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1-7 of 7
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Screenwriter Lester Cole, who is known in cinema history primarily as a member of the "Hollywood Ten," a group who defied the House Committee on Un-American Activities investigation into their political beliefs who were black-listed by the industry for their defiance, was born on June 19, 1904 in New York to a Polish immigrant family. His first desire was to be an actor, and Cole dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen in 1920. He began writing and directing plays, and in the 1920s and '30s, he worked primarily as an actor on the stage. He appeared in Painted Faces (1929) and Love at First Sight (1929) but made his name as a screenwriter. His first screenplay, W.C. Fields comedy If I Had a Million (1932) was made in 1932. In 1933, the first year of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, Cole and eight other screenwriters, including future Hollywood Ten members John Howard Lawson and Samuel Ornitz, organized the Screen Writers Guild (SWG), the first and most radical of the Hollywood guilds. Cole's politics were on the hard left, and he joined the Communist Party-USA in 1934.
Cole adhered to the Hollywood Ten's common front strategy of challenging HCUA's right to interrogate them on the basis of their political beliefs. Convicted of contempt of Congress, he was fined and served one year in prison. His unfinished script about the Mexican revolutionary general Emiliano Zapata later finished by fellow traveler John Steinbeck for former CP-USA members (and HUAC song-bird) Elia Kazan, who made Viva Zapata! (1952) starring Marlon Brando from the script.
After he got out of federal prison, Cole worked a series of odd jobs. He emigrated to London in 1961, but eventually returned to the U.S., where he began collaborating on screenplays using an assumed name. One of his scripts, written under the pseudonym "Gerald L.C. Copley", was made into the popular movie Born Free (1966). He also wrote his autobiography, "Hollywood Red" (1981) and reviewed films for "The People's World" and taught screen-writing at the University of California, Berkeley.
Lester Cole died of a heart attack on August 15, 1985. He was 81 years old.- Sound Department
Don Rush was born on 25 June 1921 in Arizona, USA. He is known for Fright Night (1985), Mannix (1967) and Fireball 500 (1966). He died on 15 August 1985 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Jane Patten was born on 26 January 1903 in Oregon, USA. She was an actress, known for Bar Buckaroos (1940). She died on 15 August 1985 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Benny Bjerregaard was born on 8 September 1934 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was an actor, known for Kurt og Valde (1983), Jeppe on the Hill (1981) and Matador (1978). He died on 15 August 1985.
- Composer
- Music Department
Wolfgang Ruß-Bovelino was born on 26 September 1905 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary [now Austria]. He was a composer, known for Abenteuer in Marokko (1938), Das vierte Gebot (1950) and Ich hab' mich so an Dich gewöhnt (1952). He died on 15 August 1985 in Vienna, Austria.- Ernst Mattishent was born on 2 August 1914 in Berlin, Germany. He was an actor, known for King Thrushbeard (1954) and Die Fuchsjagd (1954). He died on 15 August 1985.
- Writer
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Andre Legrand had a fifty year career as a French screenwriter and producer.He was born of Alsatian parents who had fled that part of France in 1871 after it was annexed by Prussia during wartime and had therefore been brought up to dislike the Germans.A book he wrote in the spring of 1940, Nazi Prisons, later got him into some trouble during the German occupation of France and control of the film industry there, as it had detailed the horrors that were being inflicted on already occupied lands like Austria and Czechoslovakia and the treatment of the Jewish people.Actor Pierre Blanchar who was with the French Resistance later,saved Legrand at one point from being shot by the invaders but Legrand's book was added to a list of publications not permitted in France .