Herbert J. Biberman (March 4, 1900^[1] – June 30, 1971) was an American screenwriter and film director. He was one of theHollywood Ten and directedSalt of the Earth (1954), a film barely released in the United States, about a zinc miners' strike inGrant County, New Mexico. His membership in theDirectors Guild of America was posthumously restored in 1997; he had been expelled in 1950.

Herbert Biberman
Born	Herbert Joseph Biberman (1900-03-04)March 4, 1900 Philadelphia,Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	June 30, 1971(1971-06-30) (aged 71) New York City,New York, U.S.
Other names	Herbert J. Biberman
Occupation(s)	Screenwriter and film director
Spouse	Gale Sondergaard ​ (m. 1930)​
Children	2
Relatives	Edward Biberman (brother)

Biberman was born inPhiladelphia,Pennsylvania, to Joseph and Eva Biberman and was the brother of American artist,Edward Biberman.^[2]

He attended Central High School in Philadelphia, and then went on to the University of Pennsylvania. He graduated from Penn in 1921, being chosen to deliver the "Ivy Oration" at the Commencement ceremony. From 1924 to 1926 he attended theYale School of Drama, being a member of the first acting classes to study withGeorge Pierce Baker. In the late 1920s he began performing in plays byThe Theatre Guild, and joinedCheryl Crawford andHarold Clurman in founding its "Studio Theatre" for experimental productions - which included and translation of "Red Rust," a Russian play about an abusive Communist leader. By 1930 he began his career as a Broadway director with the American premiere production ofSergei Tretyakov'sRoar, China! and the world premiere production ofGreen Grow the Lilacs byLynn Riggs, which was the basis for the later musicalOklahoma!.

Moving to Hollywood, Biberman's career included writing such films asKing of Chinatown (1939),When Tomorrow Comes (1939),Action in Arabia (1944),The Master Race (1944), which he also directed, andNew Orleans (1947), as well as directing such films asOne Way Ticket (1935) andMeet Nero Wolfe (1936). He married actressGale Sondergaard in 1930; the marriage lasted for the rest of Biberman's life. Biberman died frombone cancer in 1971 inNew York City.

Though he would become firmly pro-war afterGermany invaded theSoviet Union, during theMolotov–Ribbentrop pact, his outspoken opposition to U.S.Lend-Lease to theUnited Kingdom was so intense, the FBI suspected Biberman (who was actually Jewish) of being aNazi.^[3] In 1947, the CongressionalHouse Committee on Un-American Activities began its investigation into the film industry, and Biberman became one of ten Hollywood writers and directors cited forcontempt of Congress when they refused to answer questions about theirAmerican Communist Party affiliation. Evidence presented in the hearing showed that Biberman had been a member of the communist party since at least 1944.^[4] Biberman and the others were imprisoned for their contempt convictions, Biberman for six months. Edward Dmytryk ultimately cooperated with the House committee, but Biberman and the others wereblacklisted by theHollywood studios.

Biberman worked independently after his release from jail. The result wasSalt of the Earth (1954), a fictionalized account of the Grant County miners' strike. The screenplay was byMichael Wilson and it was produced byPaul Jarrico, neither members of the Ten but they were both also blacklisted.Salt of the Earth has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United StatesLibrary of Congress and selected for preservation in theNational Film Registry.

One of the Hollywood Ten, a 2000 film chronicling his blacklisting and the making ofSalt of the Earth from Biberman's point of view, starredJeff Goldblum as Biberman andGreta Scacchi as his wife, the actressGale Sondergaard. The film'sclosing credits noted Biberman had never been removed from the old blacklist formally, and that Sondergaard had not found work in Hollywood until shortly before her husband's death. Biberman's membership in the Directors Guild of America, which was stripped in 1950, was restored in 1997.

• Caballero, Raymond.McCarthyism vs. Clinton Jencks. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019.

• Herbert Biberman atIMDb
• Herbert Biberman at theInternet Broadway Database
• Herbert Biberman at theInternet Off-Broadway Database
• Review in TV Guide of biopic, "One of the Hollywood Ten."