Almanac of Story Tellers: Dalton Trumbo

  Every day brings a new story.  And each day contributes to the art of story telling -- in prose and poetry, in music, on the stage, on the screen, and, of course, in books. 

Today is the story of December 9th.

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    It is the 343nd day of the year, leaving 22 days in 2021.

    On this date in 1905, Dalton Trumbo, the great novelist, screenwriter, newspaperman, and blacklisted member of the Hollywood Ten, was born in Montrose, Colo.

    Trumbo's best known work, perhaps, is Johnny Got His Gun, an anti-war novel that tells about Joe Bonham, an American soldier who wakes up in a hospital and gradually discovers he has lost his arms, legs, and his face, but he remains alive and concious. The novel depicts his thoughts as he reminices about his life, and his thoughts on the pointlessness of war and the men forced to kill and die for little or no reason.

    The novel was pubished in 1939. In 1943, Trumbo joined the American Communist Party. Although he resigned from the party in 1947, he re-joined in 1954. 

    His writings and his political activities led his to being called before the House Un-American Activities Commitee in October 1947. But he refused to testify or to provide names of other possible communist sympathizers or report on their activities. He was convicted of contempt of Congress and served 11 months in federal prison.

    At the time, the motion pictures industry said Trumbo and the nine other producers, directors, and screenwriters who refused to testify could not longer work in Hollywood. The so-called Hollywood 10 -- 10 named men who were part of a larger blacklist from Hollywood -- were indeed officially not permitted to work for more than a decade.

    But Trumbo and other writers were able to work using "fronts," -- un-blacklisted writers who put their names on others' works -- or under assumed names. During his years as an outcast, two of Trumbo's screenplays -- Roman Holiday and The Brave One -- won Academy Awards. Trumbo was not credited for his work or his awards, and information about his nominations did not become public until  decades later.