Screenwriter and Hollywood Blacklist Survivor Dies – The Hollywood Reporter

Norma Barzman

Joe Pugliese

Norma Barzman, the famed screenwriter of 1940s films whose career was derailed by the Hollywood blacklist and of which she was one of the last survivors, died Sunday. It was 103.

Her daughter, Suzu Barzman, said that Barzman died of natural causes, surrounded by her family at her home in Beverly Hills. Hollywood Reporter.

Born Norma Leaving on September 15, 1920 in New York City, and raised between the United States and Europe, Barzman moved to Hollywood on her twenty-first birthday. By then, she had already attended the Radcliffe School for two years before dropping out and spent a year living in Princeton, New Jersey, as the young bride of Claude Shannon – later known as the “Father of Information Theory” – before their divorce in 1941.

In the West, Barzman was enrolled by her older cousin, a writer, at a left-leaning writers’ school. In 1942, after a fateful meeting at a Halloween party, she married up-and-coming screenwriter Ben Barzman, who was ten years her senior, and in 1943 joined the Communist Party, of which he was already a member.

At the time, Barzman felt that capitalism was not working. Moreover, she said Los Angeles Times In 2014, “Hitler was invading the Soviet Union, so there was no reason to antagonize Russia, they were our allies.” She also said THRIn 2012, she said that much of her attraction to the Party was because of the smart, interesting and idealistic people it brought together: “The progressive Hollywood community of the 1940s was so cool, and it’s so exciting to be a part of it.”

After a stint as a newspaper writer, she served as her husband’s trusted friend as he wrote scripts including the 1945 war film Back to BataanShe started writing for films herself. Her credits include stories that served as the basis for two 1946 titles, the Errol Flynn/Eleanor Powell rom-com. Don’t say goodbye (She later confirmed that she had written the screenplay but the studio insisted on removing her name from it) and the Robert Mitchum thriller. Lock.

But in 1947, 10 screenwriters were called to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee and refused to reveal whether they were or had ever been members of the Communist Party, or to name the names of others who were or had been. The ten were held in contempt of Congress (they were later imprisoned), prompting the Hollywood studios to announce that they would henceforth “will not knowingly employ a Communist or member of any party or group advocating the overthrow of the Government of the United States.” “.

Barzman and her husband, who were then parents of two children, learned they were under government surveillance in 1949. To avoid being called up if others mentioned them, they turned what was supposed to be a six-week trip to London into a decades-long exile. They remained in England until 1954, when they moved to France, where their social circle included the likes of Pablo Picasso. (These people were later “named” in 1951 by Edward Dmytryk, one of the Hollywood Ten Stars.)

Even abroad, the FBI continued to monitor the Barzman family. But they managed to continue to earn a living – and support a family that eventually grew to include seven children – by writing under pseudonyms and fronts. (It was only years later that she would be credited with writing the 1953 screenplay.) Luxury girls.) “Those were very difficult years,” Barzman said. THR. It was three decades before the family returned to America, first for a summer stay in 1965 — a year after their visit to the Soviet Union, where they witnessed firsthand the effects of communism and disavowal of the party — and then on a permanent basis in 1976. THR“When I came back here, by God, I was going to be the ‘normal’ that I was supposed to be, that I started out as.”

Barzman’s beloved Penn died in 1989. In her final years, she wrote a popular newspaper column and several books, including the acclaimed 2003 memoir, Red and black list. She helped organize a protest outside the 1999 Academy Awards where director Elia Kazan, who named names, was given an honorary Oscar. She has given talks and conducted interviews about the blacklist era. a Los Angeles Times Her 2000 profile described her as “the blacklist’s eloquent conscience.”

She is survived by her children, Suzu Barzman, Lolly Barzman, John Barzman, Aaron Barzman, Daniel Barzman, Paolo Barzman and Marco Barzman. Eight grandchildren. and six grandchildren.