Dalton Trumbo
James Dalton Trumbo (December 9, 1905 – September 10, 1976) was an American screenwriter and novelist. As one of the Hollywood Ten, he 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 was originally given to a front writer, and one was awarded to "Robert Rich," Trumbo's pseudonym.
Blacklisting effectively ended in 1960 when it lost credibility. Trumbo was publicly given credit for two blockbuster films: Otto Preminger made public that Trumbo wrote the screenplay for the smash hit, Exodus, and Kirk Douglas publicly announced that Trumbo was the screenwriter of Spartacus. Further, President-elect John F. Kennedy crossed picket lines to see the movie.
His son Christopher Trumbo wrote a play based on his letters during the period of the blacklist, entitled Red, White and Blacklisted (2003), produced in New York in 2003. He adapted it as a film, adding material from documentary footage, Trumbo (2007).
On December 19, 2011, The Writers Guild of America announced that Trumbo will get full credit for his work on the screenplay of the 1953 romantic comedy Roman Holiday, sixty years after the fact.
Read more about Dalton Trumbo: Early Life, Career, Involvement With Communism, Later Life, Academy Awards, Personal Life, Death, Works
Famous quotes by dalton trumbo:
“One of the disadvantages of being a patrician is that occasionally you’re obliged to act like one.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)
“What does headquarters think these guys came over here for, a sewing circle? They go up playing for keeps. Cops and robbers with rocks in the snowballs. Brass knuckles and lead pipes and a roughneck conviction they can lick any man in the world.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)
“Now the truth of the matter is that there are a lot of things people don’t understand. Take the Einstein theory. Take taxes. Take love. Do you understand them? Neither do I. But they exist. They happen.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)
“Have you ever been up in your plane at night, alone, somewhere, 20,000 feet above the ocean?... Did you ever hear music up there?... It’s the music a man’s spirit sings to his heart, when the earth’s far away and there isn’t any more fear. It’s the high, fine, beautiful sound of an earth-bound creature who grew wings and flew up high and looked straight into the face of the future. And caught, just for an instant, the unbelievable vision of a free man in a free world.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)
“Privately, I believe in none of them. Neither do you. Publicly, I believe in them all.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)