Dalton Trumbo
Encyclopedia
James Dalton Trumbo was an American
screenwriter
and novelist, and one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of film professionals who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC) in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry. Trumbo won two Academy Awards
while blacklisted; one originally given to a front writer, and one awarded to Robert Rich, Trumbo's pseudonym.
, Colorado
, the son of Maud (née Tillery) and Orus Bonham Trumbo. His surname originated from a Franco-Swiss immigrant ancestor who settled in Virginia in 1736. Trumbo graduated from Grand Junction High School
in nearby Grand Junction, Colorado. While still in high school, he worked as a cub reporter for the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
, covering courts, the high school, the mortuary and civic organizations. He attended the University of Colorado at Boulder
for two years, working as a reporter for the Boulder Daily Camera and contributing to the campus humor magazine, the yearbook and the campus newspaper.
magazine.
His first published novel, Eclipse
(1935), about a town and its people, was written in the social realist style and drew on his years in Grand Junction. The book was controversial in Grand Junction and helped give him an infamous reputation in that city. Years after his death he would be honored with a statue in front of the Avalon Theater on Main Street, depicted writing a screenplay in a bathtub.
He started in movies in 1937; by the 1940s, he was one of Hollywood's highest paid writers for work on such films as Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
(1944), Our Vines Have Tender Grapes
(1945), and Kitty Foyle
(1940), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
.
Trumbo's 1939 anti-war
novel, Johnny Got His Gun
, won a National Book Award
(then known as an American Book Sellers Award) that year. The novel was inspired by an article Trumbo had read about a Canadian soldier who had lost all his limbs in World War I
and was visited in hospital by the Prince of Wales
.
before the 1940s, although he did not join the party until later. After the outbreak of World War II
in 1939, American communists argued that the United States should not get involved in the war on the side of the United Kingdom, since the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
of nonaggression meant that the Soviet Union
was at peace with Germany
.
In 1941, Trumbo wrote a novel The Remarkable Andrew, in which, in one scene, the ghost of Andrew Jackson
appears in order to caution the United States not to get involved in the war. In a review of the book, Time Magazine
sarcastically wrote, "General Jackson's opinions need surprise no one who has observed George Washington
and Abraham Lincoln
zealously following the Communist Party Line in recent years."
Shortly after the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union
, Trumbo and his publisher decided to suspend reprinting of Johnny Got His Gun until the end of the war. During the war, Trumbo received letters from individuals "denouncing Jews" and using Johnny to support their arguments for "an immediate negotiated peace" with Nazi Germany; Trumbo reported these correspondents to the FBI. Trumbo regretted this decision, which he called "foolish". After two FBI agents showed up at his home, he understood that "their interest lay not in the letters but in me."
Trumbo was a member of the Communist Party USA from 1943 until 1948. He wrote in The Daily Worker that among the films that communist influence in Hollywood had quashed were adaptations of Arthur Koestler
's anti-totalitarian works Darkness at Noon
and The Yogi and the Commissar, which described the rise of communism in Russia.
, he was blacklisted
, and in 1950, spent 11 months in prison in the federal penitentiary in Ashland, Kentucky
.
After Trumbo was blacklisted, some Hollywood actors and directors, such as Elia Kazan
and Clifford Odets
, agreed to testify and to provide names of fellow communist party members to Congress. Many of those who testified were immediately ostracized and shunned by their former friends and associates. Trumbo always maintained that those who testified under pressure from HUAC and the studios were equally victims of the Red Scare, an opinion for which he was criticized.
with Hugo Butler
and his wife Jean Rouverol
, who had also been blacklisted. There, Trumbo wrote 30 scripts under pseudonym
s, such as Gun Crazy
(1950), based on a short story by MacKinlay Kantor
, who was the front for the screenplay. It was not until 1992 that Trumbo's role was revealed.
Gradually the blacklist began to be weakened. With the support of Otto Preminger
, Trumbo was credited for his screenplay for the 1960 film Exodus
, adapted from the novel by Leon Uris
. Shortly thereafter, Kirk Douglas
made public Trumbo's credit for the screenplay for Spartacus
(1960), an event which has been cited as the beginning of the end of the blacklist. Trumbo was reinstated in the Writers Guild of America, West
, and was credited on all subsequent scripts.
In 1971, Trumbo directed the film adaptation of his novel
Johnny Got His Gun
, which starred Timothy Bottoms
, Diane Varsi
, Jason Robards
and Donald Sutherland.
One of Trumbo's last films, Executive Action (1973), was based on various conspiracy theories
about the Kennedy assassination
.
His account and analysis of the Smith Act
trials is entitled The Devil in the Book.
(1956), written under the name Robert Rich. In 1975, the Academy officially recognized Trumbo as the winner and presented him with a statuette.
In 1993, Trumbo was posthumously awarded the Academy Award for writing Roman Holiday (1953). The screen credit and award were previously given to Ian McLellan Hunter
, who had been a "front" for Trumbo.
Trumbo had three children: one son, filmmaker and screenwriter Christopher Trumbo
who was considered an expert on the Hollywood blacklist; and two daughters, photographer Melissa, known as Mitzi, and psychotherapist Nikola. Mitzi once had a relationship with actor/comedian Steve Martin
; Martin later confessed that, at that time in his "tunnel-visioned life," he had never heard of her father. In his memoir, Born Standing Up, Martin credits his time spent with the Trumbo family as having aroused his interest in politics and art. Christopher Trumbo mounted a Broadway play in 2003 based on his father's letters called Trumbo: Red, White, and Blacklisted, in which a wide variety of actors played his father over the weeks, including Nathan Lane
, Tim Robbins
, Brian Dennehy
, Ed Harris
, Chris Cooper
, and Gore Vidal
. A documentary about Dalton Trumbo called Trumbo was produced in 2007 incorporating elements of the play as well as footage of Dalton Trumbo himself and a panoply of interviews. Christopher Trumbo died on January 8, 2011, from complications of kidney cancer.
of a heart attack at the age of 70 on September 10, 1976 and donated his body to science.
Novels, plays and essays:
Non-fiction:
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
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:...
and novelist, and one of the Hollywood Ten, a group of film professionals who refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee
House Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
(HUAC) in 1947 during the committee's investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry. Trumbo won two Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
while blacklisted; one originally given to a front writer, and one awarded to Robert Rich, Trumbo's pseudonym.
Early life
Trumbo was born in MontroseMontrose, Colorado
The City of Montrose is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Montrose County, Colorado, United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the city population was 15,479 in 2005. The main road that leads in and out of Montrose is U.S...
, Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, the son of Maud (née Tillery) and Orus Bonham Trumbo. His surname originated from a Franco-Swiss immigrant ancestor who settled in Virginia in 1736. Trumbo graduated from Grand Junction High School
Grand Junction High School
Grand Junction High School is a high school located in Grand Junction, Colorado. It is part of the Mesa County Valley School District 51.As of 2006, the student-teacher ratio is about 19:1 -Athletics:...
in nearby Grand Junction, Colorado. While still in high school, he worked as a cub reporter for the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel is the largest daily newspaper in western Colorado, with distribution in six counties.The Sentinel’s companion website, , was founded in 1996. Together, the news organization provides daily community, state, national and international news coverage.The Daily...
, covering courts, the high school, the mortuary and civic organizations. He attended the University of Colorado at Boulder
University of Colorado at Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...
for two years, working as a reporter for the Boulder Daily Camera and contributing to the campus humor magazine, the yearbook and the campus newspaper.
Career
He got his professional start working for VogueVogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
magazine.
His first published novel, Eclipse
Eclipse (Trumbo)
Eclipse is Dalton Trumbo's first novel published in 1935. The novel is about a town and its people written in the social realist style. The town, which Trumbo calls "Shale City," was modeled on Grand Junction, Colorado, where Trumbo lived from 1908 until he left for the University of Colorado in 1924...
(1935), about a town and its people, was written in the social realist style and drew on his years in Grand Junction. The book was controversial in Grand Junction and helped give him an infamous reputation in that city. Years after his death he would be honored with a statue in front of the Avalon Theater on Main Street, depicted writing a screenplay in a bathtub.
He started in movies in 1937; by the 1940s, he was one of Hollywood's highest paid writers for work on such films as Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
Thirty Seconds over Tokyo
Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo is a 1944 MGM war film. It is based on the true story of America's first retaliatory air strike against Japan four months after the December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The movie was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and produced by Sam Zimbalist. The screenplay by...
(1944), Our Vines Have Tender Grapes
Our Vines Have Tender Grapes
Our Vines Have Tender Grapes is an American drama film released in 1945, directed by Roy Rowland and starring Edward G. Robinson and Margaret O'Brien.-Background:...
(1945), and Kitty Foyle
Kitty Foyle (film)
Kitty Foyle, subtitled The Natural History of a Woman, is a 1940 film starring Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, James Craig, Ernest Cossart and Gladys Cooper.-Plot:...
(1940), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay
The Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay is one of the Academy Awards, the most prominent film awards in the United States. It is awarded each year to the writer of a screenplay adapted from another source...
.
Trumbo's 1939 anti-war
Anti-war
An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...
novel, Johnny Got His Gun
Johnny Got His Gun
Johnny Got His Gun is an anti-war novel written in 1938 by American novelist and screenwriter Dalton Trumboand published by J. B. Lippincott company.-Plot:...
, won a National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
(then known as an American Book Sellers Award) that year. The novel was inspired by an article Trumbo had read about a Canadian soldier who had lost all his limbs in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and was visited in hospital by the Prince of Wales
Edward VIII of the United Kingdom
Edward VIII was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth, and Emperor of India, from 20 January to 11 December 1936.Before his accession to the throne, Edward was Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall and Rothesay...
.
Involvement with communism
Trumbo aligned himself with the Communist Party USACommunist Party USA
The Communist Party USA is a Marxist political party in the United States, established in 1919. It has a long, complex history that is closely related to the histories of similar communist parties worldwide and the U.S. labor movement....
before the 1940s, although he did not join the party until later. After the outbreak of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in 1939, American communists argued that the United States should not get involved in the war on the side of the United Kingdom, since the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
of nonaggression meant that the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
was at peace with Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
In 1941, Trumbo wrote a novel The Remarkable Andrew, in which, in one scene, the ghost of Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson
Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States . Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend , and the British at the Battle of New Orleans...
appears in order to caution the United States not to get involved in the war. In a review of the book, Time Magazine
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
sarcastically wrote, "General Jackson's opinions need surprise no one who has observed George Washington
George Washington
George Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
and Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
zealously following the Communist Party Line in recent years."
Shortly after the 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
, Trumbo and his publisher decided to suspend reprinting of Johnny Got His Gun until the end of the war. During the war, Trumbo received letters from individuals "denouncing Jews" and using Johnny to support their arguments for "an immediate negotiated peace" with Nazi Germany; Trumbo reported these correspondents to the FBI. Trumbo regretted this decision, which he called "foolish". After two FBI agents showed up at his home, he understood that "their interest lay not in the letters but in me."
Trumbo was a member of the Communist Party USA from 1943 until 1948. He wrote in The Daily Worker that among the films that communist influence in Hollywood had quashed were adaptations of Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler CBE was a Hungarian author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria...
's anti-totalitarian works Darkness at Noon
Darkness at Noon
Darkness at Noon is a novel by the Hungarian-born British novelist Arthur Koestler, first published in 1940...
and The Yogi and the Commissar, which described the rise of communism in Russia.
Blacklisting
During the McCarthy Era in 1947, Trumbo, along with nine other writers and directors, was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee as an unfriendly witness to testify on the presence of communist influence in Hollywood. Trumbo and the other nine refused to give information. After conviction for contempt of CongressContempt of Congress
Contempt of Congress is the act of obstructing the work of the United States Congress or one of its committees. Historically the bribery of a senator or representative was considered contempt of Congress...
, 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...
, and in 1950, spent 11 months in prison in the federal penitentiary in Ashland, Kentucky
Ashland, Kentucky
Ashland, formerly known as Poage Settlement, is a city in Boyd County, Kentucky, United States, nestled along the banks of the Ohio River. The population was 21,981 at the 2000 census. Ashland is a part of the Huntington-Ashland, WV-KY-OH, Metropolitan Statistical Area . As of the 2000 census, the...
.
After Trumbo was blacklisted, some Hollywood actors and directors, such as Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan was an American director and actor, described by the New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history". Born in Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, to Greek parents originally from Kayseri in Anatolia, the family emigrated...
and Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets
Clifford Odets was an American playwright, screenwriter, socialist, and social protester.-Early life:Odets was born in Philadelphia to Romanian- and Russian-Jewish immigrant parents, Louis Odets and Esther Geisinger, and raised in Philadelphia and the Bronx, New York. He dropped out of high...
, agreed to testify and to provide names of fellow communist party members to Congress. Many of those who testified were immediately ostracized and shunned by their former friends and associates. Trumbo always maintained that those who testified under pressure from HUAC and the studios were equally victims of the Red Scare, an opinion for which he was criticized.
Later life
After completing his sentence, Trumbo and his family moved to MexicoMexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
with Hugo Butler
Hugo Butler
Hugo D. Butler was a Canadian born screenwriter working in Hollywood who was blacklisted by the movie studios in the 1950s.-Biography:Born in Calgary, Alberta, his father had acted and written scripts in silent films...
and his wife Jean Rouverol
Jean Rouverol
Jean Rouverol is an American author, actress and screenwriter who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s.-Biography:...
, who had also been blacklisted. There, Trumbo wrote 30 scripts under pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
s, such as Gun Crazy
Gun Crazy
Gun Crazy is a 1950 film noir feature film starring Peggy Cummins and John Dall in a story about the crime-spree of a gun-toting husband and wife. The film was directed by Joseph H. Lewis, and produced by Frank King and Maurice King...
(1950), based on a short story by MacKinlay Kantor
MacKinlay Kantor
MacKinlay Kantor , born Benjamin McKinlay Kantor, was an American journalist, novelist and screenwriter. He wrote more than 30 novels, several based on the American Civil War, and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1956 for his 1955 novel Andersonville, about the Confederate prisoner of war camp...
, who was the front for the screenplay. It was not until 1992 that Trumbo's role was revealed.
Gradually the blacklist began to be weakened. With the support of Otto Preminger
Otto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...
, Trumbo was credited for his screenplay for the 1960 film Exodus
Exodus (film)
Exodus is a 1960 epic war film made by Alpha and Carlyle Productions and distributed by United Artists. Produced and directed by Otto Preminger, the film was based on the 1958 novel Exodus, by Leon Uris. The screenplay was written by Dalton Trumbo, which represented the breaking of the Hollywood...
, adapted from the novel by Leon Uris
Leon Uris
Leon Marcus Uris was an American novelist, known for his historical fiction and the deep research that went into his novels. His two bestselling books were Exodus, published in 1958, and Trinity, in 1976.-Life:...
. Shortly thereafter, Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas is an American stage and film actor, film producer and author. His popular films include Out of the Past , Champion , Ace in the Hole , The Bad and the Beautiful , Lust for Life , Paths of Glory , Gunfight at the O.K...
made public Trumbo's credit for the screenplay for Spartacus
Spartacus (film)
Spartacus is a 1960 American epic historical drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the novel of the same name by Howard Fast...
(1960), an event which has been cited as the beginning of the end of the blacklist. Trumbo was reinstated in the Writers Guild of America, West
Writers Guild of America, west
Writers Guild of America, West is a labor union representing film, television, radio, and new media writers. The Guild was formed in 1954 from five organizations representing writers, which include the Screen Writers Guild...
, and was credited on all subsequent scripts.
In 1971, Trumbo directed the film adaptation of his novel
Johnny Got His Gun (film)
Johnny Got His Gun is a 1971 anti-war film based on the novel of the same name written and directed by Dalton Trumbo and starring Timothy Bottoms, Jason Robards and Donald Sutherland with Diane Varsi...
Johnny Got His Gun
Johnny Got His Gun
Johnny Got His Gun is an anti-war novel written in 1938 by American novelist and screenwriter Dalton Trumboand published by J. B. Lippincott company.-Plot:...
, which starred Timothy Bottoms
Timothy Bottoms
-Early life:Bottoms was born in Santa Barbara, California, the eldest son of Betty and James "Bud" Bottoms, who is a sculptor and art teacher. He is the brother of actors Joseph Bottoms , Sam Bottoms and Ben Bottoms . In 1967, Bottoms toured Europe as part of the Santa Barbara Madrigal...
, Diane Varsi
Diane Varsi
Diane Marie Antonia Varsi was an American film actress best known for her performances in Peyton Place – her film debut, and for which she was nominated for an Academy Award – and the cult film Wild in the Streets...
, Jason Robards
Jason Robards
Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was an American actor on stage, and in film and television, and a winner of the Tony Award , two Academy Awards and the Emmy Award...
and Donald Sutherland.
One of Trumbo's last films, Executive Action (1973), was based on various conspiracy theories
John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories
There has long been suspicion of a government cover-up of information about the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. There are also numerous conspiracy theories regarding the assassination that arose soon after his death and continue to be promoted today...
about the Kennedy assassination
John F. Kennedy assassination
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...
.
His account and analysis of the Smith Act
Smith Act
The Alien Registration Act or Smith Act of 1940 is a United States federal statute that set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of the U.S...
trials is entitled The Devil in the Book.
Academy Awards
He won an Oscar for The Brave OneThe Brave One (1956 film)
The Brave One is a 1956 American drama film directed by Irving Rapper and starring Michel Ray, Rodolfo Hoyos Jr., and Elsa Cárdenas. It tells the story of a young Mexican boy who tries to save his beloved bull Gitano from the bullfighting arena....
(1956), written under the name Robert Rich. In 1975, the Academy officially recognized Trumbo as the winner and presented him with a statuette.
In 1993, Trumbo was posthumously awarded the Academy Award for writing Roman Holiday (1953). The screen credit and award were previously given to Ian McLellan Hunter
Ian McLellan Hunter
Ian McLellan Hunter was an English screenwriter, most noted for fronting for the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo as the credited writer of Roman Holiday in 1953. Hunter was himself later blacklisted.-Roman Holiday:...
, who had been a "front" for Trumbo.
Personal life
In 1939, Trumbo married Cleo Fincher who was born in Fresno on July 17, 1916, and later moved with her divorced mother and her brother and sister to Los Angeles. Cleo Trumbo died of natural causes at the age of 93 on October 9, 2009 in the Bay Area city of Los Altos. At the time she was living with her eldest daughter Mitzi.Trumbo had three children: one son, filmmaker and screenwriter Christopher Trumbo
Christopher Trumbo
Christopher Trumbo was an American television writer, screenwriter and playwright. Trumbo was considered an expert on the Hollywood blacklist during the McCarthy era. His father, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, was blacklisted as a member of The Hollywood Ten. Trumbo was born on September 25, 1940,...
who was considered an expert on the Hollywood blacklist; and two daughters, photographer Melissa, known as Mitzi, and psychotherapist Nikola. Mitzi once had a relationship with actor/comedian Steve Martin
Steve Martin
Stephen Glenn "Steve" Martin is an American actor, comedian, writer, playwright, producer, musician and composer....
; Martin later confessed that, at that time in his "tunnel-visioned life," he had never heard of her father. In his memoir, Born Standing Up, Martin credits his time spent with the Trumbo family as having aroused his interest in politics and art. Christopher Trumbo mounted a Broadway play in 2003 based on his father's letters called Trumbo: Red, White, and Blacklisted, in which a wide variety of actors played his father over the weeks, including Nathan Lane
Nathan Lane
Nathan Lane is an American actor of stage and screen. He is best known for his roles as Mendy in The Lisbon Traviata, Albert in The Birdcage, Max Bialystock in the musical The Producers, Ernie Smuntz in MouseHunt, Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls, Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to...
, Tim Robbins
Tim Robbins
Timothy Francis "Tim" Robbins is an American actor, screenwriter, director, producer, activist and musician. He is the former longtime partner of actress Susan Sarandon...
, Brian Dennehy
Brian Dennehy
Brian Mannion Dennehy is an American actor of film, stage and screen.-Early years:Dennehy was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Hannah and Edward Dennehy, who was a wire service editor for the Associated Press; he has two brothers, Michael and Edward. Dennehy is of Irish ancestry and was...
, Ed Harris
Ed Harris
Edward Allen "Ed" Harris is an American actor, writer, and director, known for his performances in Appaloosa, Radio, The Rock, The Abyss, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, A History of Violence, and The Truman Show. Harris has also narrated commercials for The Home Depot and other companies...
, Chris Cooper
Chris Cooper (actor)
Christopher W. "Chris" Cooper is an American film actor. He became well known in the late 1990s. He has appeared in supporting performances in several major Hollywood films, including The Bourne Identity, American Beauty, Capote, The Town, The Kingdom, Syriana, October Sky, Seabiscuit, and...
, and Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
. A documentary about Dalton Trumbo called Trumbo was produced in 2007 incorporating elements of the play as well as footage of Dalton Trumbo himself and a panoply of interviews. Christopher Trumbo died on January 8, 2011, from complications of kidney cancer.
Death
Dalton Trumbo died in Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
of a heart attack at the age of 70 on September 10, 1976 and donated his body to science.
Works
Selected film works:- Road GangRoad GangRoad Gang is a film released in 1936, showing economic and social injustice due to political corruption.It was directed by Louis King, written by Dalton Trumbo, produced by Bryan Foy, and stars Donald Woods and Kay Linaker....
, 1936 - Love Begins at 20, 1936
- Devil's PlaygroundDevils PlaygroundThe Devils Playground is a large sandy region in the Mojave Desert in the state of California in the United States. Dunes and salt flats stretch for approximately 40 miles in a generally northwest-southeasterly direction in the Mojave National Preserve. The Cronese Mountains are located at its...
, 1937 - Fugitives for a Night, 1938
- A Man to RememberA Man to RememberA Man to Remember is a American drama film directed by Garson Kanin, his first film credit as a director. The picture was based on the novel The Failure, written by Katharine Haviland-Taylor, and the screenplay was penned by Dalton Trumbo. The story tells of a saintly small town doctor working...
, 1938 - Five Came BackFive Came BackFive Came Back is a 1939 melodrama and a precursor of the disaster film genre. The film was directed by John Farrow, photographed by renowned film noir cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca, and written by Jerry Cady, Dalton Trumbo and Nathanael West....
, 1939 (with Nathanael WestNathanael WestNathanael West was a US author, screenwriter and satirist.- Early life :...
and J. Cody) - Curtain Call, 1941
- Bill of Divorcement, 1940
- Kitty FoyleKitty Foyle (film)Kitty Foyle, subtitled The Natural History of a Woman, is a 1940 film starring Ginger Rogers, Dennis Morgan, James Craig, Ernest Cossart and Gladys Cooper.-Plot:...
, 1940 - The Remarkable Andrew, 1942
- Tender Comrade, 1944
- A Guy Named JoeA Guy Named JoeA Guy Named Joe is a 1943 film made by MGM, directed by Victor Fleming, produced by Everett Riskin, from a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo, adapted by Frederick Hazlitt Brennan from a story by Chandler Sprague and David Boehm. It starred Spencer Tracy, Irene Dunne and Van Johnson, with Esther Williams...
, 1944 - Thirty Seconds Over TokyoThirty Seconds over TokyoThirty Seconds Over Tokyo is a 1944 MGM war film. It is based on the true story of America's first retaliatory air strike against Japan four months after the December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The movie was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and produced by Sam Zimbalist. The screenplay by...
, 1944 - Our Vines Have Tender GrapesOur Vines Have Tender GrapesOur Vines Have Tender Grapes is an American drama film released in 1945, directed by Roy Rowland and starring Edward G. Robinson and Margaret O'Brien.-Background:...
, 1945 - Gun CrazyGun CrazyGun Crazy is a 1950 film noir feature film starring Peggy Cummins and John Dall in a story about the crime-spree of a gun-toting husband and wife. The film was directed by Joseph H. Lewis, and produced by Frank King and Maurice King...
, 1950 (co-writer, front Millard KaufmanMillard KaufmanMillard Kaufman was an American screenwriter and novelist. His works include the Academy Award-nominated Bad Day at Black Rock . He was also one of the creators of Mr. Magoo.-Life:...
) - He Ran All the WayHe Ran All the WayHe Ran All the Way is a 1951 crime drama, considered a film noir, starring John Garfield and Shelley Winters. The film was Garfield's last, as accusations of his involvement with the Communist Party and a refusal to name names while testifying before the HUAC led to his blacklisting in Hollywood...
, 1951 (co-writer, front Guy EndoreGuy EndoreSamuel Guy Endore , born Samuel Goldstein and also known as Harry Relis, was a novelist and screenwriter. During his career he produced a wide array of novels, screenplays, and pamphlets, both published and unpublished...
) - The Prowler, 1951 (uncredited with Hugo ButlerHugo ButlerHugo D. Butler was a Canadian born screenwriter working in Hollywood who was blacklisted by the movie studios in the 1950s.-Biography:Born in Calgary, Alberta, his father had acted and written scripts in silent films...
) - Roman Holiday, 1953 (front Ian McLellan HunterIan McLellan HunterIan McLellan Hunter was an English screenwriter, most noted for fronting for the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo as the credited writer of Roman Holiday in 1953. Hunter was himself later blacklisted.-Roman Holiday:...
) - They Were So Young, 1954, (pseudonym: Felix Lutzkendorf)
- The Boss, 1956 (front: Ben L. Perry)
- The Brave OneThe Brave One (1956 film)The Brave One is a 1956 American drama film directed by Irving Rapper and starring Michel Ray, Rodolfo Hoyos Jr., and Elsa Cárdenas. It tells the story of a young Mexican boy who tries to save his beloved bull Gitano from the bullfighting arena....
, 1956 (front Robert RichRobert RichRobert Rich may refer to:*Robert Rich , American ambient musician*Dalton Trumbo, American screenwriter and novelist, used pen name Robert Rich because of blacklisting*Robert Rich, 1st Earl of Warwick...
) - The Green-eyed Blonde, 1957 (front: Sally Stubblefield)
- From the Earth to the MoonFrom the Earth to the Moon (film)From the Earth to the Moon is a Technicolor science fiction film adaptation of the Jules Verne novel of the same name. It starred Joseph Cotten, George Sanders, Debra Paget, and Don Dubbins...
, 1958 (co-writer as front: James Leicester) - Cowboy (1958) (front: Edmund H. NorthEdmund H. NorthEdmund Hall North , was an American screenwriter who shared an Academy Award for "Best Original Screenplay" with Francis Ford Coppola in 1970 for their script for Patton....
) - SpartacusSpartacus (film)Spartacus is a 1960 American epic historical drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the novel of the same name by Howard Fast...
, 1960, dir. by Stanley KubrickStanley KubrickStanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career... - ExodusExodus (film)Exodus is a 1960 epic war film made by Alpha and Carlyle Productions and distributed by United Artists. Produced and directed by Otto Preminger, the film was based on the 1958 novel Exodus, by Leon Uris. The screenplay was written by Dalton Trumbo, which represented the breaking of the Hollywood...
, 1960 (based on Leon UrisLeon UrisLeon Marcus Uris was an American novelist, known for his historical fiction and the deep research that went into his novels. His two bestselling books were Exodus, published in 1958, and Trinity, in 1976.-Life:...
' 1958 novel of the same nameExodus (novel)Exodus by American novelist Leon Uris is about the founding of the State of Israel. Published in 1958, it is based on the name of the 1947 immigration ship Exodus....
) - The Last SunsetThe Last Sunset (film)The Last Sunset is a 1961 western movie starring Rock Hudson, Kirk Douglas, Dorothy Malone and directed by Robert Aldrich.The film was released by Universal studios, shot in Eastman color...
, 1961 - Lonely are the BraveLonely are the BraveLonely are the Brave is a 1962 film adaptation of the Edward Abbey novel The Brave Cowboy. It stars Kirk Douglas as cowboy Jack Burns, Gena Rowlands as his best friend's wife, and Walter Matthau as a sheriff who sympathizes with Burns but must do his job and chase him down...
, 1962 - The SandpiperThe SandpiperThe Sandpiper is a 1965 film starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, directed by Vincente Minnelli.-Plot:Laura Reynolds is a free-spirited, unwed single mother living with her young son Danny in an isolated California beach house...
, 1965 - HawaiiHawaii (film)Hawaii is a 1966 American film directed by George Roy Hill and based on the novel of the same name by James A. Michener. It tells the story of an 1820s Yale University divinity student who, along with his new bride , becomes a Calvinist missionary in the Hawaiian Islands...
, 1966 (based on the novel by James Michener, 1959) - The FixerThe Fixer (film)The Fixer is a 1968 British drama film based on the 1966 semi-biographical novel of the same name, written by Bernard Malamud.-Plot:Like the book, the film's main character Yakov Bok, a Jew living in the Russian Empire, who was unjustly imprisoned based on prejudice and the charge of having...
, 1968 - Johnny Got His GunJohnny Got His Gun (film)Johnny Got His Gun is a 1971 anti-war film based on the novel of the same name written and directed by Dalton Trumbo and starring Timothy Bottoms, Jason Robards and Donald Sutherland with Diane Varsi...
, 1971 (also directed) - The HorsemenThe Horsemen (1971 film)The Horsemen is a 1971 film starring Omar Sharif, directed by John Frankenheimer; screenplay by Dalton Trumbo. Based on a novel by French writer Joseph Kessel, Les Cavaliers shows Afghanistan and its people the way they were before the wars that wracked the country, particularly their love for...
, 1971 - F.T.A., 1972
- Executive Action, 1973
- PapillonPapillon (film)Papillon is a 1973 film based on the best-selling novel by the French convict Henri Charrière.This motion picture was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, starring Steve McQueen as Henri Charrière , and Dustin Hoffman as Louis Dega...
, 1973 (based on the novel by Henri CharrièreHenri CharrièreHenri Charrière was a convicted murderer chiefly known as the author of Papillon, a hugely successful memoir of his incarceration in and escape from a penal colony in French Guiana....
, 1969)
Novels, plays and essays:
- EclipseEclipse (Trumbo)Eclipse is Dalton Trumbo's first novel published in 1935. The novel is about a town and its people written in the social realist style. The town, which Trumbo calls "Shale City," was modeled on Grand Junction, Colorado, where Trumbo lived from 1908 until he left for the University of Colorado in 1924...
, 1935 - Washington Jitters, 1936
- Johnny Got His GunJohnny Got His GunJohnny Got His Gun is an anti-war novel written in 1938 by American novelist and screenwriter Dalton Trumboand published by J. B. Lippincott company.-Plot:...
, 1939 - The Remarkable Andrew, 1940 (also known as Chronicle of a Literal Man)
- The Biggest Thief in Town, 1949 (lay)
- The Time Out of the Toad, 1972 (essays)
- Night of the AurochsNight of the AurochsNight of the Aurochs is an unfinished novel by Dalton Trumbo , published posthumously in 1979.-Plot introduction:Aurochs is an attempt by Trumbo to tell the tale of World War II through the eyes of a Nazi by the name of Grieban, commandant of the concentration camp at Auschwitz.The book is compiled...
, 1979 (unfinished, ed. R. Kirsch)
Non-fiction:
- Harry BridgesHarry BridgesHarry Bridges was an Australian-American union leader, in the International Longshore and Warehouse Union , a longshore and warehouse workers' union on the West Coast, Hawaii and Alaska which he helped form and led for over 40 years...
, 1941 - The Time of the Toad, 1949
- The Devil in the Book, 1956
- Additional Dialogue: Letters of Dalton Trumbo, 1942–62, 1970 (ed. by H. Manfull)
See also
- The Hollywood TenThe Hollywood TenThe Hollywood Ten is an American 16mm short documentary film. In the film, each member of the Hollywood Ten made a short speech denouncing McCarthyism and the Hollywood Blacklisting.The film was directed by John Berry...
, documentary - Trumbo, a 2007 documentary by Peter Askin based on Christopher Trumbo's stage play
- Dalton Trumbo, biography by Bruce Cook
- Dalton Trumbo: Hollywood Rebel, biography by Peter Hanson
Further reading
- Hanson, Peter, Dalton Trumbo, Hollywood Rebel: A Critical Survey and Filmography, McFarland (October 1, 2007) ISBN 0-7864-3246-2
- "Hollywood On Trial, a timely reminder",http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/holl-d10.shtml (Charles Bogle)