Samuel Ornitz
Template:Short description Template:DMCA Template:DMCA
Page Module:Infobox/styles.css has no content.
Samuel Ornitz | |
|---|---|
| Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:InfoboxImage/data' not found. Ornitz in 1947 | |
| Born | Samuel Badisch Ornitz[1] Script error: No such module "person date". New York City, U.S. |
| Died | Script error: No such module "person date". |
| OccupationTemplate:Pluralize from text | Screenwriter |
| EmployerTemplate:Pluralize from text | Template:Pluralize from text |
| OrganizationTemplate:Pluralize from text | Template:Pluralize from text |
| AgentTemplate:Pluralize from text | Template:Pluralize from text |
| Notable creditTemplate:Pluralize from text | Template:Pluralize from text |
| LabelTemplate:Pluralize from text | Template:Pluralize from text |
| OpponentTemplate:Pluralize from text | Template:Pluralize from text |
Criminal chargeTemplate:Pluralize from text | Template:Pluralize from text |
| SpouseTemplate:Pluralize from text | Sadie LesserTemplate:Pluralize from text |
| PartnerTemplate:Pluralize from text | Template:Pluralize from text |
| Children | Arthur J. Ornitz Don Ornitz |
| Template:Pluralize from text | |
Script error: No such module "Check for conflicting parameters".Script error: No such module "Check for deprecated parameters".
Samuel Badisch Ornitz (November 15, 1890 – March 10, 1957) was an American screenwriter and novelist from New York City; he was one of the "Hollywood Ten"[2] who were blacklisted from the 1950s on by movie studio bosses after his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee when he was held in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify about his alleged membership in the Communist Party. In his later years, he wrote novels, including Bride of the Sabbath (1951), which became a bestseller.
Early life and education
Born to a Jewish family[3] in 1890 in New York City, New York, the son of immigrants from Eastern Europe. Ornitz attended public schools and Hebrew School. His father became a successful dry goods merchant who wanted his sons to go into business with him. From an early age, Ornitz became interested in socialism, giving street talks at the age of 12, and writing.[citation needed]
Work
Unlike his brothers, Ornitz was not interested in following their father into business. At the age of 18 he began work as a social worker for the New York Prison Association (1908–14). He next worked for the Brooklyn Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (1914–20).[4]
Writing career
Ornitz started writing plays, and had The Sock performed in 1918. His Deficit was produced by the People's Playhouse in New York City in 1919.[4]
His first literary success was his debut novel Haunch Paunch and Jowl (1923), an "anonymous autobiography" about his Jewish roots, which gained national notice. It contains an early use of stream-of-consciousness writing in American fiction, a technique originated by Irish writer James Joyce in his novel Ulysses.[citation needed]
In 1928, Ornitz moved to California to work in motion pictures, which was a booming industry as "talkies" were being introduced. The next year he worked on his first screenplay for a Hollywood film. Up until 1945, he wrote or co-wrote another twenty-nine screenplays. These included The Case of Lena Smith (1929), Chinatown Nights (1929), Hell's Highway (1932), Imitation of Life (1934), about a young mixed-race woman who passes as white; Mark of the Vampire (1935), Follow Your Heart (1936), Army Girl (1938), Little Orphan Annie (1938), They Live in Fear (1944), about Nazi Germany; and Circumstantial Evidence (1945).[4]
In 1931, Ornitz collaborated with Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos and other left-leaning writers on the report of the Dreiser Committee, an investigation of the Harlan County War, a miners' strike in Harlan County, Kentucky that was violently suppressed by private police hired by mine owners. This inspired his short play, "A New Kentucky", published in The New Masses in April 1934.[5]Template:R/superscript In 1933, he joined with Lester Cole and John Howard Lawson, both also later members of the Hollywood Ten, as founders of the Screen Writers Guild.[citation needed]
(Front row, L-R): Herbert Biberman, attorney Martin Popper, attorney Robert W. Kenny, Albert Maltz and Lester Cole.
(Second row, L-R): Dalton Trumbo, John Howard Lawson, Alvah Bessie and Samuel Ornitz.
(Top row, L-R): Ring Lardner Jr., Edward Dmytryk and Adrian Scott.
In 1947, Ornitz was blacklisted from Hollywood and later sent to prison for refusal to testify before Congress in regard to membership in the communist party. Evidence presented in the hearing showed that Ornitz had been a member of the American Communist Party since at least 1944.[6] Shortly after his release from prison, in 1951, Ornitz published Bride of the Sabbath, a novel. The novel described the Lower East Side's Jewish community as a place of charm and beauty, while also critiquing its insularity and sectarianism.[5]Template:R/superscript Reviewers praise his rich description of Jewish quarter's physical environment,[7] and report that he "wrote about the Sabbath with the veneration of an awestruck child."[5]Template:R/superscript The novel portrays the protagonists' journey from Jewish Orthodoxy to liberal Tolstoyan Christianity as a journey of growth.[8][5]Template:Rp[7]Template:R/superscript
Samuel Ornitz died of cancer in 1957[5]Template:R/superscript in Woodland Hills, California, aged 66.
The Samuel Ornitz papers, 1919—57 are at the Wisconsin Center for Theatre Research, including original manuscripts of his novels.[9]
Selected filmography
- Secrets of the French Police (1932)
- One Exciting Adventure (1934)
References
Page Template:Reflist/styles.css has no content.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Family Search". FamilySearch.org. Retrieved July 22, 2023.
- ^ Obituary Variety, March 13, 1957, page 63.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Brook, Vincent (December 15, 2016). From Shtetl to Stardom: Jews and Hollywood: Chapter 1: Still an Empire of Their Own: How Jews Remain Atop a Reinvented Hollywood. Purdue University Press. p. 17. ISBN 9781557537638.
- ^ a b c "Samuel Ornitz", Spartacus Educational, accessed 22 April 2014
- ^ a b c d e Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Dick, B.F. (1989). Radical Innocence: A Critical Study of the Hollywood Ten. University Press of Kentucky. p. 17-19. ISBN 978-0-8131-3357-7. Retrieved October 17, 2019.
- ^ Ryskind, Alan H., "Hollywood Traitors: Blacklisted Screenwriters, Agents of Stalin, Allies of Hitler", Regnery History, Washington, DC, 2015, page 426, Template:ISBN
- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Kapp, Isa (January 1952). "The Shock of Enlightenment". Commentary. pp. 94–96.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Falstein, Louis (November 3, 1951). "A Long Journey". The Saturday Review. p. 19.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Kaiser, Barbara (1967). "Resources in the Wisconsin Center for Theatre Research". The American Archivist. 30 (3). Society of American Archivists: 483–492. doi:10.17723/aarc.30.3.4823205107266301. ISSN 0360-9081.
Further reading
Page Template:Refbegin/styles.css has no content.
- Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Miller, G. (1982). "Samuel Ornitz: A Hollywood Passional". Studies in American Jewish Literature (2): 81–85. JSTOR 41205565.
External links
- Works by or about Samuel Ornitz at the Internet Archive
- Samuel Ornitz at IMDbTemplate:Edit at Wikidata
- Samuel Ornitz, Haunch, Paunch and Jowl, New York: Boni and Liveright, 1923, full text online at Internet Archive
Template:Hollywood Ten Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Authority control/config' not found.
