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<em>On the Waterfront</em> Screenwriter Budd Schulberg Dies
By
John Del Signore
Published Aug 6, 2009
Modified Aug 6, 2009
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By
John Del Signore
Published Aug 6, 2009
Modified Aug 6, 2009
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Budd Schulberg, screenwriter for On the Waterfront, died yesterday of natural causes at his home Westhampton Beach, Long Island. He was 95. Besides writing the Academy Award-winning script for On the Waterfront, Schulberg also wrote short stories, novels (including What Makes Sammy Run?) and biographies. The son of Paramount Studios production chief B. P. Schulberg, he was born in New York but grew up in Hollywood in the 1920s. He joined the Communist Party in 1934, later explaining to the Times, "It didn’t take a genius to tell you that something was vitally wrong with the country." But he bristled at party pressure to make his writing more doctrinaire and, after six years, quit. In 1951 he appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and like On the Waterfront director Elia Kazan, he publicly named other Hollywood figures as Communists, including screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. and director Herbert Biberman. Both were blacklisted and imprisoned, and many in Hollywood denounced Schulberg. But in On the Waterfront, Schulberg seemed to justify his testimony with the following lines for the character of Father Barry: "Testifying for what is right against what is wrong. What’s ratting to them is telling the truth for you."
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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