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Robert Rossen was born in New York City on March 16, 1908. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Russia and his father was a rabbi. The family was very poor and lived on the Lower East Side of New York City.
As his power in Hollywood escalated, the very forces Rossen described in his films ate away at the man himself. Rossen found the abstract ideals of politics – like stylized cinematic stereotypes – may not hold up to humanity’s unpredictable dips and swerves.
- Overview
- The 1940s and early ’50s
- After the blacklist
Robert Rossen , (born March 16, 1908, New York, New York, U.S.—died February 18, 1966, New York City), American writer and director whose career—although highlighted by a number of notable films, especially All the King’s Men (1949) and The Hustler (1961)—was damaged after he was blacklisted for initially refusing to testify (1951) before the House...
Rossen directed and stage-managed in the theatre for several years before breaking into Hollywood as a screenwriter in 1936. He quickly set up shop at Warner Brothers, where he wrote (or cowrote) some of the studio’s best films of the 1930s, including Marked Woman (1937), They Won’t Forget (1937), Dust Be My Destiny (1939), and The Roaring Twenties (1939). Rossen worked on the screenplays for The Sea Wolf (1941), Out of the Fog (1941), and Edge of Darkness (1943) before leaving the studio to write the World War II classic A Walk in the Sun (1945). He later penned The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), which became a noteworthy example of film noir, and he contributed (uncredited) to the screenplay of John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948).
Rossen’s first two directorial efforts were the competent film noir Johnny O’Clock, which he also wrote, and the boxing classic Body and Soul (both 1947). The latter movie featured John Garfield in arguably his finest performance, for which he received his only Academy Award nomination. In addition, James Wong Howe’s trailblazing cinematography and a potent script by Abraham Polonsky provided Rossen with unusually strong support. Rossen ascended to the top rank of Hollywood directors with All the King’s Men (1949), which he also produced and scripted, adapting the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Robert Penn Warren. It was an enormous critical and commercial success, winning Academy Awards for best picture, best actor (Broderick Crawford), and best supporting actress (Mercedes McCambridge); Rossen was nominated for best direction and best screenplay (losing on both counts to Joseph Mankiewicz). The Brave Bulls (1951) was Rossen’s peculiar choice to follow such a triumph. Shot in Mexico, its story about a matador had limited commercial appeal, particularly with the no-star cast that Rossen (who also produced) assembled.
Although free to work again, Rossen struggled to revive his career; his initial post-blacklist films were largely unsuccessful. In 1954 he made the melodrama Mambo, which was shot in Venice and starred Shelley Winters, Vittorio Gassman, and Silvana Mangano. Alexander the Great (1956), with a blond Richard Burton, was a handsomely mounted account of Alexander’s remarkable conquests, but Island in the Sun (1957) marked the first time in many years that Rossen neither produced nor scripted one of his own films, and it suffered from his absence. The 1959 historical drama They Came to Cordura set Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth during the days of Pancho Villa in Mexico; although a solid production, it was a disappointment at the box office.
Based on his initial post-blacklist work, it appeared that Rossen would never regain his former stature, but he did—in 1961, when The Hustler was released. Based on Walter Tevis’s novel about pool hustlers, the film was produced and cowritten (with Sidney Carroll) by Rossen, and it earned him his first Academy Award nomination for directing since 1949. One of the year’s best films, it contains what may be the finest work of Paul Newman’s career (superior even to his Oscar-winning performance in Martin Scorsese’s 1986 sequel, The Color of Money).
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- Michael Barson
Robert Rossen was born on 16 March 1908 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and director, known for The Hustler (1961), All the King's Men (1949) and Alexander the Great (1956). He was married to Sarah (Sue) Siegel. He died on 18 February 1966 in New York City, New York, USA.
- March 16, 1908
- February 18, 1966
Robert Rossen (March 16, 1908 – February 18, 1966) was an American screenwriter, film director, and producer whose film career spanned almost three decades.
Rossen worked on the screenplays for The Sea Wolf (1941), Out of the Fog (1941), and Edge of Darkness (1943) before leaving the studio to write the World War II film A Walk in the Sun (1945). He later penned The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), a film noir, and he contributed (uncredited) to the screenplay of director John Huston ’s The ...
Rossen's films for Warner generally described the conditions of working people, the portrayal of gangsters and racketeers, and opposition to fascism. He wrote that ambition and the desire for success were common themes in his work.
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