Robert Lees - Life and Career

Life and Career

Born in San Francisco, California, Lees graduated from Lowell High School in 1929. He started in show business as a dancer before becoming a writer for MGM Studios, where he was paired with writer Frederic Rinaldo. Their first screenplay was for the 1936 short film, The Perfect Set-Up. The short film was the first in the "Crime Does Not Pay" series. The series, which was produced by MGM in the 1930s and 1940s, were based on real life crime cases. Lees and Rinaldo continued to work on comedy shorts including, A Night At The Movies, starring Robert Benchley and Penny Wisdom. The duo also worked on the 1937 films, Decathlon Champions and Candid Cameramaniacs from the Pete Smith Specialty series. In 1939, Lees and Rinaldo were nominated for an Academy Award for the 1939 biographical short film, Prophet Without Honor.

After completing the comedy short An Hour For Lunch, in 1939, Lees and Rinaldo moved on to feature length films with the 1940 drama, Street Of Memories. The pair worked on the sci-fi/horror films, The Invisible Woman and The Black Cat. In 1941, they wrote their first comedy for Abbott and Costello entitled, Hold That Ghost. In the following years, Lees and Rinaldo would go on to write five more movies for the comedy duo, namely, Hit the Ice, Buck Privates Come Home, The Wistful Widow Of Wagon Gap, Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein, and Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man. In 1952, they wrote Jumping Jacks for another comic duo, Martin and Lewis.

In the early 1950s, Lees' career was virtually destroyed when he was put on the Hollywood blacklist by movie studio bosses during the McCarthy Era for alleged Communist activities. As a result of his blacklisting, he had associates submit manuscripts to the studios under the pseudonym "J. E. Selby." Lees also wrote pseudonymously for the British television series, The Adventures of Robin Hood during the blacklist.