Budd Schulberg

Lifetime Achievement for Screenplay Writing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Budd Schulberg, born Seymour Wilson Schulberg on March 27, 1914, is Hollywood "royalty", the son of B.P. Schulberg, head of Paramount Pictures and Adeline Jafee-Schulberg, sister to agent/film producer Sam Jaffe. Schulberg is best known for his 1941 novel, What Makes Sammy Run, his 1947 novel The Harder They Fall, his 1954 Academy-award-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront, and his 1957 screenplay A Face in the Crowd.

Schulberg attended Deerfield Academy and then went on to Dartmouth College, where he was involved in the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern humor magazine. In 1939 he collaborated on the screenplay for Winter Carnival, a light comedy set at Dartmouth. One of his collaborators was F. Scott Fitzgerald. Dartmouth College awarded him an honorary degree in 1960.

In 1950 Schulberg published a novel, The Disenchanted, about a young screenwriter who collaborates on a screenplay about a college winter festival with a famous novelist at the nadir of his career. According to the New York Times, it was the tenth best-selling novel in the United States in 1950.

In 1965, after a devastating riot had ripped apart the fabric of the Watts community in Los Angeles, Schulberg formed the Watts Writers Workshop as an attempt to ameliorate frustrations and bring artistic training to the economically impoverished district. He is married to his fourth wife, Betsey, and has two children, Benn and Jessica. He resides in Westhampton, Long Island, New York.