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Walter Bernstein, who was blacklisted by Hollywood in the 1950s but returned to writing on many films, including the Oscar-nominated screenplay for The front, died at the age of 101.
Bernstein died Friday night, according to former WGA West president Howard Rodman, who reported on Twitter.
Bernstein’s credits included the films Fail-Safe (1964), Semi hard (1977), Yanks (1979) and The front, (1976), the latter which stars Woody Allen as Howard Prince, who has been hired by three blacklisted television writers to become the face of their work. It was a ruse Bernstein was familiar with, having used the tactic himself when he was on the blacklist.
Bernstein, born in Brooklyn, New York, joined the Communist Party while attending Dartmouth College, and then served in the United States Army during World War II.
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After his release he became a television writer, but was blacklisted in 1950. He was not credited with any work until 1958, but used pseudonyms and hired fronts that did pass the job as theirs to help Bernstein.
Bernstein finally restored his true identity for the 1959 Sophia Loren film That kind of woman, directed by Sidney Lumet, who vouched for her integrity with film producer Carlo Ponto, Loren’s husband. Bernstein ultimately wrote three films for Loren. including Michael Curtiz A breath of scandal and George Cukor Heller in pink tights, both released in 1960.
In his later career, Bernstein taught screenwriting at Columbia University, NYU, and City College, and received an Emmy nomination for writing the 1997 HBO TV movie. The boys from Miss Evers.
Bernstein released Upside down: a memory from the blacklist, in 1996.
Bernstein was a long-time member of the WGA East’s Council and received the Ian McLellan Hunter Memorial Award for Lifetime Achievement in Writing in 1994 and the Evelyn F. Burkey Award in 2008. Named in his honor, the Walter Bernstein Award of the guild. pays tribute to writers “who have demonstrated with creativity, grace and bravery their willingness to face social injustice in the face of adversity”.
He is survived by his son, Andrew Bernstein, and his widow, literary agent Gloria Loomis.
No information on a memorial was immediately available.
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