Edward Anhalt was a noted screenwriter, producer, and documentary film-maker. After working as a journalist and documentary filmmaker for Pathé

Pathé

Pathé or Pathé Frères is the name of various French businesses founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France.-History:...

 and CBS-TV he teamed with his wife Edna Anhalt

Edna Anhalt

Together with then husband Edward Anhalt, screenwriter Edna Anhalt enjoyed some considerable success in a ten year stretch from 1947 to her retirement in 1957. This stretch was capped with an Oscar win for Elia Kazan's 1950 film Panic in the Streets, and another nomination two years later for The...

, née Richards, during 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...

 to write pulp fiction. (Edna was one of his five wives.)

During World War II, Anhalt served with the Army Air Force First Motion Picture Unit

First Motion Picture Unit

The First Motion Picture Unit was the first unit of the United States Military to be made up entirely of motion picture personnel. It was also the title of a 1943 documentary about the unit.-Organization:...

 in Culver City, California

Culver City, California

Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883, up from 38,816 at the 2000 census. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also shares a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Culver...

 as a scenarist for training films.

After the war, the Anhalts graduated to writing screenplays for thrillers, initially using the joint pseudonym Andrew Holt. Put under contract by Columbia

Columbia Pictures

Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...

, the Anhalts scripted Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back

Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back

Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back is a 1934 American comedy-mystery-adventure film directed by Roy Del Ruth. The film stars Ronald Colman and Loretta Young.-Plot:...

(1947). After a stint at Twentieth Century Fox during which they earned an Oscar

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...

 for the screen story to the urban thriller Panic in the Streets (1950), the husband and wife team returned to Columbia as writer-producers, scoring another Academy Award nomination for their story to the gritty thriller The Sniper

The Sniper (1952 film)

The Sniper is a black-and-white film noir, directed by Edward Dmytryk, written by Harry Brown, and based on a story by Edna Anhalt and Edward Anhalt. The film features Adolphe Menjou, Arthur Franz, Gerald Mohr, Marie Windsor, among others....

in 1952..

Perhaps their most notable effort was the 1952 screen version of Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers

Carson McCullers was an American writer. She wrote novels, short stories, and two plays, as well as essays and some poetry. Her first novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter explores the spiritual isolation of misfits and outcasts of the South...

' The Member of the Wedding which preserved the stage performances of Julie Harris

Julie Harris

Julia Ann "Julie" Harris is an American stage, screen, and television actress. She has won five Tony Awards, three Emmy Awards and a Grammy Award, and was nominated for an Academy Award. In 1994, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. She is a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame...

, Brandon De Wilde

Brandon De Wilde

Andre Brandon deWilde was an American theatre and film actor. He was born into a theatrical family in Brooklyn. Debuting on Broadway at the age of 7, De Wilde became a national phenomenon by the time he completed his 492 performances for The Member of the Wedding and was considered a child...

 and Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters was an American blues, jazz and gospel vocalist and actress. She frequently performed jazz, big band, and pop music, on the Broadway stage and in concerts, although she began her career in the 1920s singing blues.Her best-known recordings includes, "Dinah", "Birmingham Bertha",...

.

After the couple divorced, Anhalt proved a versatile, consistently effective (and reputedly speedy) scenarist. He penned the superb adaptation of Irwin Shaw

Irwin Shaw

Irwin Shaw was a prolific American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best-known for his novel, The Young Lions about the fate of three soldiers during World War II that was made into a film starring Marlon...

's World War II novel The Young Lions

The Young Lions

The Young Lions is a 1958 war drama film directed by Edward Dmytryk, based upon the 1949 novel of the same name by Irwin Shaw, and starring Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Dean Martin.-Outline:...

(1958) and the slick Wives and Lovers

Wives and Lovers

Wives and Lovers is a song by Burt Bacharach and Hal David. It has been recorded by numerous male and female vocalists, instrumentalists and ensembles. Jack Jones released a recording in 1963, earning the 1964 Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance, Male, and Bacharach included it on the 1965 LP...

(1963).

The screenwriter earned a second Academy Award for his excellent adaptation of Jean Anouilh

Jean Anouilh

Jean Marie Lucien Pierre Anouilh was a French dramatist whose career spanned five decades. Though his work ranged from high drama to absurdist farce, Anouilh is best known for his 1943 play Antigone, an adaptation of Sophocles' Classical drama, that was seen as an attack on Marshal Pétain's...

's play Becket (1964).

Subsequent solo outings included The Boston Strangler (1968), The Madwoman of Chaillot

The Madwoman of Chaillot (film)

The Madwoman of Chaillot is a 1969 American satirical comedy-drama film made by Commonwealth United Entertainment and distributed by Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. It was directed by Bryan Forbes and produced by Ely A. Landau with Anthony B. Unger as associate producer...

(1969) and two for Ely A. Landau's American Film Theater, Luther

Luther (1973 film)

Luther is the 1973 film of John Osborne's biographical play, presenting the life of Martin Luther. It was one of eight in the first season of the American Film Theater's series of plays made into films. It was produced by Ely Landau, directed by British director Guy Green, and filmed at Shepperton...

(1973) and The Man in the Glass Booth

The Man in the Glass Booth

The Man in the Glass Booth is a 1975 American drama film directed by Arthur Hiller. The screenplay was adapted from Robert Shaw's 1967 novel and 1968 stage play, both of the same name. The plot was inspired by images of the trial of Adolf Eichmann....

(1975). He scored some solid box office successes with The Satan Bug

The Satan Bug

The Satan Bug is a science fiction film directed by John Sturges that stars George Maharis and Anne Francis. It was loosely adapted from Alistair MacLean's 1962 novel of the same name...

(1965) and Jeremiah Johnson (1972). In the early 1970s, Anhalt returned to the small screen, earning a well-deserved Emmy nomination for the acclaimed ABC

American Broadcasting Company

The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...

 miniseries

Miniseries

A miniseries , in a serial storytelling medium, is a television show production which tells a story in a limited number of episodes. The exact number is open to interpretation; however, they are usually limited to fewer than a whole season. The term "miniseries" is generally a North American term...

 QB VII

QB VII

QB VII by Leon Uris was a best seller published in 1970. This four-part novel highlights the events leading to a life-shattering libel trial in the United Kingdom.-Plot summary:...

(1974). Three years later, he scripted the Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra

Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...

 vehicle Contract on Cherry Street

Contract on Cherry Street

Contract on Cherry Street, a novel by Phillip Rosenberg about a New York police detective who turns vigilante against the mob when one of his partners is gunned down, was adapted for television in 1977 by Frank Sinatra's production company Artanis. Directed by William A...

(NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

) and contributed to the small screen remake of Madame X

Madame X (1981 film)

-Plot:A woman is thrown out of her home by her jealous husband and sinks into depravity. Twenty years later, she finds herself accused of murder for saving her son, who does not know who she is. He finds himself defending her without knowing her background.-Cast:...

(NBC, 1981) and the biblically inspired The Day Christ Died (CBS, 1982). Anhalt was also the guiding force behind the lavish 1985 NBC miniseries Peter the Great.

His feature film output towards the end of his life was much more erratic, with films like Escape to Athena

Escape to Athena

Escape to Athena is a British adventure war film released in 1979, directed by George Pan Cosmatos and produced by Lew Grade's ITC Entertainment. The international cast included many well-known actors of the 1970s, including Roger Moore, Telly Savalas and Elliott Gould.The film is set during the...

(1979), Green Ice (1981) and The Holcroft Covenant

The Holcroft Covenant (film)

The Holcroft Covenant is a 1985 film based on the Robert Ludlum novel The Holcroft Covenant. The film starred Michael Caine and was directed by John Frankenheimer...

(1985) being lambasted by critics and failing to find an audience.