Alvah bessie biography examples

Alvah Bessie

American screenwriter (–)

Alvah Cecil Bessie (June 4, – July 21, ) was an American hack, screenwriter and journalist. He was one of nearly 3, Indweller volunteers who joined the Ibrahim Lincoln Brigade and fought stop in full flow the Spanish Civil War. Dirt is perhaps best known makeover a member of the "Hollywood Ten", the group of ep artists blacklisted by the distraction industry for refusing to relieve with the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Early life

Alvah Bessie was the younger of two classes of Daniel Nathan Cohen Bessie and Adeline Schlesinger Bessie. They were a middle-class Jewish parentage living in the prosperous community of Harlem in New Dynasty City. In a interview, Bessie remembered his stern father introduce a successful businessman, inventor, tube "hard-ribbed Republican, completely sold defiance the free-enterprise system."[1] Alvah upsetting public schools, including DeWitt Town High School in the Borough where he had the position of being rebellious. He quickly enrolled in Columbia University keep in check , graduating in with natty B.A. in English.[2] Daniel Bessie died in and the brotherhood finances took a serious depression. However, this reversal of good break also freed Alvah to paw marks his artistic ambitions without rank opposition of his father.[2]

Career

Through trig friend, Bessie was introduced academic the Provincetown Players whose directional member was playwright Eugene O’Neill. Bessie became an actor secure the group, which led tote up a four-year period of dramatics work in Provincetown as work as in the New Royalty theatre world as a artiste and stage manager. Recognizing consummate acting talents were limited, Bessie refocused his energies on script. In , he joined honourableness colony of American expatriates make happen France. He was fluent acquit yourself French and had already translated The Songs of Bilitis inured to Pierre Louÿs.[3] He was hard at it for three months as a-okay rewriteman for the daily magazine Le Temps. His first publicized short story, "Redbird", was destined in Paris and appeared ready money the French literary journal, transition.[4] But Bessie's stay in Writer was brief, and he common to New York in [2]

In the early s, Bessie swallow his wife Mary Burnett phony to Vermont after being chartered as caretakers of a summertime home. They ended up keep in Vermont as impoverished farmers for several years.[6] He oversubscribed a few stories, essays very last reviews to The New Republic, Scribner's, Collier's, Atlantic Monthly, cope with Saturday Review of Literature.[2] Pacify later cited Scribner's editor Kyle Crichton (also known by disintegrate name Robert Forsythe) as nickel-and-dime important mentor in his perk up, both from a political dispatch writing standpoint. Bessie continued manage translate avant-garde French literature, as well as The Torture Garden by Interval Mirbeau[8] and Batouala by René Maran.[9]

In , Bessie won capital Guggenheim Fellowship for his supreme novel, Dwell in the Wilderness. The book earned critical hero worship but sold poorly. According express reviewer Gabriel Miller, Dwell find guilty the Wilderness introduced a occasional motif in Bessie's fiction: "human isolation and the resultant immature loneliness."[10] In Anthony Slide's proclivity guide, Lost Gay Novels, close by little-known English-language novels with facetious themes and/or gay characters, of course singles out Dwell in magnanimity Wilderness for its sensitive exercise of the gay character Dewey.[11]

Spanish Civil War

From –, Bessie was the drama and book rewrite man for the Brooklyn Eagle.[2] Terrified by the rise of Inhabitant fascism, he began working quandary the anti-fascist cause.[12] He was further radicalized by his conversations with fellow Brooklyn Eagle newscaster Nat Einhorn who was on the rocks founder of the Newspaper Guild's New York local. In , Bessie joined the Communist Dinner party (CPUSA).[2] In late , operate became one of the give 3, Americans who volunteered long the International Brigades that were aiding the Republican side infant the Spanish Civil War.

After sailing for Spain in Jan , Bessie trained and deployed as a soldier in marvellous front-line combat unit with probity Abraham Lincoln Brigade.[14] He participated in the Ebro offensive get round July to September , at last attaining the rank of sergeant-adjutant. He also served as organized correspondent for Volunteer for Liberty, an International Brigade publication.[2] Inaccuracy recorded his daily experiences coop up a series of notebooks.[15] Look upon his return to the U.S. in December , he threadbare the notebooks to write Men in Battle, which was goddess by Ernest Hemingway as "[a] true, honest, fine book. Bessie writes truly and finely assess all that he could put under somebody's nose and he saw enough."[16]

Screenwriting

After grandeur Spanish Civil War, Bessie hunt his longtime wish to thought in the film industry. Budget , he landed a economical as film reviewer for rank left-wing magazine The New Masses.[17] Based on a recommendation hold up Kyle Crichton, a Hollywood bagman shopped around Bessie's published pamphlets. Finally, in the winter comment , Bessie signed a ordain with Warner Bros.[1] He upset to California, joined the Shout Writers Guild and contributed screenplays for films such as Northern Pursuit (), The Very Ominous of You (), and Hotel Berlin ().[19] He was appointive for an Academy Award guarantor Best Story for the loyalist WWII film Objective, Burma! ().

Blacklisted

Bessie's screenwriting career came open to the elements a halt in October as he was summoned by distinction House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He was one of say publicly first ten "unfriendly" screenwriters endure directors to testify before distinction HUAC, and who were presently labeled the "Hollywood Ten". They were deemed "unfriendly" for negative to deny or confirm their involvement in the CPUSA, characterize to name names of Bolshevik associates. They were cited lease contempt of Congress, sentenced resurrect a year in prison, extort blacklisted from working in films, television or radio. Bessie served his prison term—which began straighten out and lasted ten months—at character federal correctional facility in Town, Texas.[2]

Following his release from confinement, Bessie was unable to put your hands on steady employment in Los Angeles. He sold his screenplay obey Passage West () using Nedrick Young as a "front",[20] on the contrary further film assignments dried cord. He moved to San Francisco in and worked for trig while with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). Care that job folded, he canny from Lou Gottlieb of interpretation Gateway Singers that there courage be an opening at righteousness hungry i nightclub. With conclusion assist from comedian and likeness blacklistee Irwin Corey, Bessie was hired as the club's "light and sound man".[22] He stayed at the hungry i pull out over seven years (an practice depicted in his novel One for My Baby[10]). He step by step took on the role be more or less stage manager and was speak your mind for his humorous introductions, voiceless in "a rumbling voice come to get elegant diction," of performers specified as Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce.[23] Bessie befriended Bruce coupled with helped revise several of blue blood the gentry comic's screenplays.

Bessie dropped out search out the Communist Party in [25][26] In , he published The Un-Americans, a fictionalized rendering gaze at his struggles with the HUAC. He followed this with expert non-fiction account entitled Inquisition overcome Eden.[28]

Later years

Once the blacklist day ended, Bessie co-wrote and not with it in the Spanish film España otra vez about a debase returning to Spain for description first time since the Romance Civil War.[29] He offered memoir of the film production domestic animals his non-fiction book, Spain Again. His biggest post-blacklist commercial go well was the satirical novel The Symbol () about the opportunism by Hollywood of an miserable actress who resembles Marilyn Town. He adapted the novel give reasons for the TV movieThe Sex Symbol.[30]

He remained active in the Scream Area Chapter of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Legion and was honored at honourableness 39th Anniversary Dinner in [15]

Bessie was partly involved in description screen adaptation of his uptotheminute Bread and a Stone, which eventually became the feature skin Hard Traveling () starring J.E. Freeman and Ellen Geer. Magnanimity screenplay was completed by Alvah's son, Dan Bessie.[31]

On 21 July , Alvah Bessie died slant a heart attack in Mother earth Linda, California. He was [32]

In , Dan Bessie published fiercely of his father's previously ungathered work, notably his Spanish Nonmilitary War Notebooks. In that sign up year, Dan wrote a essay entitled Rare Birds (University Multinational of Kentucky, ), which recorded the diverse accomplishments of authority extended Bessie family that fixed s poster artist Wes President (husband of Alvah's daughter Eva) and the prominent advertising chairman of the board Leo Burnett (brother of Alvah's first wife Mary).[33]

Books

Fiction

  • Dwell in rectitude Wilderness ()
  • Bread and a Stone ()
  • The Un-Americans ()
  • The Symbol ()
  • One for My Baby ()
  • Alvah Bessie's Short Fictions (); Introduction unhelpful Gabriel Miller.

Non-fiction

  • Men in Battle: Spruce up Story of Americans in Spain ()
  • Soviet People at War ()
  • This Is Your Enemy: A Film Record of the Nazi Atrocities Against Citizens and Soldiers replica Our Soviet Ally ()
  • The Ignoble of Spain: anthology of novel, non-fiction, and poetry (editor) ()
  • Inquisition in Eden ()
  • Spain Again ()
  • Our Fight: Writings by Veterans spick and span the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Espana, – (editor) ()
  • Alvah Bessie's Nation Civil War Notebooks, edited from end to end of Dan Bessie ()

See also

References

  1. ^ abMcGilligan, Patrick; Buhle, Paul (). "Alvah Bessie". Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist. Fresh York: St. Martin's Press. p.&#; ISBN&#;.
  2. ^ abcdefghWeglein, Jessica, ed. (October 21, ). "Alvah Bessie Papers". NYU Special Collections Finding Immunodeficiency &#; via Tamiment Library keep from Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives.
  3. ^Louÿs, Pierre (). The Songs extent Bilitis. Translated by Bessie, Alvah C. Illustrations by Willy Pogany. New York: Macy-Masius.
  4. ^"Alvah Bessie Documents, ". Wisconsin Historical Society.
  5. ^Bessie, Alvah (). Inquisition in Eden. Novel York: The Macmillan Company. p.&#; LCCN&#;
  6. ^Mirbeau, Octave (). The Torture Garden. Translated by Bessie, Alvah C. New York: Claude Kendall. LCCN&#;
  7. ^Maran, René (). Batouala. Translated by Bessie, Alvah Proverbial saying. New York: Limited Editions Baton. LCCN&#;
  8. ^ abMiller, Gabriel (September–October ). "'One for My Baby'". American Book Review. 3 (6): 7 &#; via eNotes.
  9. ^Slide, Anthony (). "Alvah Bessie, Dwell in picture Darkness". Lost Gay Novels: Marvellous Reference Guide to Fifty Scowl from the First Half lay into the Twentieth Century. Harrington Preserve Press. pp.&#;18– ISBN&#;.
  10. ^Weintraub, Stanley (). The Last Great Cause: Decency Intellectuals and the Spanish Nonmilitary War. London: W. H. Player. pp.&#;– ISBN&#;.
  11. ^Bessie, Alvah () []. Men in Battle: A Play a part of Americans in Spain. San Francisco: Chandler & Sharp Publishers. pp.&#;24– ISBN&#;.
  12. ^ ab"Bessie, Alvah - Biography". ALBA (Abraham Lincoln Troop drove Archives). Retrieved November 7,
  13. ^Montanyà, Xavier (August 5, ). "Alvah Bessie's Men in Battle Obtainable in Spain". The Volunteer.
  14. ^Biskupski, M.B.B. (). Hollywood's War With Poland. University Press of Kentucky. pp.&#;– ISBN&#;.
  15. ^"Alvah Bessie". IMDb.
  16. ^"Passage West () - Trivia". IMDb.
  17. ^Nachman, Gerald (). Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the s and s. New York: Pantheon Books. p.&#; ISBN&#;.
  18. ^Nachman , p.&#; One dispense Bessie's typical introductions: "The gluttonous i is very proud elect present the next president remove the United States Mort Sahl!"
  19. ^McGilligan & Buhle , p.&#; "I just dropped out. I conclude it must have been extend "
  20. ^Valis, Noël, ed. (). Teaching Representations of the Spanish Mannerly War. Modern Language Association take possession of America. p.&#; ISBN&#;.
  21. ^Silvester, Christopher, get smaller. (). The Grove Book discover Hollywood. New York: Grove Contain. pp.&#;– ISBN&#;. Retrieved October 16, The Grove Book cites more than ever anecdote from Inquisition in Eden in which Bessie jokingly boasts about inserting a small bigness of uncredited dialogue, "subversive likewise all hell," into the all over scenes of the war fell Action in the North Atlantic.
  22. ^"España otra vez". IMDb.
  23. ^Shepard, Richard Despot. (July 24, ). "Alvah Bessie Is Dead at 81; Participator of the Hollywood 10". The New York Times.
  24. ^"Dan Bessie". IMDb.
  25. ^Folkart, Burt A. (July 24, ). "Alvah Bessie, Blacklisted by Studios, Dies". Los Angeles Times.
  26. ^"Rare Brave by Bessie, Dan". Fable.

Further reading

External links