11 Facts About Albert Maltz

Albert Maltz was an American playwright, fiction writer and screenwriter.

Albert Maltz was one of the Hollywood Ten who were jailed in 1950 for their 1947 refusal to testify before the US Congress about their involvement with the Communist Party USA.

Albert Maltz was the third of three sons born to Bernard Morris Maltz, a Russian immigrant from modern-day Lithuania, and Lena Schereaschetsky, an immigrant from a Russia-controlled area.

Albert Maltz referred positively in his article to the work of James T Farrell, a Trotskyist.

Albert Maltz was accused of "Browderism" and in order to retain his good standing with the party he had to humiliate himself by publishing in the Daily Worker a rebuttal of his own article.

Albert Maltz won the O Henry Award twice: in 1938 for The Happiest Man on Earth, a short story published in Harper's Magazine, and in 1941 for Afternoon in the Jungle, published in The New Yorker.

In 1947 Albert Maltz became one of the Hollywood Ten, who refused to answer questions before the House Un-American Activities Committee about their Communist Party membership.

For refusing to respond, each was cited for contempt by Congress, sentenced to jail and fined, although Albert Maltz was the only one in the group whose citation was made the subject of a record vote, approved 346 to 17; Trumbo's citation was part of a standing vote, 240 to 15, and the remaining eight were cited via voice vote.

Albert Maltz was finally employed again on Two Mules for Sister Sara, which was a vehicle for the popular actors Clint Eastwood and Shirley MacLaine.

Albert Maltz worked on additional screenwriting projects in his later years, not all of which came to fruition; a 1972 article on Martin Rackin notes his intention to film a Modigliani biography he co-wrote with Maltz, while a 1978 Henry Fonda profile indicates his plans to revive a script of Maltz's The Journey of Simon McKeever, previously set to star Walter Huston but shelved due to the blacklist, then revived for Spencer Tracy but abandoned when the star died before shooting began.

Albert Maltz died April 26,1985, at the age of 76 from complications from a stroke he had had nine months before.