Trumbo, Dalton, 1905-1976

James Dalton Trumbo was born Dec. 9, 1905, in Montrose, CO; attended Univ. of Colorado, UCLA, and USC; worked as a newpaper reporter and editor; started screenwriting in 1935; became one of the Hollywood Ten and was blacklisted by the motion picture industry (1947); served a 10-month jail sentence for contempt of Congress when he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) for his alleged membership in the Communist Party; while serving his sentence at the Federal Penitentiary in Ashland, KY, he used a pseudonym and smuggled out a script for sale underground; after his release he moved to Mexico and continued writing scripts under various pseudonyms; his story, The brave one (1956), won an Academy Award under the pseudonym, Robert Rich; Trumbo was one of the first blacklisted writers to emerge from the underground when he received screen credit for his work on the 1960 releases of Spartacus and Exodus; in the early 1970s, he directed a screen adaption of his novel, Johnny got his gun (1956), which won an award at the Cannes Film Festival; a collection of his letters from 1942-62 was published as, Additional dialogue (1970); underwent surgery for lung cancer and died of a heart attack three years later in 1976.

Biography

James Dalton Trumbo was born December 9, 1905, in Montrose, Colorado; attended University of Colorado, UCLA, and USC; worked as a newpaper reporter and editor; started screenwriting in 1935; became one of the Hollywood Ten and was blacklisted by the motion picture industry (1947); served a 10-month jail sentence for contempt of Congress when he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) for his alleged membership in the Communist Party; while serving his sentence at the Federal Penitentiary in Ashland, Kentucky, he used a pseudonym and smuggled out a script for sale underground; after his release he moved to Mexico and continued writing scripts under various pseudonyms; his story, The brave one (1956), won an Academy Award under the pseudonym, Robert Rich; Trumbo was one of the first blacklisted writers to emerge from the underground when he received screen credit for his work on the 1960 releases of Spartacus and Exodus ; in the early 1970s, he directed a screen adaption of his novel, Johnny got his gun (1956), which won an award at the Cannes Film Festival; a collection of his letters from 1942-62 was published as, Additional dialogue (1970); underwent surgery for lung cancer and died of a heart attack three years later in 1976.