56 Facts About Philip Yordan

Philip Yordan was an American screenwriter, film producer, novelist and playwright.

Philip Yordan was a three-time Academy Award nominee, winning Best Story for Broken Lance.

Philip Yordan was born to Polish Jewish immigrants on April 1,1914 in Chicago.

Philip Yordan was an avid fan of detective stories; he contemplated a career as a writer.

Philip Yordan started working at the Goodman Theatre as an actor and began writing stories.

Philip Yordan decided to pursue writing, eventually becoming a playwright.

In Los Angeles Philip Yordan did some uncredited writing on The Devil and Daniel Webster, directed by Dieterle, and then was credited as co writer on the jazz project, Syncopation, directed by Dieterle at RKO.

Philip Yordan worked briefly at Columbia Pictures as a staff writer.

Philip Yordan wrote a script for King Brothers Productions, Dillinger, which was too expensive for them to produce.

Philip Yordan came up with a melodrama, The Unknown Guest.

The Kings liked his work and hired Philip Yordan to write Johnny Doesn't Live Here Anymore and When Strangers Marry, although Dennis Cooper wrote the first draft which Philip Yordan then rewrote.

Philip Yordan wrote Woman Who Came Back for Republic Pictures and Whistle Stop for producer Seymour Nebenzal starring Ava Gardner.

Philip Yordan did uncredited work on Why Girls Leave Home.

Philip Yordan had written a play based on Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie, adapted to be about a Polish American family and titled Anna Lucasta.

Philip Yordan received financial backing and signed an agreement with Hill and producer John Wildberg.

Philip Yordan had hired several writers to rewrite Anna Lucasta before the play premiered on Broadway.

Philip Yordan directed the film using his own revised screenplay.

Philip Yordan won his Oscar for Best Original Story for material in the story files that had formed the basis for House of Strangers, salvaged, provided a Western context, and refurbished by producer-writer Michael Blankfort.

In 1948 Philip Yordan formed a company with actor Bob Cummings and Eugene Frenke called United California Productions who made Let's Live a Little.

Philip Yordan did some uncredited work on Panic in the Streets and No Way Out, both for Fox.

Philip Yordan wrote Edge of Doom for Sam Goldwyn, based on a story by Goldwyn.

Philip Yordan did Detective Story for William Wyler at Paramount and provided the story for Mara Maru at Warners.

Philip Yordan adapted Houdini for Paramount and Blowing Wild for Warner Bros.

Security Pictures made The Big Combo, a co-production with the company of star Cornel Wilde; Philip Yordan wrote the script and produced with Sidney Harmon.

Philip Yordan said he turned down an offer of $75,000 for the script in order to produce.

Philip Yordan wrote The Man from Laramie for James Stewart and director Anthony Mann, the last film Stewart and Mann made together.

Philip Yordan worked on the script for Joe MacBeth, and did another for Mann, The Last Frontier.

Philip Yordan produced and adapted Budd Schulberg's novel The Harder They Fall, which was directed by Mark Robson.

Philip Yordan provided the story for Street of Sinners for Security.

Philip Yordan was a writer-producer for The Harder They Fall directed by Mark Robson.

Philip Yordan wrote No Down Payment for Martin Ritt at Fox, and Island Women at Security.

Philip Yordan wrote and produced Day of the Outlaw at Security and wrote The Bramble Bush for Warners.

Philip Yordan made some uncredited contributions to the script of The Time Machine.

Philip Yordan struck a deal with screenwriter Ben Maddow who was having difficulty getting work because of the left-wing associations.

Philip Yordan received sole credit for Johnny Guitar for Republic Pictures, which became a major cult film, although it is unclear how much Philip Yordan actually contributed to the final script.

In February 1960, Philip Yordan was announced as screenwriter for Bryna Productions' spectacle film Montezuma, though Dalton Trumbo, who had worked on several scripts for the independent film company, was later revealed as the actual writer.

Philip Yordan then did uncredited writing on Murder by Contract and The Lost Missile.

Columbia studio head Sam Briskin hired Philip Yordan, provided he keep an office on the lot and that his authorship of any scripts would be guaranteed.

However, Philip Yordan allegedly continued to shuttle scripts around town and rarely appeared at Columbia.

Philip Yordan was barred from Columbia, as well as nearly every other studio in Hollywood.

Unable to work in Hollywood, Yordan found opportunity in Spain with independent producer Samuel L Bronston.

Bronston engaged him to fix the script for the film and Philip Yordan then hired Ray Bradbury to write the voice-over narration, used an anonymous Italian writer for the script.

Philip Yordan retained sole writing credit on the finished film.

Philip Yordan stayed with Bronston to write El Cid for Mann, although it is more likely the actual scripting was done by blacklistees Ben Barzman and Bernard Gordon.

Philip Yordan was announced as writing a script for Bronston about the building of the Eiffel Tower.

Philip Yordan was credited on The Day of the Triffids but he was a "front" for Bernard Gordon.

Philip Yordan continued to work regularly for Bronston: 55 Days at Peking, directed by Ray and Guy Green, with Yordan producing, contributing ideas and being a script front for Gordon; The Fall of the Roman Empire, directed by Mann; and Circus World, directed by Henry Hathaway.

For Security Pictures, Philip Yordan produced The Thin Red Line and Crack in the World.

Security went on to make The Royal Hunt of the Sun, which Philip Yordan wrote and produced.

Philip Yordan wrote and produced Captain Apache with Sperling, and wrote Bad Man's River.

Philip Yordan made uncredited script contributions to Horror Express, The Mad Bomber, Psychomania and Pancho Villa.

Philip Yordan was married to actress-turned-casting director Marilyn Nash from 1946 to 1952, and to actress Faith Clift from 1964 to 2003.

Philip Yordan doesn't cry, he doesn't beg, he doesn't ask favours.

Philip Yordan died in La Jolla, California on March 24,2003, at the age of 88.

Philip Yordan had a kind of Jungian memory of film, a kind of collective unconscious, a memory bank that would work for him in any given situation.

Philip Yordan could have been one of the best writers.