Abraham Polonsky
| Abraham Polonsky | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Abraham Lincoln Polonsky December 5, 1910 New York City, New York |
| Died | October 26, 1999 (aged 88) Beverly Hills, California |
| Occupation | Film director, screenwriter, novelist, essayist |
Abraham Lincoln Polonsky (December 5, 1910 – October 26, 1999) was an American film director, Academy-Award-nominated screenwriter, essayist and novelist, blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s, in the midst of the McCarthy era.
Abraham Polonsky was born in New York City, the eldest son of Russian Jewish immigrants, Henry and Rebecca (née Rosoff) Polonsky. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School with classmates and lifelong friends Roy Pinney and Bernard Herrmann. In 1928, he entered City College of New York and, following graduation, earned his law degree in 1935 at Columbia Law School. After several years of practice, mixed with teaching, he decided to devote himself to writing. He was lifelong friends with Roy Pinney.
Polonsky wrote essays, radio scripts and several novels before beginning his career in Hollywood. His first novel, The Goose is Cooked, written with Mitchell A. Wilson under the singular pseudonym of Emmett Hogarth, was published in 1940.
A committed Marxist, in the late 1930s Polonsky also joined the Communist Party of the USA. He participated in union politics and established and edited a left-wing newspaper, The Home Front.
Polonsky signed a screenwriter's contract with Paramount Pictures before leaving the US to serve in Europe in the Office of Strategic Services during World War II (from 1943 to 1945). After the war, he briefly returned to writing for Paramount. He wrote the screenplay for Robert Rossen's independent production Body and Soul, (1947) starring John Garfield and Lilli Palmer. The screenplay was nominated for an Academy Award. Afterward, Polonsky became a Hollywood film director.
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