Robert Rossen
Robert Rossen was an influential American filmmaker and playwright known for his impactful storytelling that often addressed social issues. Born in a tough neighborhood of New York City's Lower East Side, Rossen initially pursued a career in boxing before shifting his focus to theater and film. He made his Broadway debut in 1935 with "The Body Beautiful," which led to a contract with Warner Bros. and a move to Hollywood in 1936. Rossen's early works included the anti-Nazi play "Birthright" and impactful screenplays like "They Won't Forget," which highlighted themes of injustice and discrimination.
Throughout his career, Rossen explored the complexities of power and morality in films such as "The Roaring Twenties" and "All the King's Men," the latter earning him Academy Award nominations. His most celebrated work, "The Hustler," showcased his mastery of character-driven narratives and won him significant acclaim. However, his career faced challenges during the Red Scare when he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which tarnished his reputation despite not being blacklisted. Rossen passed away in 1966 after undergoing surgery for a rare skin disease, leaving behind a legacy of thought-provoking cinema.
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Robert Rossen
Writer
- Born: March 16, 1908
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: February 18, 1966
- Place of death: Hollywood, California
Biography
Robert Rossen was born and grew up in a rough neighborhood in New York City’s Lower East Side. He learned early to defend himself and was so good at it that upon leaving New York University, he became a professional boxer for a short time. Soon, however, he acknowledged that theater was a more rewarding vocation than boxing. In 1932, he directed two plays, The Tree and Birthright, the latter an early anti-Nazi play. Critics favorably reviewed his direction of these plays.
Rossen began to write plays, including the unpublished “Corner Pocket,” that were set in a pool hall, a location with which he was most familiar. Elements of this unproduced play later surfaced in his screenplay for The Hustler, cowritten with Sidney Carroll. In 1935, Rossen had his first play produced on Broadway, The Body Beautiful. Although the play closed after four performances, its production led Warner Bros. studios to offer Rossen a contract. In 1936, he moved to Hollywood.
He had not been long in California before he joined the Communist Party for ideological reasons, as many intellectuals did during the 1930’s. Although he initially did a great deal of work for the party, he soon questioned many of its policies and withdrew from participation in its activities. Ever an idealist, Rossen wrote screenplays that dealt with social issues, notably poverty, gang activity, discrimination, and injustice.
They Won’t Forget, one of Rossen’s first screenplays, focused on the 1913 lynching in Georgia of a Jewish factory worker implicated in the murder of a young girl. Rossen considered this the best of his Warner Bros. films, which by 1942 numbered ten. His most successful film for this studio was The Roaring Twenties, the story of a World War I veteran who becomes involved in bootlegging during Prohibition. In this film, Rossen explores one of his recurring themes, the inroads that the quest for and attainment of power make on one’s life. The Roaring Twenties was a runaway commercial success.
Rossen frequently revisited this theme in such screenplays as The Sea Wolf; All the King’s Men, for which he received Academy Award nominations for Best Play and Best Director; and Alexander the Great, his first attempt at handling an epic. The Hustler, which won Rossen the Writers Guild Award and an Academy Award nomination in 1961, attracted a stellar cast that included Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott, Paul Newman, and Piper Laurie and is generally considered Rossen’s most artistically successful film.
The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) labeled Rossen an unfriendly witness when it held its hearings on Communist infiltration into the film industry. With this blemish on his career looming, Columbia Pictures canceled its contract with him. Rossen appeared before HUAC in June, 1951; in May, 1953, he cooperated by identifying film people who had associated with the Communist Party from a list that HUAC provided. He was not blacklisted as many of his colleagues had been, but his career never quite recovered from his brush with McCarthyism. Rossen died in 1966 following surgery for a rare skin disease.