Samuel Ornitz was a novelist and screenwriter who gained fame as one of the "Hollywood Ten" accused communists who defied the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and was subsequently blacklisted. Born on November 15, 1890, in New York, New York, during the Progressive Era of American politics, Ornitz came from a prosperous family, with his father being a dry-goods merchant.
However, Ornitz did not follow in his family's footsteps and instead pursued a career in the arts, becoming a left-wing artist determined to replace the capitalist system. He made his first public speech at the age of 12, advocating for progressive causes, and later became a writer, achieving success with his 1923 novel "Haunch Paunch and Jowl", which depicted Jewish immigrant life.
Ornitz's career in Hollywood began in the late 1920s, working with notable directors such as Josef von Sternberg and William A. Wellman. He wrote for various studios, including Paramount, Universal, and 20th Century Fox, and was involved in the production of horror films and programmers. Despite his early promise, Ornitz's work as a screenwriter never lived up to his expectations.
However, Ornitz made a significant impact on Hollywood as an early organizer and board member of the Screen Writers Guild, a trade union formed in the mid-1930s to counter the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences. The SWG was the first and most radical of the Guilds, and Ornitz was a key figure in its success.
Ornitz was also a prominent figure in Hollywood's left-wing community, known for his outspoken views and commitment to communism. However, his party-line communism often alienated his liberal colleagues and friends, including his insistence that there was no anti-Semitism in Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union. He later retracted this assertion.
In 1947, Ornitz was arraigned by the HUAC and, along with the Hollywood Ten, refused to answer questions about their involvement in the Communist Party, maintaining party discipline. Ornitz was fined and sentenced to a year in prison for contempt of court, during which time he published his last major novel, "Bride of the Sabbath". He was subsequently blacklisted by Hollywood and never again wrote for motion pictures, but continued to write novels until his death.
Samuel Ornitz died of cancer on March 10, 1957, at the age of 66, in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles.
