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:
“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)
“Y’see it’s sort of a game with me. Its whole object is to prove that two plus two equals four. That seems to make sense, but you’d be surprised at the number of people who try to stretch it to five.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)
“We’ve got to figure these things a little bit different than most people. Y’know, there’s something about going out in a plane that beats any other way.... A guy that washes out at the controls of his own ship, well, he goes down doing the thing that he loved the best. It seems to me that that’s a very special way to die.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)
“Bankers, nepotists, contracts and talkies: on four fingers one may count the leeches which have sucked a young and vigorous industry into paresis.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)
“Now listen, buddy, there are a few corny ideas you got to get out of your head if you’re going to fly an airplane. Most things are just the reverse from what people think. The higher you are the safer you are. The Earth down there, that, that’s your enemy because once you hit that, boy, you splatter.”
—Dalton Trumbo (1905–1976)