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James Dalton Trumbo (December 9, 1905 – September 10, 1976) was an American screenwriter who scripted many award-winning films, including Roman Holiday (1953), Exodus, Spartacus (both 1960), and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944).
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Jun 17, 2008 · Dalton Trumbo, who wrote dozens of movies and the anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun, was accused of being tied to the Communist Party in the 1940s, refused to testify before Congress and was...
- Early Life
- Early Career
- Joining The Communist Party
- The Hollywood Ten
- Prisoner #7551
- Breaking The Blacklist
- Later Life and Legacy
- Fast Facts Bio
- Sources
James Dalton Trumbo was born in Montrose, Colorado on December 5, 1905 and grew up in the nearby town of Grand Junction. His father, Orus, was hardworking but struggled to achieve financial stability. Orus and Maud Trumbo often had difficulty supporting Dalton and his sisters. Trumbo became interested in writing early in life, working as a cub repo...
For the next few years, Trumbo hopped from studio to studio as he mastered his new craft. By the late 1940s, he was earning as much as $4.000 a week—a major improvement over the $18 a week he had earned at the Perfection Bread Company. He wrote over a dozen movies between 1936 and 1945, including Five Came Back, Kitty Foyle, Thirty Seconds Over Tok...
Trumbo had a reputation in Hollywood as an outspoken critic of social injustice. Having been a member of the working class for much of his life, he was passionate about labor rights and civil rights. Like many of his liberal-leaning Hollywood peers, he was eventually drawn towards Communism. His decision to join the Communist Party in December 1943...
Trumbo’s affiliation was well-known at the time, and he, like other Hollywood Communist Party members, was under FBI surveillance for several years. In September 1947, the family was at their remote ranch when FBI agents arrived with a subpoena to appear before the HUAC. Trumbo’s son Christopher, then seven, asked what was happening. “We are Commun...
It took three years for the case to work through the appeals process, but Trumbo’s actual punishment began as soon as he returned from the hearings. He and his peers were blacklisted from working for any of the major studios and shunned by many in the Hollywood community. It was a hard time for the family both financially and emotionally, as Cleo T...
Trumbo moved the family to Mexico City after his release, hoping to get away from the notoriety and to stretch their reduced income a little further. They returned in 1954. Mitzi Trumbolater described the harassment of her new elementary school classmates when they found out who she was. Throughout the period, Trumbo continued to write for the scre...
The blacklist continued to weaken throughout the 1950s. In 1960, director Otto Preminger insisted Trumbo receive a credit for writing the script for the Biblical blockbuster Exodus, and actor Kirk Douglas publicly announced Trumbo had written the script for the historical epic Spartacus. Trumbo adapted the script from a novel by Howard Fast, himsel...
Full Name: James Dalton TrumboOccupation:Screenwriter, novelist, political activistBorn:December 9, 1905 in Montrose, ColoradoDied: September 10, 1976 in Los Angeles, CaliforniaCeplair, Larry.. Dalton Trumbo: Blacklisted Hollywood Radical. University Press of Kentucky, 2017.Cook, Bruce. Trumbo. Grand Central Publishing, 2015.Jun 17, 2024 · He was a mainstream Hollywood screenwriter who was accused of spreading subversive ideas through his films, and imprisoned – yet Dalton Trumbo fought back, going on to win two Oscars.
Apr 2, 2014 · Dalton Trumbo was an award-winning author and screenwriter who was blacklisted from the film industry from 1947 until the early 1960s due to his Communist ties.
Nov 6, 2015 · In jail and out, in Hollywood and during a self-imposed exile in Mexico, Dalton Trumbo wrote some 30 movies under assorted pseudonyms. He refuses to say what they were, but during the 1957...
He was blacklisted and in 1950 spent 11 months in prison. Trumbo got his start in movies in 1937; by the 1940s he was one of Hollywood’s highest paid writers for work on such films as Kitty Foyle (1940), Thirty Seconds over Tokyo (1944), and Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945). After his blacklisting, he wrote 30 scripts under pseudonyms.