He Was a Contender: Budd Schulberg:1914-2009
The great American novelist, non-fiction writer and screenwriter, Budd Schulberg, died this past week at the grand old age of 95. Working on his memoirs and various scripts almost to the end, Schulberg will most be remembered for his famed Hollywood novel, What Makes Sammy Run? (1941) and his prize-winning screenplay for what is arguably the single greatest American film, On the Waterfront, (1954) directed by Elia Kazan, and starring Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint.
But to many in the American literary elite and in Hollywood, Schulberg would never be forgiven for his testimony before The House Committee on Un-American Activities in in 1951, before which he named seventeen people he had known in Hollywood as members of the Communist Party. Like his friend Kazan, Schulberg too would be regarded as a renegade, a stoolie, and a traitor—a man who deserved no plaudits and no accolades.
I will be writing a full evaluation of Schulberg for a future edition of The Weekly Standard, and will save further comments for that venue. At this time, I prefer to keep it short and simple. Budd was not only a great writer, but a man with a deep social conscience, a devotee of liberty, who stood his ground against all he considered tyrants. He despised McCarthy (and was furious at Ann Coulter when she heralded him a few years ago) and even more, he hated the Communists and fellow-travelers who thought the Soviet Union was a force for peace and justice.
In Budd’s eyes, American Communists were a dangerous group from the 30’s through the late 40’s, when they had influence and power in America’s cultural community. He knew from personal experience how they used their clout to interfere with the freedom of people like himself to write as he pleased, and he never understood how those who thought democratic America was a fascist state, at the same time said nothing about Stalin’s murder of scores of Russian writers, actors and directors whom he had come to know personally.
Helping expose the Communists for the threat he knew them to be was to him an act of honor, and nothing to be ashamed of. His bravery and courage in bucking Hollywood’s strong left-wing community will be remembered for decades to come.
Impossible to overestimate the impact of On The Waterfront on me and on many many of my generation. That you mention Shulberg’s conscience is significant in that conscience, the muddled, slow awakening of it and to its demands in the Brando character, Terry Molloy, is the true heart of Waterfront. Shulberg wrote a film for the ages.
“He despised McCarthy (and was furious at Ann Coulter when she heralded him a few years ago)”
Budd Schulberg is no more than half right about Joe McCarthy. Although Ann Coulter deserves to be criticized for turning him into some sort of saint—-he still did far more good than harm. Senator McCarthy occasionally got carried away and sometimes harmed innocent people. That can’t be denied. And yet, it must be conceded that he virtually alone warned Americans concerning the high number of Communists within the U.S. government who took advantage of the naivete of both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Spies like Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, and Harry Hopkins played them for fools. The country suffered enormously because of the Democratic Party’s overall nonchalant attitude toward “Uncle Joe” Stalin and the world Communist movement. How naive, for instance, was Truman? Even some five years after he left the White House, the well intentioned and dedicated anti-Communist, was convinced that Hiss was a victim of right-wing slander.
The problem with Joe McCarthy was alcoholism.
If somebody had arranged an intervention and made him go to 90 AA meetings in 90 days—-and not drink in between them—–things would have been better for everybody but the communists. And McCarthy himself would have lived a lot longer and not suffered the kind of “wet brain” death that he did.
Back on topic: RIP Bud, you have earned it many times over.
“The problem with Joe McCarthy was alcoholism.”
I completely agree. He was also a hyperactive individual who had the bad habit of going 48 to 72 hours without any sleep. The combination of these two factors likely pushed him over the edge. McCarthy was early on a victim of a vicious slander campaign—-but at the very end he was his own worst enemy.