View source for Budd Schulberg

{{Short description|American writer (1914–2009)}}
{{Infobox writer
| name             = Budd Schulberg
| image            = Budd Schulberg - 1967.jpg
| caption          = Schulberg in 1967
| birth_name       = Seymour Wilson Schulberg
| birth_date       = {{birth date|1914|03|27}}
| birth_place      = New York City, New York, U.S.
| death_date       = {{death date and age|2009|08|05|1914|03|27}}
| death_place      = [[Westhampton Beach, New York|Westhampton Beach]], New York, U.S.<ref name="DennisMcLellan">{{cite news |last1=McLellan |first1=Dennis |title=Budd Schulberg dies at 95; author of 'What Makes Sammy Run?' |url=https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-budd-schulberg6-2009aug06-story.html |access-date=20 March 2023 |newspaper=Los Angeles Times |date=6 August 2009 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>
| spouse           = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|[[Jigee Viertel|Virginia Lee Ray]] <br>|1936|1942|end=divorced}}
* {{marriage|Agnes Victoria Anderson <br>|1943|1964|end=divorced}}
* {{marriage|[[Geraldine Brooks (actress)|Geraldine Brooks]] <br>|1964|1977|end=died}}
* {{marriage|Betsy Ann Langman <br>|1978}}
}}
| children         = 5
| parents          = [[B. P. Schulberg]]<br> [[Adeline Schulberg|Adeline Jaffe]]
| relatives        = [[Sam Jaffe (producer)|Sam Jaffe]] (uncle)
| occupation       = {{flatlist|
* Film writer
* sports writer
* novelist
}}
| period           = 1937–1982
}}

'''Budd Schulberg''' (born  '''Seymour Wilson Schulberg'''; March 27, 1914 – August 5, 2009) was an American screenwriter, television producer, novelist and sports writer. He was known for his novels ''[[What Makes Sammy Run?]]'' (1941) and ''The Harder They Fall'' (1947), as well as his screenplays for ''[[On the Waterfront]]'' (1954) and ''[[A Face in the Crowd (film)|A Face in the Crowd]]'' (1957), receiving an [[Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay|Academy Award]] for the former.

==Early life and education==
Schulberg was raised in a Jewish family<ref name=Wilshire>{{cite news| url=http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hollywood-jewish-wilshire-boulevard-temple-renovation-150-million-330471| title=Hollywood’s Hottest $150 Million Project Is an 83-Year-Old Synagogue| magazine=[[The Hollywood Reporter]]| first=Gary| last=Baum| date=May 30, 2012| access-date=September 19, 2024}}</ref> the son of Hollywood film-producer [[B. P. Schulberg]] and [[Adeline Schulberg|Adeline (née Jaffe) Schulberg]], who founded a talent agency taken over by her brother, agent/film producer [[Sam Jaffe (producer)|Sam Jaffe]].<ref name=JewishWomensArchAdeline>[http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/schulberg-adeline-jaffe Jewish Women's Archives: "Adeline Schulberg 1895 – 1977"]. Accessed September 24, 2015.</ref> In 1931, when Schulberg was 17, his father left the family to live with actress [[Sylvia Sidney]].<ref name=PeopleExiled>{{cite news| url=http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20116279,00.html| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090604053218/http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20116279,00.html| url-status=dead| archive-date=June 4, 2009| magazine=[[People (magazine)|People]]| title=Budd Schulberg -Exiled Long Ago for the Secrets He Did Not Keep, the Author of What Makes Sammy Run? Looks Back on Hollywood Past and Present| first=Ken| last=Gross| date=December 18, 1989}}</ref> His parents divorced in 1933.<ref name=JewishWomensArchAdeline />

Schulberg attended [[Deerfield Academy]] and then went on to Dartmouth College, where he was actively involved in the ''[[Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern]]'' humor magazine and was a member of the [[Pi Lambda Phi]] fraternity.<ref name="2010directory">Membership Directory, 2010, Pi Lambda Phi Inc</ref> In 1939, he collaborated on the screenplay for ''[[Winter Carnival (film)|Winter Carnival]]'', a light comedy set at Dartmouth. One of his collaborators was [[F. Scott Fitzgerald]], who was fired because of his alcoholic binge during a visit with Schulberg to Dartmouth.<ref>{{cite news |last=Tanz |first=Jason |date=7 Feb 2003 |title=Lost Weekend: F. Scott and Budd Go to Dartmouth |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/07/travel/journeys-lost-weekend-f-scott-and-budd-go-to-dartmouth.html |work=[[The New York Times]] }}</ref> [[Dartmouth College]] awarded Schulberg an honorary degree in 1960.

==World War II==
While serving in the Navy during World War II, Schulberg was assigned to the [[Office of Strategic Services]] (OSS), working with [[John Ford]]'s documentary unit, the [[Field Photographic Branch]]. Following [[VE Day]], he witnessed the liberation of [[Nazi concentration camps]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Cullum |first=Paul |date=5 July 2006 |title=A Face in the In Crowd |url=https://www.laweekly.com/a-face-in-the-in-crowd/ |work=LA Weekly }}</ref> He was involved in gathering evidence against [[war criminals]] for the [[Nuremberg Trials]], an assignment that included arresting propaganda film maker [[Leni Riefenstahl]] at her chalet in Kitzbühel, Austria, ostensibly to have her identify the faces of Nazi war criminals in German film footage captured by the Allied troops.<ref>{{cite news |last=Kennicott |first=Philip |date=29 Nov 2005 |title=Art of Justice: The Filmmakers at Nuremberg |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/28/AR2005112802026.html |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]}}</ref> Riefenstahl claimed she was not aware of the nature of the concentration camps. According to Schulberg, "She gave me the usual song and dance. She said: 'Of course, you know, I'm really so misunderstood. I'm not political.'"

[[Georgy Avenarius]], a film critic before the war and the Soviet major in charge of [[UFA GmbH]] [[Babelsberg Studio]] in [[Soviet Berlin]], allowed the Field Photo team access to the Nazi newsreels and propaganda films in his custody upon learning that his admired Ford was the branch head.<ref name="Canby">{{cite news |last1=Canby |first1=Peter |title=The Discovery of a Forgotten and Banned Nuremberg Film |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-discovery-of-a-little-known-history-of-the-nuremberg-trials |access-date=24 June 2024 |work=The New Yorker |date=24 May 2023 |language=en-US}}</ref>

Budd, his brother Stuart Schulberg and the team at Field Photo presented two films during the trial: ''[[Nazi Concentration Camps (film)|Nazi Concentration Camps]]'', from Allied films shot during the liberation of the camps, and ''[[The Nazi Plan]]'', from German sources.<ref name="Canby" />

==Career==
Being the son of a successful Hollywood producer gave Schulberg an insider's viewpoint on the true happenings of Hollywood, which was reflected in much of his writing.

His 1941 novel ''[[What Makes Sammy Run?]]'' allowed the public to see the harshness of Hollywood stardom via Sammy Glick's rise to power in a major Hollywood film studio. This novel was criticized by some as being self-directed anti-semitism.<ref>"Budd Schulberg:  The Screen Playwright as the Author," in The Cineaste Interviews, ed. Dan Georgakas and Lenny Rubenstein (Chicago:  Lake View Press, 1983)</ref> Then a member of the [[Communist Party USA]], Schulberg quit in protest after he was ordered by high-ranking Party member [[John Howard Lawson]] to make changes to the novel.<ref>{{cite book| first=Kenneth Lloyd| last=Billingsly| title=Hollywood Party: How Communism Seduced the American Film Industry in the 1930s and 1940s| year=1998| publisher=Forum| isbn=978-0-7615-1376-6}}</ref> Schulburg has said that the Sammy Glick character was a "composite" based partly on producer Jerry Wald and Milton Sperling, who was Harry Warner's son-in-law.<ref>{{Cite web |title=American Legends Interviews..... Budd Schulberg -What Makes Sammy Run? |url=https://www.americanlegends.com/Interviews/what_makes_sammy_run.html |access-date=2024-12-29 |website=www.americanlegends.com}}</ref>

[[File:Budd Schulberg ca 1954.jpg|thumb|left|Schulberg in 1954]]
In 1950, Schulberg published ''The Disenchanted,'' about a young screenwriter who collaborates on a screenplay about a college winter festival with a famous novelist at the nadir of his career. The novelist (who was then assumed by reviewers to be a thinly disguised portrait of [[F. Scott Fitzgerald|Fitzgerald]], who had died 10 years earlier) is portrayed as a tragic, flawed figure, with whom the young screenwriter becomes disillusioned. The novel was the tenth bestselling novel in the United States in 1950<ref>[[Publishers Weekly list of bestselling novels in the United States in the 1950s]]</ref> and was adapted as a Broadway play in 1958, starring [[Jason Robards]] (who won a [[Tony Award]] for his performance) and [[George Grizzard]] as the character loosely based on Schulberg. In 1958, Schulberg wrote and co-produced (with his younger brother Stuart) the film ''[[Wind Across the Everglades]],'' directed by [[Nicholas Ray]].

Schulberg wrote the 1957 film ''[[A Face in the Crowd (film)|A Face in the Crowd]].'' Based on the short story "Your Arkansas Traveler" in his book ''Some Faces in the Crowd,'' the film starred newcomer [[Andy Griffith]] as an obscure country singer who rises to fame and becomes extraordinarily manipulative to preserve his success and power.

Schulberg encountered political controversy in 1951 when screenwriter [[Richard Collins (screenwriter)|Richard Collins]], testifying to the [[House Un-American Activities Committee]] (HUAC), named Schulberg as a former member of the Communist Party.<ref>{{cite news |last=Joyce |first=Gare |date=June 2004 |title=Unrepentant |url=http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2009.07-film-unrepentant/ |magazine=[[The Walrus]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100114124902/http://walrusmagazine.com/articles/2009.07-film-unrepentant/ |archive-date=2010-01-14 }}</ref> Schulberg, still resentful of the influence Communist officials tried to exert over his fiction, testified as a friendly witness and explained how Communist Party members had sought to influence the content of ''What Makes Sammy Run?'' and "named names" of other Hollywood communists.<ref>{{cite news |last=Trussell |first=C. P. |date=May 24, 1951 |title=Schulberg Tells of Red Dictation: Move To Control His Writing Cause Him to Leave Party |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1951/05/24/archives/schulberg-tells-of-red-dictation-move-to-control-his-writing-caused.html?searchResultPosition=1 |newspaper=The New York Times |quote=[Schulberg] testified voluntarily before [HUAC] today that he became a Communist during the late Nineteen Thirties but quit the party when it tried to dictate what he should write...He named [[John Howard Lawson]], one of the [[Hollywood Ten]], as trying to pressure him to write under party guidance, and 'named names' of [[Waldo Salt]], [[Ring Lardner Jr.]], [[Lester Cole]], [[John Bright (screenwriter)|John Bright]], [[Paul Jarrico]], [[Gordon Kahn]], writers; [[Herbert Biberman]], director; and [[Meta Rosenberg|Meta Reis Rosenberg]], agent. |access-date=September 19, 2024 |url-access=subscription}}</ref>

Schulberg was also a sports writer and former chief boxing correspondent for ''[[Sports Illustrated]].'' He wrote some well-received books on boxing, including ''[[Sparring with Hemingway]].''<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/1995/08/13/budd-schulberg-a-knockout-collection/ |title=Budd Schulberg: A Knockout Collection|newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]] |date=13 August 1995 |access-date=8 September 2016}}</ref><ref name = "NY Times">{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/09/books/in-short-nonfiction-350995.html |title=IN SHORT:NONFICTION |newspaper=The New York Times |date=9 July 1995 |access-date=8 September 2016}}</ref> He was inducted into the [[International Boxing Hall of Fame]] in 2002 in recognition of his contributions to the sport. {{Citation needed|date=August 2009}}

In 1965, after a devastating [[Watts riots|riot]] had ripped apart the fabric of the [[Watts, Los Angeles, California|Watts]] section of Los Angeles, Schulberg formed the [[Watts Writers Workshop]] in an attempt to ease frustrations and bring artistic training to the economically impoverished district.{{Citation needed|date=August 2009}}

In 1981, Schulberg wrote ''Moving Pictures: Memories of a Hollywood Prince'', an autobiography covering his youth in Hollywood growing up in the 1920s and 1930s among the famous motion picture actors and producers as the son of [[B. P. Schulberg]], head of [[Paramount Studios]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Stern |first1=Alan |title=Hollywood, babble on |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_boston-phoenix_1981-09-08_10_36/page/n82/mode/1up |access-date=17 April 2024 |work=The Boston Phoenix |date=8 September 1981}}</ref>

==Personal life and death==
[[File:Budd Schulberg 2007 New York City.jpg|thumb|Schulberg at the 2007 [[Tribeca Film Festival]]]]
Schulberg was married four times. In 1936, he married his first wife, actress [[Jigee Viertel|Virginia "Jigee" Lee Ray]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Beck |first=Nicholas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7ARVN1XfbisC&q=virginia&pg=PA149 |title= Budd Schulberg: A Bio-bibliography |isbn=9780810840355 | publisher= Scarecrow Press | date=October 2001 |quote=All of the Jewish communists were attracted to her, because she was a gorgeous gentile princess accessible to Jewish communists because she was a communist.}}</ref> They had one daughter, Victoria, before divorcing in 1942.<ref name=NYTObit>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/movies/06schulberg.html |title=Budd Schulberg, 'On the Waterfront' Writer, Dies at 95 |first=Tim |last=Weineraug |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |date=August 5, 2009 |access-date=January 28, 2018}}</ref> In 1943, he married Victoria "Vickee" Anderson. They divorced in 1964.<ref>Beck p. 64.</ref> They had two children: Stephen (born 1944) and David (born 1946).<ref>Beck p. 37.</ref> David was a Vietnam veteran{{citation needed|date=September 2015}} who predeceased his father.<ref name=NYTObit /> In 1964, he married actress [[Geraldine Brooks (actress)|Geraldine Brooks]]. They were married until her death in 1977;<ref name=PeopleExiled /> they had no children.<ref>Beck p. 62.</ref> In 1977, he married Betsy Anne Langman, daughter of [[Anne W. Simon]], stepdaughter of real estate developer [[Robert E. Simon]], granddaughter of investment banker [[Maurice Wertheim]] and great-granddaughter of US ambassador [[Henry Morgenthau Sr.]]; they had two children: Benn and Jessica.<ref name=PeopleExiled /><ref>{{Cite web|title=Anne R. Wertheim Becomes A Bride; Daughter of Banker Married in Cos Cob Home to. Dr. Louis Langman of New York |newspaper=The New York Times |date=February 1, 1937 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1937/02/01/archives/anne-rwertheim-becomes-a-bride-daughter-of-banker-married-in-cos.html  }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title= Mrs. Wertheim to Marry Paul L. Weiner Today  |agency=[[Jewish Telegraph Agency]] |date=January 24, 1934 |url=https://www.jta.org/1934/01/24/archive/mrs-wertheim-to-marry-paul-l-weiner-today }}</ref>

His niece Sandra Schulberg<ref>{{IMDb name|0775980|Sandra Schulberg}}</ref> was an executive producer of the [[Academy Awards|Academy Award]]-nominated film ''[[Quills (film)|Quills]]''. His mother, of the [[Ad Schulberg]] Agency, served as his agent until her death in 1977. His brother, Stuart Schulberg, was a movie and television producer (''[[David Brinkley]]'s Journal'', ''[[The Today Show]]'').  His sister, Sonya Schulberg (O'Sullivan) (1918–2016), was an occasional writer (of a novel, ''They Cried a Little'', and stories).

Budd Schulberg died on August 5, 2009, in his home in Westhampton Beach, New York, aged 95.<ref name="DennisMcLellan" />

==Bibliography==
{{Incomplete list|date=January 2023}}{{bots|deny=Citation bot}}

* ''[[What Makes Sammy Run?]]'' (1941)
* ''The Harder They Fall'' (1947)
* ''The Disenchanted'' (1950)
* ''Some Faces in the Crowd'' (1952)
* {{cite book |author=Schulberg, Budd |editor=Birmingham, Frederic A. |title=The girls from Esquire |location=London |publisher=Arthur Barker |date=1953 |pages=114–120 |chapter=The breaking point}}<!-- Move into a table for short stories when more are added.-->
* ''On the Waterfront'' (1954)
* ''Moving Pictures: Memories of a Hollywood Prince'' (1981)
* ''[[Sparring with Hemingway]]'' (1995)

==Select film and TV credits==
*''[[A Star Is Born (1937 film)|A Star Is Born]]'' (1937) - uncredited writer
*''[[Nothing Sacred (film)|Nothing Sacred]]'' (1937) - uncredited writer
*''[[Cinco fueron escogidos]]'' (1943), about war in Yugoslavia
*''[[On the Waterfront]]'' (1954) - story, script
*''[[The Harder They Fall (1956 film)|The Harder They Fall]]'' (1956) - based on his novel
*''[[A Face in the Crowd (film)|A Face in the Crowd]]'' (1957) - story, script
*''[[Wind Across the Everglades]]'' (1958) - script, producer, uncredited director

==See also==
{{Portal|Biography}}
* ''[[The Nazi Plan]]''

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
*Beck, Nicholas. ''Budd Schulberg: A Bio-Bibliography'' Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2001.

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
*[http://ead.dartmouth.edu/html/ms978.html The Papers of Budd Schulberg in Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College]
*{{IMDb name|775977}}
*{{cite news |last=Weiner |first=Tim |date=5 Aug 2009 |title=Budd Schulberg, 'On the Waterfront' Writer, Dies at 95 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/movies/06schulberg.html |work=The New York Times }}
*{{cite news |date=6 Aug 2009 |title=Obituary: Budd Schulberg |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/books-obituaries/5984614/Budd-Schulberg.html |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] }}
*{{cite journal| url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/450/the-art-of-fiction-no-169-budd-schulberg| title=Budd Schulberg, The Art of Fiction No. 169| author= Kurt Vonnegut| date=Winter 2001| journal=The Paris Review | volume=Winter 2001| issue=160}}
*[http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/arts_entertainment/performing_arts/budd+schulberg+a+contender/2945262 Channel 4 News interview with Budd Schulberg, February 2009]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060510061608/http://zakka.dk/euroscreenwriters/interviews/budd_schulberg_533.htm 1998 interview with Schulberg about ''On the Waterfront'']
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060904170355/http://www.fordham.edu/Campus_Resources/Public_Affairs/Inside_Fordham/Inside_Fordham_Archi/May_2003/News/The_Priest_Who_Made__11100.asp "The Priest Who Made Budd Schulberg Run: 'On the Waterfront' and Jesuit Social Action", ''Inside Fordham Online'', May 2003]
*[https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/nyregion/12waterfront.html "Corruption Found at Waterfront Watchdog"] ''The New York Times'', August 12, 2009.  Article mentions Schulberg and his book ''On the Waterfront'' in noting similarity to recent allegations.
*{{Find a Grave|40330266}}
*[https://www.britannica.com/biography/Budd-Schulberg Budd Schulberg] on [[Encyclopædia Britannica|Encyclopedia Britannica]] 
*''[https://isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?20075 Budd Schulberg]'', on ''[[Internet Speculative Fiction Database]]'', Al von Ruff.
*''[http://www.ibhof.com/pages/about/inductees/observer/schulberg.html Budd Schulberg]'', on ''ibhof.com'', [[International Boxing Hall of Fame]].
*[https://www.allmovie.com/artist/budd-schulberg-vn15941712 Bu''dd Schulberg''], on ''[[AllMovie]]'', All Media Network.

{{AcademyAwardBestOriginalScreenplay 1940-1960}}
{{Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schulberg, Budd}}
[[Category:1914 births]]
[[Category:2009 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American Jews]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century American screenwriters]]
[[Category:21st-century American Jews]]
[[Category:American male novelists]]
[[Category:American male screenwriters]]
[[Category:Best Original Screenplay Academy Award winners]]
[[Category:Dartmouth College alumni]]
[[Category:Deerfield Academy alumni]]
[[Category:Esquire (magazine) people]]
[[Category:Jaffe family]]
[[Category:Jewish American novelists]]
[[Category:Jewish American screenwriters]]
[[Category:American television producers]]
[[Category:Morgenthau family]]
[[Category:Novelists from New York (state)]]
[[Category:People from Long Island]]
[[Category:People of the Office of Strategic Services]]
[[Category:Screenwriters from New York (state)]]
[[Category:Television producers from New York City]]
[[Category:United States Navy personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:Writers from New York City]]
[[Category:Members of the Communist Party USA]]