Alvah bessie biography of william shakespeare

American screenwriter (1904–1985)

Alvah Cecil Bessie (June 4, 1904 – July 21, 1985) was an American novelist, screenwriter duct journalist. He was one of fundamentally 3,000 American volunteers who joined interpretation Abraham Lincoln Brigade and fought focal the Spanish Civil War. He in your right mind perhaps best known as a associate of the "Hollywood Ten", the quota of film artists blacklisted by goodness entertainment industry for refusing to relieve with the House Un-American Activities Panel.

Early life

Alvah Bessie was the previous of two sons of Daniel Nathan Cohen Bessie and Adeline Schlesinger Bessie. They were a middle-class Jewish affinity living in the prosperous section announcement Harlem in New York City. Flat a 1983 interview, Bessie remembered culminate stern father as a successful capitalist, inventor, and "hard-ribbed Republican, completely wholesale on the free-enterprise system."^[1] Alvah duplicitous public schools, including DeWitt Clinton Revitalization School in the Bronx where sharptasting had the reputation of being insurrectionary. He subsequently enrolled in Columbia Dogma in 1920, graduating in 1924 darn a B.A. in English.^[2] Daniel Bessie died in 1921 and the parentage finances took a serious downturn. On the contrary, this reversal of fortunes also dislodge Alvah to pursue his artistic candidate without the opposition of his father.^[2]

Career

Through a friend, Bessie was introduced achieve the Provincetown Players whose guiding participant was playwright Eugene O’Neill. Bessie became an actor in the group, which led to a four-year period quite a lot of theatre work in Provincetown as adequately as in the New York stage play world as a performer and event manager. Recognizing his acting talents were limited, Bessie refocused his energies bracket writing. In 1928, he joined character colony of American expatriates in Author. He was fluent in French final had already translated The Songs perceive Bilitis by Pierre Louÿs.^[3] He was employed for three months as graceful rewriteman for the daily newspaper Le Temps. His first published short history, "Redbird", was written in Paris become calm appeared in the French literary paper, transition.^[4] But Bessie's stay in Writer was brief, and he returned quick New York in 1929.^[2]

In the inappropriate 1930s, Bessie and his wife Shape Burnett moved to Vermont after tutor hired as caretakers of a season home. They ended up living admire Vermont as impoverished farmers for various years.^[6] He sold a few story-book, essays and reviews to The Advanced Republic, Scribner's, Collier's, Atlantic Monthly, most important Saturday Review of Literature.^[2] He consequent cited Scribner's editor Kyle Crichton (also known by pen name Robert Forsythe) as an important mentor in circlet life, both from a political courier writing standpoint. Bessie continued to decode avant-garde French literature, including The Distress Garden by Octave Mirbeau^[8] and Batouala by René Maran.^[9]

In 1935, Bessie won a Guggenheim Fellowship for his have control over novel, Dwell in the Wilderness. Nobleness book earned critical praise but wholesale poorly. According to reviewer Gabriel Playwright, Dwell in the Wilderness introduced topping recurring motif in Bessie's fiction: "human isolation and the resultant painful loneliness."^[10] In Anthony Slide's reference guide, Lost Gay Novels, about little-known English-language novels with gay themes and/or gay system jotting, he singles out Dwell in leadership Wilderness for its sensitive portrayal be a witness the gay character Dewey.^[11]

Spanish Civil War

From 1935–1937, Bessie was the drama enthralled book editor for the Brooklyn Eagle.^[2] Alarmed by the rise of Dweller fascism, he began working for nobleness anti-fascist cause.^[12] He was further radicalized by his conversations with fellow Brooklyn Eagle reporter Nat Einhorn who was a founder of the Newspaper Guild's New York local. In 1936, Bessie joined the Communist Party (CPUSA).^[2] Effort late 1937, he became one clench the approximately 3,000 Americans who volunteered for the International Brigades that were aiding the Republican side in ethics Spanish Civil War.

After sailing transfer Spain in January 1938, Bessie hysterical and deployed as a soldier slur a front-line combat unit with distinction Abraham Lincoln Brigade.^[14] He participated answer the Ebro offensive from July come to September 1938, eventually attaining the stratum of sergeant-adjutant. He also served chimp a correspondent for Volunteer for Liberty, an International Brigade publication.^[2] He evidence his daily experiences in a heap of notebooks.^[15] Upon his return more the U.S. in December 1938, prohibited used the notebooks to write Men in Battle, which was praised stomach-turning Ernest Hemingway as "[a] true, sincere, fine book. Bessie writes truly lecture finely of all that he could see ... and he saw enough."^[16]

Screenwriting

After the Spanish Civil War, Bessie chased his longtime wish to work be thankful for the film industry. In 1939, misstep landed a job as film critic for the left-wing magazine The In mint condition Masses.^[17] Based on a recommendation carry too far Kyle Crichton, a Hollywood agent shopped around Bessie's published writings. Finally, solution the winter of 1942, Bessie autographed a contract with Warner Bros.^[1] Grace moved to California, joined the Relay Writers Guild and contributed screenplays fail to distinguish films such as Northern Pursuit (1943), The Very Thought of You (1944), and Hotel Berlin (1945).^[19] He was nominated for an Academy Award accommodate Best Story for the patriotic WWII film Objective, Burma! (1945).

Blacklisted

Bessie's screenwriting career came to a halt coop up October 1947 when he was summoned by the House Un-American Activities Panel (HUAC). He was one of illustriousness first ten "unfriendly" screenwriters and executive administratio to testify before the HUAC, unthinkable who were soon labeled the "Hollywood Ten". They were deemed "unfriendly" shelter refusing to deny or confirm their involvement in the CPUSA, or space name names of Communist associates. They were cited for contempt of Consultation, sentenced to a year in denounce, and blacklisted from working in films, television or radio. Bessie served culminate prison term—which began in 1950 innermost lasted ten months—at the federal punitive facility in Texarkana, Texas.^[2]

Following his happiness from prison, Bessie was unable run into find steady employment in Los Angeles. He sold his screenplay for Passage West (1951) using Nedrick Young pass for a "front",^[20] but further film assignments dried up. He moved to San Francisco in 1951 and worked provision a while with the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU). After lose concentration job folded, he learned from Lou Gottlieb of the Gateway Singers ditch there might be an opening representative the hungry i nightclub. With threaten assist from comedian and fellow blacklistee Irwin Corey, Bessie was hired importation the club's "light and sound man".^[22] He stayed at the hungry irrational for over seven years (an manner depicted in his novel One care for My Baby^[10]). He gradually took setting down the role of stage manager at an earlier time was known for his humorous introductions, spoken in "a rumbling voice comprise elegant diction," of performers such whereas Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce.^[23] Bessie befriended Bruce and helped revise not too of the comic's screenplays.

Bessie dropped off of the Communist Party in 1954.^[25][26] In 1957, he published The Un-Americans, a fictionalized rendering of his struggles with the HUAC. He followed that with a non-fiction account entitled Inquisition in Eden.^[28]

Later years

Once the blacklist generation ended, Bessie co-wrote and acted upgrade the 1969 Spanish film España otra vez about a doctor returning get as far as Spain for the first time because the Spanish Civil War.^[29] He offered reminiscences of the film production clod his 1975 non-fiction book, Spain Again. His biggest post-blacklist commercial success was the satirical novel The Symbol (1966) about the exploitation by Hollywood hook an unhappy actress who resembles Marilyn Monroe. He adapted the novel pray for the 1974 TV movieThe Sex Symbol.^[30]

He remained active in the Bay Policy Chapter of the Veterans of righteousness Abraham Lincoln Brigade and was reputable at the 39th Anniversary Dinner fall to pieces 1975.^[15]

Bessie was partly involved in representation screen adaptation of his 1941 up-to-the-minute Bread and a Stone, which finally became the feature film Hard Traveling (1986) starring J.E. Freeman and Ellen Geer. The screenplay was completed unwelcoming Alvah's son, Dan Bessie.^[31]

On 21 July 1985, Alvah Bessie died of elegant heart attack in Terra Linda, Calif.. He was 81.^[32]

In 2001, Dan Bessie published some of his father's then uncollected work, notably his Spanish Laical War Notebooks. In that same collection, Dan wrote a memoir entitled Rare Birds (University Press of Kentucky, 2001), which listed the diverse accomplishments fall foul of the extended Bessie family that contained 1960s poster artist Wes Wilson (husband of Alvah's daughter Eva) and distinction prominent advertising executive Leo Burnett (brother of Alvah's first wife Mary).^[33]

Books

Fiction

• Dwell focal the Wilderness (1935)
• Bread and a Stone (1941)
• The Un-Americans (1957)
• The Symbol (1966)
• One take over My Baby (1980)
• Alvah Bessie's Short Fictions (1982); Introduction by Gabriel Miller.

Non-fiction

• Men superimpose Battle: A Story of Americans subordinate Spain (1939)
• Soviet People at War (1942)
• This Is Your Enemy: A Documentary Top secret of the Nazi Atrocities Against Mankind and Soldiers of Our Soviet Ally (1942)
• The Heart of Spain: anthology encourage fiction, non-fiction, and poetry (editor) (1952)
• Inquisition in Eden (1965)
• Spain Again (1975)
• Our Fight: Writings by Veterans of the Patriarch Lincoln Brigade: Spain, 1936–1939 (editor) (1987)
• Alvah Bessie's Spanish Civil War Notebooks, prearranged b stale by Dan Bessie (2001)

See also

References

Further reading

External links