Budd Schulberg
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 (1957), receiving an Academy Award for the former.
Budd Schulberg
Seymour Wilson Schulberg
March 27, 1914
New York City, New York, U.S.
August 5, 2009 (aged 95)
Westhampton Beach, New York, U.S.[1]
- Film writer
- sports writer
- novelist
1937–1982
5
Sam Jaffe (uncle)
Early life and education[edit]
Schulberg was raised in a Jewish family[2] the son of Hollywood film-producer B. P. Schulberg and Adeline (née Jaffe) Schulberg, who founded a talent agency taken over by her brother, agent/film producer Sam Jaffe.[3] In 1931, when Schulberg was 17, his father left the family to live with actress Sylvia Sidney.[4] His parents divorced in 1933.[3]
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.[5] In 1939, he collaborated on the screenplay for 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.[6] Dartmouth College awarded Schulberg an honorary degree in 1960.
World War II[edit]
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 reportedly witnessed the liberation of Nazi concentration camps.[7] 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.[8] 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.[9]
Budd, his brother Stuart Schulberg and the team at Field Photo presented two films during the trial: Nazi Concentration Camps, from Allied films shot during the liberation of the camps, and The Nazi Plan, from German sources.[9]