Michael Wilson (writer)
Michael Wilson | |
---|---|
Born | McAlester, Oklahoma, U.S. | July 1, 1914
Died | April 9, 1978 | (aged 63)
Spouse | Zelma Wilson (m. 1941) |
Children | 2 |
Michael Wilson (July 1, 1914 – April 9, 1978) was an American screenwriter.
Life and career
Early life
Wilson was born and raised
Early Screenplays
Wilson was credited on The Men in Her Life (1941) with Loretta Young.
He did some
(1944).Wilson's career in Hollywood was interrupted by World War II when he served as officer in the U.S. Marine Corps.[3]
Return from World War II
In 1945, he became a contract writer with Liberty Films, working (uncredited) on such pictures as It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
He was a co-winner of the
Blacklisting
Wilson was named an unfriendly witness by the House Un-American Activities Committee and blacklisted for being a communist. After he was blacklisted, he left for France and worked on scripts for the European film industry.
While blacklisted, Wilson wrote the script for Salt of the Earth (1954), a fictionalized account of a real strike by zinc miners in Grant County, New Mexico. The movie was directed by Herbert Biberman and produced by Paul Jarrico both of whom had also been blacklisted. The film has been deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
He wrote or collaborated on scripts for Hollywood films without credit or under a
His screenplay for Friendly Persuasion was nominated for an Academy Award, but was disqualified because his name did not appear in the credits. Director William Wyler wanted his brother, Robert Wyler, and Jessamyn West credited for rewriting the script, but Wilson disputed this. Wyler then was able under the rules of the blacklist to have one of the few films in history credited to no writer at all.
Wilson and Carl Foreman worked separately on The Bridge on the River Kwai, but as both were blacklisted, the official credit went to Pierre Boulle, upon whose novel the movie was based, even though Boulle did not even speak English.
Wilson remained in France with his family for nine years, before returning to live in Ojai, California in the United States in 1964.[2]
Return to Hollywood
Wilson continued to write screenplays, including for
Michael Wilson was awarded
In 1995, Wilson was credited by the academy's board of directors with an Academy Award nomination as a co-writer of Lawrence of Arabia and credited as the winner of the Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for Best British Dramatic Screenplay.
Wilson also completed an unproduced screenplay on December 16, 1976, The Raid On Harper's Ferry, which was an adaptation of Truman J. Nelson's book The Old Man: John Brown at Harper's Ferry (1973). He also apparently wrote unproduced scripts for a movie about the Industrial Workers of the World titled The Wobblies and a movie about the infiltration of the Black Liberation Movement titled Quiet Darkness.
Personal life
Michael Wilson married
Filmography
- The Men in Her Life (1941)
- Border Patrol (1943)
- Colt Comrades (1943)
- Bar 20 (1943)
- Forty Thieves (1944)
- It's a Wonderful Life (1946) (uncredited)
- A Place in the Sun (1951)
- 5 Fingers (1952)
- Salt of the Earth (1954)
- Carnival Story (1954) (uncredited)
- They Were So Young (1954) (uncredited)
- The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955) (uncredited)
- Friendly Persuasion (1956) (originally uncredited)
- The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) (originally uncredited)
- The Two-Headed Spy (1958) (originally as James O'Donnell)
- La Tempesta (1958) (uncredited)
- 5 Branded Women(1960) (originally uncredited)
- Lawrence of Arabia (1962) (originally uncredited)
- The Sandpiper (1965)
- Planet of the Apes (1968)
- Che!(1969)
References
- Online Archive of California of the University of California., July 1, 1914. He graduated from UC Berkeley in 1936 with a BA in Philosophy.
Michael Wilson was born in McAlester, OK
- ^ Variety. April 12, 1978. p. 105.
- ^ Michael Wilson papers, 1942-1977 California Digital Library. Retrieved November 7, 2023.
- ^ Aljean Harmetz (March 16, 1985). "Oscars Go to Writers of 'Kwai'". The New York Times.
- ^ "Here and There," Berkeley Daily Gazette (June 23, 1941): 3, social page mentions the couple's recent wedding.
Further reading
- Caballero, Raymond. McCarthyism vs. Clinton Jencks. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019.
- Planet of the Apes (Magazine) #2, October 1974. P. 48–52, "Michael Wilson: The Other Apes Writer," by David Johnson. An exclusive interview with the co-author of the original Planet of the Apes movie.
Bibliography
- Merck, Mandy (2007). Hollywood’s American Tragedies: Dreiser, Eisenstein, Sternberg, Stevens. Oxford: Berg Publishers. ISBN 978-1-84520-664-2.
External links
- Michael Wilson at IMDb
- Finding Aid for the Michael Wilson Papers, 1942-1977 The Online Archive of California
- "'Under the table': Michael Wilson and the Screenplay for The Bridge on the River Kwai: for audiences, a screen masterpiece. For its blacklisted screenwriter, a saga of futility and bitterness, in epic proportions."[dead link]