Dalton Trumbo, Screenwriter

[ShirlGirl]

Righting past omissions

Matt Buchanan and Scott Ellis

The Sydney Morning Herald, December 22, 2011

Dalton Trumbo, the Oscar-winning screenwriter blacklisted during the McCarthy years, has finally received a posthumous credit for the 1953 Audrey Hepburn classic Roman Holiday, The Guardian reports.

Trumbo, below, was one of the ''Hollywood 10'' of film artists barred from work because of alleged communist beliefs (the others being Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr, John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz and Adrian Scott).
He wrote the screenplay while living in exile in Mexico. He had been labelled an ''unfriendly witness'' by the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. His friend Ian McLellan Hunter agreed to take credit for the work, sending his fee for the film on to Trumbo.

The Writers Guild of America has agreed officially to acknowledge Trumbo following depositions from his late son, Christopher, and Hunter's son, Tim. ''Obviously, it was important for Chris Trumbo to know before he died that his father's credit would be restored,''

Tim Hunter wrote to the then-president of the guild in January. ''Under the circumstances I readily agreed to see if we can get it done. He died last week knowing I would try.'' The full credit now reads: Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo and Ian McLellan Hunter and John Dighton.

Roman Holiday was the film in which Hepburn, right, then a virtual unknown, made her name with US audiences, starring opposite Gregory Peck as a European crown princess who takes an unofficial trip through Rome with a US journalist.

Hepburn won the Academy Award for best actress and the film also picked up Oscars for best costume design and screenplay. Trumbo died in 1976.

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His name was added to the film on its last restoration a few years ago as well.