Allen Boretz was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 songwriter

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

, playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

 and screenwriter

Screenwriter

Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

. The great success of his and John Murray

John Murray (playwright)

John Murray was a playwright best known for writing the 1937 play Room Service with Allen Boretz.Murray was born in New York and attended DeWitt Clinton High School, City College of New York, and Columbia University...

's Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 hit Room Service

Room Service (play)

Room Service is a play written by Allen Boretz and John Murray. It was originally produced by George Abbott and debuted at the Cort Theatre in New York on May 19, 1937. Its initial production ran for 500 performances, closing on July 16, 1938. The play was revived for a short run of 16...

(1937) led to offers from Hollywood, and he wrote and co-wrote screenplays from the late 1930s through the 1940s.

His film credits include It Ain't Hay

It Ain't Hay

-Plot:Wilbur Hoolihan accidentally kills a hack horse owned by King O'Hara and his daughter, Princess by feeding it candy. In the hopes of raising enough money to replace it, he and his friend Grover Mockridge visit a gambling establishment...

(1943), Step Lively

Step Lively (1944 film)

Step Lively is a 1944 musical film directed by Tim Whelan and starring Frank Sinatra. Step Lively was based on the play Room Service, by Allen Boretz and John Murray.-Cast:* Frank Sinatra - Glenn Russell* George Murphy - Gordon Miller...

(1944), Up in Arms (1944), The Princess and the Pirate (1944), Ziegfeld Follies

Ziegfeld Follies (film)

Ziegfeld Follies is a 1945 Hollywood musical comedy film directed by Lemuel Ayers, Roy Del Ruth, Robert Lewis, Vincente Minnelli, Merrill Pye, George Sidney and Charles Waters...

(1946), Copacabana (1947), My Girl Tisa (1948), and Two Guys from Texas (1949). .

Boretz' screenwriting ended abruptly when he was blacklisted

Hollywood blacklist

The Hollywood blacklist—as the broader entertainment industry blacklist is generally known—was the mid-twentieth-century list of screenwriters, actors, directors, musicians, and other U.S. entertainment professionals who were denied employment in the field because of their political beliefs or...

in the early 1950s. However, Room Service has never stopped being produced by professional and amateur theatrical companies throughout the world, and has been revived on Broadway several times.