Novelist and screenwriter Budd Schulberg has died. He was the author of “What Makes Sammy Run?” and the acclaimed screenplays for “On the Waterfront” and “A Face in the Crowd.”
The New York Times obituary recounts Schulberg’s early days as a screenwriter and his struggles after being blacklisted as a Communist. Following a strange experience working on a script with the great novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, Schulberg wrote the novel “The Disenchanted.”
The article has a wonderful quote about those heady days: “‘I said, ‘Who’s the writer?’ He said, ‘F. Scott Fitzgerald.’ … ‘I thought it was just a joke, like saying ‘Leo Tolstoy,” Mr. Schulberg recalled. ‘And I said, ‘Scott Fitzgerald — isn’t he dead?’ And he said, ‘No, he’s not dead, he’s right in the next room reading your script.'”