- Born
- Died
- Birth nameSeymour Wilson Schulberg
- Budd Schulberg was born on March 27, 1914 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for On the Waterfront (1954), Everglades! (1961) and A Face in the Crowd (1957). He was married to Betsy Ann Langman, Geraldine Brooks, Agnes Victoria Anderson and Virginia Ray. He died on August 5, 2009 in Westhampton Beach, Long Island, New York, USA.
- SpousesBetsy Ann Langman(June 9, 1978 - August 5, 2009) (his death, 2 children)Geraldine Brooks(July 12, 1964 - June 19, 1977) (her death)Agnes Victoria Anderson(April 14, 1944 - April 1964) (divorced, 2 children)Virginia Ray(July 23, 1936 - February 1943) (divorced, 1 child)
- Children
- ParentsAdeline Jaffe
- RelativesStuart Schulberg(Sibling)
- John Wayne considered Schulberg's book "What Makes Sammy Run?" part of a Communist plot, as the book deals with the formation of the Writers Guild of America. In fact, Schulberg had been a Communist Party member in the 1930s, and the Communist Party USA also attacked his book. Disillusioned with communism and what the USSR had devolved into under Stalin, he appeared as a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951 and named names.
- Although "What Makes Sammy Run?", his scathing look at Hollywood, was twice presented on television in New York-based productions in 1949 and 1959, and appeared on Broadway in a musical version with Steve Lawrence playing Sammy that ran for 540 performances in the 1964-1965 season, Hollywood itself has never made a version of the popular novel. Dreamworks acquired the rights to the novel from Warner Bros. for $2.6 million for a proposed version starring Ben Stiller, but that movie has yet to be green-lighted.
- A movie industry insider, he published the damning expose of Hollywood "What Makes Sammy Run?" in 1941, creating the greatest of all Hollywood anti-heroes, Sammy Glick. The book made him persona non grata in Hollywood for years.
- Louis B. Mayer told his father, B.P. Schulberg, that his son should be deported. An exasperated B.P. replied that since Budd was a U.S. citizen raised in Hollywood, "Where the hell are you gonna deport him? Catalina Island?" Recounting the incident, Budd told journalist Cathy Seipp, "My father was a very, very intelligent man, but not as smart as Louis B. Mayer. And that remark is one of the things I think helped finish my father in Hollywood".
- During the Writer's Guild of America strike in 1988, Schulberg spoke at a WGA meeting, beginning his remarks by saying he was probably the only person from the original 1937 WGA council who was still on the council.
- Young people today seem to admire Sammy [his fictional character Sammy Glick]. I do find it rather disconcerting. Once I was speaking at a college, and a young man came up afterwards and said, 'I just want to shake your hand. I'm a senior, and I've been worrying about how I'll make it in the real world. And now that I've read your book, I'm inspired.'
- [on his friendly testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee] "I don't feel what some people expect me to feel. What's painful is to have believed in something that sounded so right, and that turned out the way the Soviet Union turned out. It's more the disillusionment that hurts for me."
- On testifying and naming names before the House Un-American Activities Committee: "I didn't especially like the [House] committee, but I didn't like the way the party was trying to take over the Screenwriters Guild - they had put four young people on the board, including me. I felt that what the party was doing secretively was very wrong - it could have been the Ku Klux Klan or the American Nazis. And nobody came out and said that Stalin was killing more people than Hitler - I resented the fact that they only defended their side."
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