Person Biography:
Lester Cole, a renowned screenwriter, was born on June 19, 1904, in New York to a Polish immigrant family. Initially, he dreamed of becoming an actor, dropping out of high school at the age of sixteen in 1920 to pursue his passion. He began writing and directing plays, and in the 1920s and '30s, he worked primarily as an actor on the stage, appearing in notable productions such as "Painted Faces" (1929) and "Love at First Sight" (1929).
Cole's true calling, however, was screenwriting. His first screenplay, the W.C. Fields comedy "If I Had a Million" (1932),was made in 1932. In the same year, he co-founded the Screen Writers Guild (SWG),the first and most radical of the Hollywood guilds, along with eight other screenwriters, including future Hollywood Ten members John Howard Lawson and Samuel Ornitz.
As his politics leaned towards the hard left, Cole joined the Communist Party-USA in 1934. He adhered to the Hollywood Ten's common front strategy of challenging the House Committee on Un-American Activities' (HCUA) right to interrogate them on the basis of their political beliefs. Convicted of contempt of Congress, he was fined and served one year in prison.
After his release from federal prison, Cole worked a series of odd jobs. He emigrated to London in 1961 but eventually returned to the U.S., where he began collaborating on screenplays using an assumed name. One of his scripts, written under the pseudonym "Gerald L.C. Copley," was made into the popular movie "Born Free" (1966).
Throughout his life, Cole remained committed to his craft. He wrote his autobiography, "Hollywood Red" (1981),and reviewed films for "The People's World" and taught screenwriting at the University of California, Berkeley.
Lester Cole passed away on August 15, 1985, at the age of 81, leaving behind a legacy as a pioneering screenwriter and a symbol of defiance against the Hollywood blacklist.
