Howard E. Koch (December 12, 1901 – August 17, 1995)^[1][2][3] was an American playwright andscreenwriter who wasblacklisted by theHollywoodfilm studio bosses in the 1950s.

Born to aJewish family^[4] in New York City, Koch grew up inKingston, New York, and was a graduate of St. Stephen's College (1922, later renamedBard College) andColumbia Law School (1925).^[5][6]

While practicing law inHartsdale, New York, he began to write plays.Great Scott (1929),Give Us This Day (1933), andIn Time to Come (1941) which were produced byBroadway.^[7]

Koch began playwriting in the late 1920s before he started working on radio scripts.^[8] In the 1930s, he worked as a writer for the CBS Mercury Theater of the Air. The work included theOrson Wellesradio dramaThe War of the Worlds (1938), which allegedly caused nationwide panic among some listeners for its documentary-like portrayal of an invasion of spaceships from Mars.^[9][10] Koch later wrote a play about the panic,Invasion from Mars,^[11] which was later adapted into the 1975 TV movie,The Night That Panicked America, in which actor Joshua Bryant plays Koch.^[12]

In the 1940s, Koch began writing for Hollywood studios. His first accepted works were screenplays forMichael Curtiz'sThe Sea Hawk,William Wyler'sThe Letter.^[10] Koch contributed to the popular filmCasablanca withHumphrey Bogart, which he co-scripted with writersJulius andPhilip Epstein in 1942, and for which he received anAcademy Award in 1943.^[13] He also wroteShining Victory (1941)^[14] andLetter from an Unknown Woman (1948),^[14] his favorite screenplay.^[15]

In 1943, at the request ofJack L. Warner ofWarner Bros., Koch wrote the screenplay forMission to Moscow (1943). The movie subsequently spawned controversy because of its positive portrayal ofJoseph Stalin and theSoviet Union.^[16][17] After the war, Koch was dismissed after he was denounced as aCommunist.^[18] He was then criticized by theHouse Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) for his outspoken leftist political views. Koch wasblacklisted by Hollywood in 1951.^[19]

After being blacklisted, Koch moved with his wife, Anne (an accomplished writer in her own right) and their family to Europe and eventually took up residence in the United Kingdom^[15] with other blacklisted writers, where they wrote for five years for film and television (British television seriesThe Adventures of Robin Hood among them) under the pseudonyms "Peter Howard"^[8] and "Anne Rodney".^[20] In 1956, they returned to the United States and settled inWoodstock, New York.^[21] Koch sought help from high-profile lawyerEd Williams in order to clear his name from Hollywood's blacklist. Koch was promptly removed from the blacklist,^[22] and he resumed his name and continued to write plays and books and remained actively committed to progressive political and social justice causes. His last Hollywood screenplay was forThe Fox in 1968.^[14]

Koch died at age 93 in 1995 inKingston, New York.^[15]

Plays

• Invasion from Mars, (with Orson Welles) (pl) CBS, October 30, 1938.

Books

• Invasion from Mars, ed. Orson Welles, Dell 1949.
• The Panic Broadcast, Little, Brown and Company 1970, Avon Books 1971.
• Casablanca: Script and Legend, Overlook Press 1973.
• As Time Goes By: Memoirs of a Writer, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich 1979.

Short stories

• "Invasion from Inner Space", inStar Science Fiction Stories #6, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine 1959.

Anthologies

• Invaders of Earth, ed.Groff Conklin, Vanguard 1952, Pocket 1955, Tempo 1962.
• The Treasury of Science Fiction Classics, ed. Harold W. Kuebler, Hanover House 1954.
• The Armchair Science Reader, ed. Isabel S. Gordon & Sophie Sorkin, Simon & Schuster 1959.
• Enemies in Space, ed. Groff Conklin, Digit 1962.
• Contact, ed. Noel Keyes, Paperback Library 1963.
• Speculations, ed. Thomas E. Sanders, Glencoe Press 1973.
• Bug-Eyed Monsters, ed. Anthony Cheetham, Panther 1974.

• Howard Koch atIMDb
• Howard Koch at theInternet Broadway Database
• Howard Koch at Bard Archives.

• 1901 births
• 1995 deaths
• American radio writers
• American male screenwriters
• Columbia Law School alumni
• Jewish American screenwriters
• Hollywood blacklist
• Screenwriters from New York City
• Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award winners
• People from Kingston, New York
• People from Woodstock, New York
• People from Hartsdale, New York
• Bard College alumni
• 20th-century American male writers
• 20th-century American screenwriters
• 20th-century American Jews

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