Budd Shulberg: Prose and Cons

Was I the only one surprised by the lack of coverage Budd Shulberg’s death pulled in as news hit that the legendary scribe had past away at the age of 95?

Granted the growing-with-each-decade legend that is John Hughes passed away the same week, however, Shulberg represents something very unique to cinema: he may very well have been the last living human being whose life stretched the vast chasm that is the entire Hollywood movie business.

Shulberg’s father was B.P. Shulberg, who is probably best known as the man who ran Paramount Studios in the 30s, however the year Budd was born (1914), the elder Shulberg began his career in show biz by snagging the job of lead scenario writer for a new, and fledgling, motion picture company called Famous Players.

Little Budd’s first crib was a gift from his father’s boss, Adolph Zukor, and his first baby blanket was a gift from the one and only Mary Pickford.

Through senior and junior, the Shulbergs’ witnessed cinema grow from a wallflower, ridiculed and vilified by the legitimate arts, through the advent of sound, color, Technicolor, visual effects, and CGI.

Best known for his two seminal collaborations with Elia Kazan, On the Waterfront, and A Face in the Crowd, Shulberg also penned novels, screenplays, television programs, and non-fiction. His 1941 novel, What Makes Sammy Run? ostracized him from Hollywood for the better part of the 1940s for its frank insider take on Hollywood and the less than glamorous making of motion pictures.

In 1951, after being called-out by a fellow writer before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Shulberg voluntarily testified before the committee himself, naming names.

In the weeks ahead I will be preparing an in-depth piece on Shulberg’s writing, specific to cinema. For now, if I’m able to introduce even a handful of people to Shulberg’s prose then I’m glad, for the farther away the cinema grows from its roots, the more important its builders, and their relatives, become.