Career Highlights: The Robe, Naked City, Broken Arrow
First Major Screen Credit: Afraid to Talk (1932)
Biography
Distinguished author, short story writer, playwright, and screenwriter Albert Maltz was among the notorious "Hollywood Ten," those artists who were first blackballed by the House Un-American Activities Committee for refusing to testify about communist affiliations. Following education at Columbia University and the Yale School of Drama, Maltz worked as a playwright for the left-leaning Theater Union. During the early '30s, many of his plays were produced in New York. He also published his novels and stories. He moved to Hollywood to write screenplays in 1941 and primarily worked alone and in collaboration for Warner Bros. and Paramount. During WWII, he penned patriotic scripts for such films as Destination Tokyo (1944). In 1942, he wrote the script for the Oscar-winning documentary Moscow Strikes Back. Another documentary he wrote, The House I Live In, won a special Academy Award in 1945. After refusing to cooperate with Congress in 1947, Maltz was sentenced to nearly a year in jail and was blacklisted. Though he continued to anonymously contribute to scripts, Maltz received no credit until his final film, Two Mules for Sister Sara. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Albert Maltz (October 28, 1908 – April 26, 1985) was an American author and screenwriter who was one of the Hollywood Ten who were blacklisted by the Hollywoodmovie studio bosses during the era of McCarthyism. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Albert Maltz was educated at Columbia University and the Yale School of Drama. Maltz worked as a playwright for the Theatre Union during the early 1930s and wrote his first of eighteen screenplays for Hollywood in 1932. At the Theater Union he met Margaret Larkin, whom he married in 1937. He won the 1938 O. Henry Award for "The Happiest Man on Earth," a short story published in Harper's Magazine. In 1944 he published the novel The Cross and the Arrow.