Robert Rossen | |
|---|---|
 Rossenc. 1960 | |
| Born | Robert Rosen (1908-03-16)March 16, 1908 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | February 18, 1966(1966-02-18) (aged 57) New York City, U.S. |
| Occupations | |
| Years active | 1932–1963 |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 3 |
| Relatives | Daniel Rossen (grandson) |
Robert Rossen (March 16, 1908 – February 18, 1966) was an American screenwriter, film director, and producer whose film career spanned almost three decades.
His 1949 filmAll the King's Men won Oscars forBest Picture,Best Actor andBest Supporting Actress, while Rossen was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Director. He won theGolden Globe for Best Director and the film won theGolden Globe Award for Best Picture. In 1961, he directedThe Hustler, which was nominated for nine Oscars and won two.
After directing and writing for the stage in New York, Rossen moved to Hollywood in 1937. From there, he worked as a screenwriter forWarner Bros. until 1941, and then interrupted his career to serve until 1944 as the chairman of the Hollywood Writers Mobilization, a body to organize writers for the effort in World War II. In 1945, he joined apicket line against Warner Bros. After making one film forHal B. Wallis's newly formed production company, Rossen made one forColumbia Pictures, another for Wallis and most of his later films for his own companies, usually in collaboration with Columbia.
Rossen was a member of the American Communist Party from 1937 to about 1947, and believed the Party was "dedicated to social causes of the sort that we as poor Jews from New York were interested in."[1]
He ended all relations with the Party in 1949. Rossen was twice called before theHouse Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), in 1951 and in 1953. He exercised hisFifth Amendment rights at his first appearance, refusing to state whether he had ever been a Communist. As a result, he found himselfblacklisted by Hollywood studios as well as unable to renew his passport. At his second appearance he named 57 people as current or former Communists and his blacklisting ended. In order to repair finances he produced his next film,Mambo, in Italy in 1954. WhileThe Hustler in 1961 was a great success, conflicts on the set ofLilith in 1964 so disillusioned him that it was his last film before his death two years later.[citation needed]
Robert Rosen[2] was born on March 16, 1908,[citation needed] and raised on the Lower East Side of New York City.[3] His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants; his father, Philip Rosen, was a house painter.[4] As a youth, he attended New York University,[citation needed]hustledpool and fought someprizefights[5] – the latter two providing crucial background for his two greatest films,The Hustler andBody and Soul, respectively. He changed his name fromRosen toRossen in 1931.[6]
He started his theatrical career as a stage manager and director instock andoff-Broadway productions,[2] mainly in the social and radical theaters that flourished in New York in the early and mid-1930s, as didJohn Huston,Elia Kazan andJoseph Losey.[7] In 1932 Rossen directed John Wexley'sSteel, about labor agitation, andRichard Maibaum'sThe Tree, about alynching. A year later Rossen directedBirthright, in which Maibaum attackedNazism,[8] which had just triumphed in Germany with the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler in 1933.
In 1935, Rossen wrote and directed his first play,The Body Beautiful, a comedy about a naiveburlesque dancer. Although the play closed after four performances,[8]Warner Bros. directorMervyn LeRoy was so impressed that he signed Rossen to a personal screenwriting contract.[5][8]
In 1936, Rossen married Susan Siegal; the couple had three children: Carol, Stephen and Ellen.[5][9][10]
For his first credit in Hollywood, in 1937 Rossen co-wrote with Abem Finkel a script based on the prosecution of crime lordLucky Luciano and eventually titledMarked Woman. Although some of Warner Bros. management saw Rossen as an unknown quantity, the result won praise from bothJack L. Warner and theDaily Worker.[5] Rossen's first solo script was forThey Won't Forget (1937), a fictionalized account of the lynching ofLeo Frank, featuringLana Turner in her debut performance.[11]
Dust Be My Destiny, co-written in 1939 by Rossen, is the story of a fugitive from justice who is eventually acquitted with help from an attorney and a journalist, the latter arguing that "a million boys all over the country" were in a similar plight. Warner Bros. then ordered producer Lou Edelman to cut the script, adding that "This is the story of two people – not a group. It is an individual problem – not a national one."[12] Rossen was one of three writers on the gangster melodramaThe Roaring Twenties, released in 1939.[13][14] A remake of the 1932 play and filmLife Begins was written in 1939 by Rossen and released in 1940 asA Child Is Born. The plot recounted the experiences of six expectant mothers, and there was little scope to modify the original.[15]
The Sea Wolf, released in 1941, was based onJack London'snovel. Although the film had a strong cast and production, Rossen's re-draft of the script may be the greatest influence on the film.[16] While the character of Captain Larsen remained both victim and oppressed in a capitalist hierarchy, he became a symbol of fascism. He split the novel's idealist hero into an intellectual bosun and a rebellious seaman.[17] Warner Bros. cut many political points during production.[18]
Blues in the Night, written by Rossen and two colleagues and released in 1941, shows a group of jazz musicians traveling in theDepression. Their informal methods represent working-class culture rather than the commercialized music of the big bands.[19] However,The New York Times' reviewer thought the soundtrack was "about all the film has to offer",[20] and Warner was disappointed with the sales.[19]
After the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, theScreen Writers Guild set up on December 8, 1941, the Hollywood Writers Mobilization, a body to organize writers for the war effort. Rossen served as the body's chairman until 1944 and advocated the opening of aSecond Front to support West European resistance against theNazis. His earnings were much greater than in 1937. However, his work for Hollywood Writers Mobilization and for the Communist Party forced him to abandon some partly developed film projects, includingThe Treasure of the Sierra Madre, whichJohn Huston eventually directed in 1948.[19]
In 1945 Rossen joined apicket line against Warner Bros, making an enemy of Jack Warner. Rossen signed a contract with an independent production company formed byHal Wallis, who had previously been Warner Bros.' head of production. However Rossen wrote only two full scripts for this company,The Strange Love of Martha Ivers in 1946 andDesert Fury in 1947.[21][22] InThe Strange Love of Martha Ivers Rossen used a short story by John Patrick to introduce the main plot, which was set 15 years later and which Rossen wrote.[21] The relationship between Rossen and Wallis broke down when Rossen received offers from other production companies.[21]
Dick Powell had been acrooner but was making a new career as a dramatic actor. WhenColumbia Pictures agreed to makeJohnny O'Clock for him in 1947, Powell successfully campaigned for Rossen to direct, and this became Rossen's debut in directing.[22] As this crime melodrama proved a modest success,Roberts Productions signed Rossen to directAbraham Polonsky's script ofBody and Soul,[23] described byBob Thomas as "possibly the best prizefight film ever made."[3] Rossen preferred an ending in which the hero wins a boxing match and then is killed by a gangster, but Polonsky insisted on his own ending, in which the hero escapes into obscurity before the fight.[23] Following the success ofBody and Soul, Rossen formed his own production company and signed with Columbia Pictures a contract that gave him wide autonomy over every second film that he made at the studio.[23]
All the King's Men (1949) was based on thenovel of the same name byRobert Penn Warren, which in turn was based on the career of politicianHuey Long.[24] Rossen introduced a new concept, that the defenders of the ordinary people can in turn become the new exploiters.[25] As a requirement for his participation in the film, Rossen had to write to Columbia'sHarry Cohn saying that he was no longer a Communist Party member.[23][26] Cohn's critiques of the draft of Rossen's script included scrapping a framing structure that was difficult for audiences to follow and several improvements in the relationships and motivations of characters.[27] A meeting of the Communist Party in Los Angeles severely criticized the film, and Rossen severed all relations with the Party.[28]All the King's Men won theAcademy Award for Best Picture,Broderick Crawford won the award forBest Actor andMercedes McCambridge was honored asBest Supporting Actress. Rossen was nominated for theAcademy Award for Best Director but lost toJoseph L. Mankiewicz forA Letter to Three Wives.[29] Rossen won theGolden Globe for Best Director and the film won the Golden Globe for Best Picture.[30] His next film,The Brave Bulls, was directed in 1950 and released in 1951. This was Rossen's last work before the studios blacklisted him.New York Times criticBosley Crowther called this "the best film on bull-fighting yet."[31]
After the end of World War II in 1945, the spread of Communism became the major concern in the United States.[32] In 1946, theRepublicans gained an overwhelming majority in theCongressional elections.[21] and used this power to investigate Communist elements in the media. TheCommunist victory of China in 1949 and the start of the Korean War in 1950 reinforced the anti-communist concerns present at the time.
During hearings in 1947,Jack Warner included Rossen among the many openly leftist writers whom his studio Warner Bros. had hired as the earliest and most openly anti-Nazi studio in Hollywood. (Warner Bros. had madeConfessions of a Nazi Spy [1939] and was criticized by the Republicans for their leftist writers at the time.) Warner reportedly accused Rossen of incorporating communist propaganda in scripts and fired him as a result, though some believe he was also unhappy with the writers’ union activities.[33]
Rossen was one of 19 "unfriendly witnesses" subpoenaed in October 1947 by theHouse Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) during the secondRed Scare but was one of eight not called to testify.[21] In 1951, Rossen was named as a Communist by several HUAC witnesses and he appeared before HUAC for the first time in June 1951.[8] He exercised his rights under theFifth Amendment against self-incrimination, taking what came to be known as the "augmented Fifth". He testified that he was not a member of the Communist Party and that he disagreed with the aims of the party, but when asked to state whether he had ever been a member of the party, Rossen refused to answer.[34][8] He was placed on the unofficial blacklist by the Hollywood studios,[11] and Columbia broke its production contract with him.[35]
In a widespread practice during HUAC investigations, the U.S. State Department refused to renew Rossen's passport. This, and his inability to find work, brought Rossen, like his friend, ex-Communist Elia Kazan, back to the committee in May 1953, where he identified 57 people as Communists.[36] He explained to the committee why he chose to testify: "I don't think, after two years of thinking, that any one individual can indulge himself in the luxury of personal morality or pit it against what I feel today very strongly is the security and safety of this nation."[37] Stephen Rossen later shed light on his father's decision:
It killed him not to work. He was torn between his desire to work and his desire not to talk, and he didn't know what to do. What I think he wanted to know was, what would I think of him if he talked? He didn't say it in that way, though. Then he explained to me the politics of it—how the studios were in on it, and there was never any chance of his working. He was under pressure, he was sick, his diabetes was bad, and he was drinking. By this time I understood that he had refused to talk before and had done his time, from my point of view. What could any kid say at that point? You say, 'I love you and I'm behind you.' [1]
Like Elia Kazan's testimony, Rossen's HUAC admissions destroyed many lifelong friendships, along with impacting the careers of many of Rossen's colleagues. Kazan's career flourished and Rossen's career also quickly regained the productivity he had enjoyed prior to the blacklist. He produced, directed and co-wroteThe Hustler, in 1961, and he was nominated forBest Picture,Best Director, andBest Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium Academy Awards, sharing the nomination with his co-writerSidney Carroll.
From 1952 to 1953, Rossen wroteMambo, trying to repair his finances after almost two years without work following the 1951 HUAC hearing. He had to produce the film in Italy, and it was premiered in Italy in 1954 and the USA in 1955.[38][39] Rossen later said "Mambo was to be for fun only," but he "took it seriously, and it didn't come off."[40] Critics dismissed the film.[41][42][43] However, in 2001, Dorothea Fischer-Hornung concluded that the film achieved more than Rossen and contemporary critics realized. The female lead resolves her own conflicts by devoting herself to dance.Katherine Dunham's choreography highlights this process;[44] and innovative cinematography intensifies the dance scenes.[45]
Rossen hopedAlexander the Great (1956) would be a blockbuster,[35] but the majority of the reviews criticized the film for failing to keep the audience's interest.[46] However, the review fromThe New York Times wrote that "its moments of boredom are rare...an overlong but thoughtful and spectacular entertainment."[47]
In 1961, Rossen co-wrote, produced and directedThe Hustler. Drawing upon his own experiences as apoolhustler, he teamed withSidney Carroll to adapt thenovel of the same name for the screen.The Hustler was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won two. Rossen was nominated as Best Director, and with Carroll for Best Adapted Screenplay, but did not win either award.[48] He was named Best Director by theNew York Film Critics Circle[49] and shared with Carroll theWriters Guild of America Award for Best Written Drama.[50]The Hustler was an enormous popular success and is credited with sparking a resurgence in the popularity of pool in the United States, which had been on the decline for decades.[51]
Rossen was already ill when he started on his final film,Lilith (1964), and it was poorly received in the United States.[52] After it Rossen lost interest in directing, reportedly because of conflicts with the film's star,Warren Beatty. The filmmaker said, "It isn't worth that kind of grief. I won't take it any more. I have nothing to say on the screen right now. Even if I never make another picture, I've gotThe Hustler on my record. I'm content to let that one stand for me."[3] However, at the time of his death Rossen was planningCocoa Beach, a script he conceived in 1962, showing the hopes and struggles of transients in alocal community and contrasting this with nearbyCape Canaveral, which Leftist writer Brian Neve described as a "symbol of America's imperial reach".[36][53]
Rossen died in New York City at age 57 on February 18, 1966, following a series of illnesses[3] and is interred atWestchester Hills Cemetery inHastings-on-Hudson, New York.[11] His grandchild,Daniel Rossen, is the guitarist/vocalist of alternative bandsGrizzly Bear andDepartment of Eagles.[citation needed]
Rossen was one of the directors who developedfilm gris (French for "grey film"). In his films for Warner Brothers between 1937 and 1944, consistent themes were the conditions of working people, the portrayal ofgangsters andracketeers, and opposition to fascism.[5] AfterDust Be My Destiny, written by Rossen and released in 1939, Frank Nugent, who regularly reviewed forThe New York Times, complained about Warner Brothers' long line of melodramas about boys from poor neighborhoods.[54] Unlike filmmakers such asJohn Ford andHoward Hawks, Rossen was willing to explain his aims as a director: "The element common to many of my films is the desire for success, ambition, which is an important element in American life. It is an important element, and has become increasingly more important in what is known as Western Civilization."[46]Polonsky commented that "Rossen's talent is force applied everywhere without let-up."[55][52] Neve acknowledged that social concerns were central in most of Rossen's works, but commented thatLilith was different from Rossen's earlier films as it emphasized mood rather than narrative and examined through pictures and silences the nature of maladjustment and madness.[56]
Farber noted the strong female characters of the 1930s and 1940s, and laments the replacement of them by all-male relationships from the 1950s onward. For the earlier pattern Farber cited Rossen's 1946 scriptThe Strange Love of Martha Ivers, which was over melodramatic but portrayed a woman consumed by power, money and success.[57]Lilith created one of the few strong women in the 1960s.[58] Rossen generally destroyed the main character.[55]
All of Rossen's playscripts were adaptations exceptMarked Woman,Racket Buster andAlexander the Great, based on real events.[59] Before he was blacklisted in 1951, only two of Rossen's adaptions were of serious novels, and Rossen's early drafts of the script forAll the King's Men received serious criticisms within Columbia.[60]
While head of production at Warner,Hal Wallis considered that some of his best films – includingThe Roaring Twenties,Marked Woman andThe Sea Wolf – were written by Rossen.[61] Wallis was very pleased with Rossen's script in 1946 forThe Strange Love of Martha Ivers,[62] which was produced by Wallis own company.[63] However, Rossen turned down Wallis's next two films.[64] Both Wallis as producer and Rossen as writer-director wanted to operate as independents, rather than under the control of a studio.[65]
All the King's Men was one of the later social "message" films as America turned conservative. Thomas Schatz regardedAll the King's Men as possibly the best of the genre, as it examined alcoholism, adultery, political corruption and the influence of journalism.[66] In 2001 the United StatesNational Film Registry preserved the film as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[67]
Rossen produced, directed and co-wroteThe Hustler in 1961. At the time,Variety praised the cast, complained about the "sordid aspects" of the story and felt the film was far too long.[68]The New Republic praised the cast and Rossen's "sure, economical" direction, but thought the script "strains hard to give an air of menace and criminality."[69] The film won twoAcademy Awards and was nominated for another seven,[48] was nominated in four of theGolden Globes' categories,[70] and gained many other awards and nominations.[48]
In 1997. the National Film Registry preservedThe Hustler as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."[71] In 2002, Roger Ebert described the film as one "where scenes have such psychic weight that they grow in our memories" and praised Rossen's decision to develop all four main characters,[72] andJames Berardinelli listed the film in his All Time Top 100 for similar reasons.[73] Ebert also praised Rossen's decision to shoot the film in the "stygian gloom of the billiard parlor" created by black-and-white.[72] Other accolades appeared in the 2000s (decade).[74][75]
Nina Leibman regardedLilith as the most extreme of the American film industry's applications, or rather misapplications, of psychoanalytic concepts, as the patient is already psychotic and has a track record of previous conquests.[76] InThe New Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson describesLilith as "an oddity, the only one of [Rossen's] films that seems passionate, mysterious and truly personal. The other films will look increasingly dated and self-contained, butLilith may grow."[77]
TheAcademy Film Archive preserved several of Robert Rossen's films, includingThe Hustler,All the King's Men, andLilith.[78]
| Release | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1935 | The Body Beautiful[5][8] | director |
| 1960 | The Cool World[79][80] | co-writer |
| Release | Title | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1932 | Steel[8] | director |
| The Tree[8] | ||
| 1933 | Birthright[8] |
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1937 | Marked Woman | No | Yes | No |
| They Won't Forget | No | Yes | No | |
| 1938 | Racket Busters | No | Yes | No |
| 1939 | Dust Be My Destiny | No | Yes | No |
| The Roaring Twenties | No | Yes | No | |
| 1940 | A Child Is Born | No | Yes | No |
| 1941 | The Sea Wolf | No | Yes | No |
| Out of the Fog | No | Yes | No | |
| Blues in the Night | No | Yes | No | |
| 1943 | Edge of Darkness | No | Yes | No |
| 1945 | A Walk in the Sun | No | Yes | No |
| 1946 | The Strange Love of Martha Ivers | No | Yes | No |
| 1947 | Johnny O'Clock | Yes | Yes | No |
| Desert Fury | No | Yes | No | |
| Body and Soul | Yes | No | No | |
| 1949 | The Undercover Man | No | No | Yes |
| All the King's Men | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 1951 | The Brave Bulls | Yes | No | Yes |
| 1954 | Mambo | Yes | Yes | No |
| 1956 | Alexander the Great | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 1957 | Island in the Sun | Yes | No | No |
| 1959 | They Came to Cordura | Yes | Yes | No |
| 1961 | The Hustler | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| 1964 | Lilith | Yes | Yes | No |
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help){{cite news}}: CS1 maint: ref duplicates default (link){{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)lilith rossen.
