Budd Schulberg

Budd Schulberg

Budd Schulberg, b. March 27, 1914, is a screenwriter and novelist. He is best known for his 1941 novel What Makes Sammy Run, his 1947 novel The Harder They Fall, his 1954 Academy-award-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront, and his 1957 screenplay A Face in the Crowd. He encountered political controversy in 1947 because of his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee, in which he appeared as a friendly witness, "named names" of fifteen alleged Communists, and testified that Party members had sought to influence the content of What Makes Sammy Run.

Schulberg attended Dartmouth College. 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 at the time attempting to pursue a Hollywood career. In 1950 Schulberg published a novel, 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 is portrayed as a tragic but contemptible figure, with whom the young screenwriter becomes disillusioned.

In 1941, Schulberg published What Makes Sammy Run? It won the National Critics' Choice award as Best First Novel of the Year. Sammy Glick is an office boy, who actually runs everywhere; he his literally a young man in a hurry. He eventually becomes the head of a motion picture studio.