Alfred Lewis Levitt

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Alfred Lewis Levitt

Born Alfred Lewis Levitt
June 3, 1916
Bronx, New York
Died November 16, 2002 (aged 86)
Los Angeles, California
Cause of death heart failure
Spouse Helen Slote Levitt

Alfred Lewis Levitt (June 3, 1916 – 16 November 2002) was an American screenwriter and television scriptwriter. He attended New York University, and served in a camera unit of the United States Air Force during the Second World War. Following the war, Levitt was the screenwriter for such films as The Boy with Green Hair (1948), Mrs. Mike (1950), and The Barefoot Mailman (1951).

In 1951 he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) for his communist involvements, and was entered on the Hollywood blacklist. He became unable to find work as a screen writer, and subsequently wrote television scripts under the pseudonym "Tom August."

Levitt and Pearl Helen Slote (December 16, 1916 - April 3, 1993) were married in 1938; they had two children. Helen Slote Levitt, as Slote was called after her marriage, was also a screenwriter who collaborated with her husband on many projects. She was also blacklisted, after which she wrote under the pseudonym "Helen August" for many years.[1] The Levitts (usually credited as Tom and Helen August) were writers for such television shows as The Monkey's Uncle, Bewitched, and The Bionic Woman.

The Levitts' experiences as blacklisted screenwriters have been described in several books about the Hollywood blacklist.[2][3][4][5] Among the Levitts' activities during the early years of their blacklisting, and corresponding unemployment, was to participate in publishing the journal Hollywood Review. Hollywood Review has been characterized by Ceplair and Englund as:[6]

...a critical review focusing on American films --more specifically on the increasing violence, sadism, hatred, bigotry, and glorification of brutality perpetrated on audiences by the entertainment industry.

Nine issues of the journal were published between 1953 and 1956.

In 1978, Levitt rejoined the Writers Guild of America. Starting in 1988, Levitt led an effort through the Writers' Guild to correct film credits from the blacklist era, in which it became common for the work of blacklisted writers to be uncredited, or credited using pseudonyms.[1][7] The Writers' Guild maintains this listing on its website. [8][9]

In 1995, Alfred and Helen Levitt were honored with the Morgan Cox Award of the Writers' Guild of America.[10]

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[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Vosburgh, Dick (2002). "Obituary: Alfred Lewis Levitt," The Independent (London), Nov. 27, 2002. Online version retrieved January 18, 2008.
  2. ^ Ceplair, Larry (1991). Hollywood Blacklist: Helen Slote Levitt, oral history program (UCLA).
  3. ^ Gordon, Bernard (1999). Hollywood Exile, Or, How I Learned to Love the Blacklist: A Memoir, (University of Texas Press). ISBN 0292728336.
  4. ^ Buhle, Paul (2003). Hide in Plain Sight: The Hollywood Blacklistees in Film and Television, 1950 (Palgrave-MacMillan). ISBN 1403961441.
  5. ^ Ceplair, Larry and Englund, Steven (2003). The Inquisition in Hollywood: Politics in the Film Community, 1930-60 (Univ. of Illinois Press). ISBN 978-0252071416.
  6. ^ Ceplair and Englund, loc cit., p. 413.
  7. ^ Alfred Lewis Levitt Biography Internet Movie Database
  8. ^ Johnson, Ted (1997). "WGA corrects blacklist credits," Variety April 3, 1997. Online version retrieved Jan. 20, 2008.
  9. ^ "Corrected Blacklist Credits (as of 7/17/00)," webpage of the Writers' Guild of America, west. Webpage retrieved Jan. 20, 2008.
  10. ^ "Morgan Cox Award," webpage of the Writers' Guild of America, west. Retrieved Jan. 20, 2008.

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