Ben Maddow
Ben Maddow was an influential American writer and filmmaker born on August 7, 1909, in Passaic, New Jersey, to Russian Jewish immigrant parents. He graduated with a degree in biophysics and initially worked as a hospital orderly and social welfare investigator during the Great Depression. Maddow was also a poet, publishing under the pseudonym David Wolff, and earned the Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize in 1940. His filmmaking career began in the 1930s with narration for documentaries, leading to his co-founding of Nykino, later known as Frontier Films, which focused on socially conscious content. Maddow wrote scripts for notable nonfiction films and served in the army's First Motion Picture Unit during World War II. After the war, he transitioned to Hollywood, where he co-wrote acclaimed screenplays, including those for "The Asphalt Jungle." However, he faced blacklisting in the 1950s due to alleged Communist ties, resulting in him working under pseudonyms. Later in his career, he returned to credit his own name and produced works for film and television, while also writing extensively on photography. Maddow died on October 9, 1992, leaving behind a significant legacy in both film and literature.
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Ben Maddow
Writer
- Born: August 7, 1909
- Birthplace: Passaic, New Jersery
- Died: October 9, 1992
- Place of death: Los Angeles, California
Biography
Ben Maddow was born on August 7, 1909, in Passaic, New Jersey, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. He graduated in 1930 with a B.S. in biophysics and worked briefly as a hospital orderly. During the Great Depression, he was employed by the City of New York as a social welfare investigator, working with some of the city’s poorest residents. At night, he wrote poetry, usually under the pseudonym David Wolff, and his work was published in many periodicals, including Poetry, which awarded him the Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize in 1940.
In 1935, Maddow responded to an advertisement by writing narration for a documentary film, Harbor Scenes, and also served as the film’s narrator. The experience brought Maddow into contact with a group of like-minded, left-leaning, socialist-oriented creative people, including Ralph Steiner, Paul Strand, Willard Van Dyke, Sam Brody, Irving Lerner, Tom Brandon, Sidney Meyer, David Platt, Lionel Berman, Leo Seltzer and Jan Leyda. Maddow was one of the founders of Nykino (later Frontier Films), established to make socially conscious documentaries. The company produced The World Today, a program of liberal newsreels that presented an alternative to the more conservative series, The March of Time. Between 1937 and 1942, Maddow wrote scripts and provided narration or commentary for about a dozen nonfiction films, most notably Heart of Spain, China Strikes Back, Return to Life, United Action, and Native Land.
Maddow was drafted during World War II and served in the army’s First Motion Picture Unit. He rose to the rank of sergeant while shooting such features as The Bridge and Northwest. After the war, Maddow went to Hollywood as a screenwriter. Between 1947 and the early 1950’s, he wrote or cowrote several film scripts, including Kiss the Blood off My Hands, Intruder in the Dust, and The Asphalt Jungle. The latter screenplay was cowritten with John Huston, and the two were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay and for an award from the Writers Guild of America.
During the 1950’s, Maddow was blacklisted for his alleged early ties to the Communist Party. He was forced to work under pseudonyms or without credit while writing for television series and films like The Wild One, God’s Little Acre, and Murder by Contract. For other films, such as The Naked Jungle, Men in War, Gun Glory, and No Down Payment, he used Academy Award-winning writer-producer Philip Yordan as a front. Maddow also wrote the novel Man of the West under the Yordan pseudonym.
By 1960, when he wrote, produced, edited, and directed The Savage Eye, Maddow was able to use his own name again; that film won the British Film Academy’s Robert Flaherty Award, among other honors. Though he produced screenplays for such films as The Unforgiven, The Way West, The Chairman, The Secret of Santa Vittoria, and The Mephisto Waltz, most of the remainder of his career was spent producing scripts for television series, including The Untouchables, Naked City, Arrest and Trial, and Kraft Suspense Theater.
Versatile as well as prolific, Maddow also wrote essays, articles, several plays, and a considerable body of nonfiction, especially about photography and photographers. His best known nonfiction works include Edward Weston, Fifty Years: The Definitive Volume of His Photographic Work, The Photography of Max Yavno, and Let Truth Be the Prejudice: W. Eugene Smith, His Life and Photographs.
Maddow was married for many years to Freda Flier, a former dancer with the Martha Graham company, and was the father of two children. He died on October 9, 1992.