Kazan should have been the one to never work again. We don't like people who 'dob'.
Andrew
I could not believe that the The House Committee on Un-American Activities was created in _1938 _ to investigate disloyal activities by public employees and organisations. They blacklisted and gaoled the very people who the US needed most - its cleverest academics, authors, public employees, trade unionists, Hollywood stars etc etc.
So it is certainly happening again, although perhaps not via the old HUAC structure. Now he does it by sacking the court judges who protected citizens' rights or replacing Departmental Secretaries with new people who would cancel long standing funding and cause mass unemployment.
Writers, musicians and actors were badly treated by the HUAC. Any attempt to curb freedom of speech is doomed to failure and condemns a country to a lack, or at least a slowdown, of social development.
Margaret
I wouldn't have known any films written and produced before WW2, but I certainly knew: Roman Holiday (1953); Spartacus (1960); Papillon (1973); The Brave One (1956); Exodus (1960) and perhaps one or two other great films. Not bad from one man!
roentare
I think if Trumbo's works had not been so successful and colourful, he might have been blacklisted quietly and the public might never have heard of him again. Even though he was only in hiding in Mexico for a few years, we know of almost none of the work he created during that hiding time.
His ultimate redemption was very fortunate, for him of course, but for us as well.
Deb
I didn't know either... I knew about Academy Awards for best: films, actor and actress, costumes, even set design. But producers and screenwriters were hidden.
Inside Hook
Many thanks. I can see you said that Hollywood's blacklist policy banned the work of 325 screenwriters, directors and actors who the committee had not yet cleared. Some people _were_ able to restart working, through eg pseudonyms, but others disappeared into the general community :(
jabblog
I agree with you. Any attempt to curb freedom of speech will slow down that nation's intellectual and social development, lead to trials and gaol sentences, growth of emigration and psychiatric disturbance.
But curbing free speech was only part of the crisis. The HUAC tracked social contacts, political activities and work commitments. Any of Lena Horne's connections to Paul Robeson were carefully monitored and recorded.
Boa noite e bom final de semana. Uma excelente noite de sábado, com muita paz e saúde. Liberdade com restrições não é liberdade. Obrigado pela visita e comentário. Parabéns pela excelente matéria.
Wow, what a life. McCarthy's death really set a lot of talented people free, but he also did so much harm too. Kind of like some people in our US politics now. But I won't go on about that. Hope you are having a wonderful August.
Luiz
Freedom with restrictions is certainly not freedom, and democracy where leftists cannot work in their chosen professions is nothing like a democracy. When Dalton Trumbo wouldn't answer questions about other people hauled up before the HUAC, he knew his freedom was over :(
Erika
Because the Senator died in 1957, had he been the main force behind the HUAC, we might have expected the oppression to stop. But no! There were other like minded politicians who continued McCarthy's mission, although perhaps with less shame than McCarthy. In any case, the HUAC went on, was renamed the House Committee on Internal Security in 1969 and was only abolished in 1975.
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