What Makes Sammy Run?

"It’s a novel by Budd Schulberg about a copyboy who’s worked his way up from absolutely nothing to become an incredibly grasping self-motivated amoral movie producer. I think it was really based on Jerry Wald who was a Warners executive and then an independent who made lots of fantastic movies. Louis Meyer of MGM was appalled, and told Schulberg’s parents – Schulberg was the son of a movie exec – you’ve got to deport this son of yours because he’s going to fuel anti-Semitism. Hollywood became probably more establishment than they needed to have been in many ways, because they were terrified of anti-Semitism. Meyer was almost more anti-Communist than McCarthy, and Schulberg ended up being blacklisted as a Communist, partly because Hollywood was always terrified of (I think actually terribly wet about) being seen as harbouring this stuff. It was really horrible. Schulberg was a fascinating guy, a great writer: he wrote On the Waterfront and worked on John Ford’s wartime documentary unit. He went with the deputation to arrest Leni Riefenstahl, primarily to get her to identify people from footage. He died only about a month ago."