Ian McLellan Hunter

Ian McLellan Hunter was born in London on 8th August, 1915. He moved to Hollywood and in 1939 he met Bernard Vorhaus who recruited him to write the screenplay for Fisherman's Wharf. Vorhaus later recalled: "I was lucky to get as my writer Ian McLellan Hunter, for whom this was his first screen assignment... I was always willing to trust my own judgment on new people, whether it was writing or acting."

Other films written by Hunter included Meet Dr. Christian (1939), Escape to Paradise (1939), The Courageous Dr. Christian (1940), Second Chorus (1940), False Witness (1941), Footlight Fever (1941), Slightly Dangerous (1943), Young Ideas (1943), Show Business (1944) and Mr. District Attorney (1947).

In 1947 nineteen members of the film industry who were suspected of being communists were called to appear before the House of Un-American Activities Committee. This included Herbert Biberman, Alvah Bessie, Lester Cole, Albert Maltz, Adrian Scott, Dalton Trumbo, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner Jr., Samuel Ornitz, John Howard Lawson, Larry Parks, Waldo Salt, Bertolt Brecht, Richard Collins, Gordon Kahn, Robert Rossen, Lewis Milestone and Irving Pichel. The first ten witnesses called to appear before the HUAC, Biberman, Bessie, Cole, Maltz, Scott, Trumbo, Dmytryk, Lardner, Ornitz and Lawson, refused to cooperate at the September hearings and were charged with "contempt of Congress". They were all found guilty and given the maximum sentence of a year in prison.

Hunter had been involved in left-wing activities and feared being ordered before the HUAC. In the meantime he wrote screenplays for The Spiritualist (1948) and Your Witness (1950). Hunter also worked with Hugo Butler on the film A Woman of Distinction (1950). Butler's wife, Jean Rouverol, later commented: "It was written on the greylist... They were both depressed, and they thrashed it out, just a film by two men desperate for money."

Hunter's friend, Dalton Trumbo was blacklisted after he left prison. He asked Hunter to approach William Wyler with an idea for a film. Ring Lardner Jr. explained in his autobiography, I'd Hate Myself in the Morning (2000): "Ian got involved only by agreeing to front for the already-blacklisted Trumbo. It was he who had come up with the idea of a movie about a reporter and a princess on the loose in Rome. Paramount paid $50,000 for what it assumed to be Ian's (but was really Trumbo's) first draft, and hired him to do a rewrite... The result, much to Ian's (and Trumbo's) surprise, was a wonderful movie, starring Gregory Peck and the unknown Audrey Hepburn." In 1953 Roman Holiday won the Academy Award for the best screenplay (Trumbo did not get credit for this work until after the blacklist was lifted). Soon after accepting the award, Hunter was also blacklisted after being named as a member of the American Communist Party by Martin Berkeley and Robert Rossen.

Expected to be called before the House of Un-American Activities Committee Hunter and his wife decided to flee to Mexico City where they were joined by their friends, Ring Lardner Jr., Dalton Trumbo, Hugo Butler, Jean Rouverol and Albert Maltz. On Saturday mornings this group and their children used to have picnic lunches and play baseball together. The FBI were spying on them in Mexico and according to declassified reports, the agents believed that these picnics were cover for "Communist meetings." They were later joined by Martha Dodd and Frederick Vanderbilt Field.

In 1955 Hunter and Lardner moved back to the United States and went to live in Manhattan. The two men were approached by Hannah Weinstein, a blacklisted journalist who had moved to London. As Lardner later explained: "Hannah, the former executive secretary of the leftish Independent Citizen Committee of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions, was living in England and running a TV production company.... We were grateful, as well, to find that Hannah had chosen, for our maiden effort in the new medium, a literary property filled with stimulating possibilities. Set in medieval England and filmed largely in around Hannah's appropriately historic estate, Foxwarren, outside London, The Adventures of Robin Hood gave us plenty of opportunities for oblique social comment on the issues and institutions of Eisenhower-era America. And the series was a great success. Using our pilot script and a preview of episodes to come, Hannah sold the package to networks on both sides of the Atlantic; with Richard Greene in the title role, Robin Hood ran for four years, generating profits for everyone concerned and perhaps, in some small way, setting the stage for the 1960s by subverting a whole new generation of young Americans." Adrian Scott and Robert Lees also worked as writers on The Adventures of Robin Hood.

Over the next few years Hunter, using the name, Samuel B. West, worked mainly for television and contributed to The Four Just Men (1960), The Defenders (1963-64), The Reporter (1964), Seaway (1966), N.Y.P.D. (1967) and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968). In 1969 he wrote the screenplay for Dream of Kings (1969). He also taught screenwriting at New York University.

Ian McLellan Hunter died in New York City on 5th March, 1991.

Primary Sources

(1) Ring Lardner Jr., I'd Hate Myself in the Morning (2000)

In 1953, Ian had won an Oscar for Roman Holiday, the last picture he worked on before the blacklist got him. Winning that award was far from an unalloyed pleasure. Ian got involved only by agreeing to front for the already-blacklisted Trumbo. It was he who had come up with the idea of a movie about a reporter and a princess on the loose in Rome. Paramount paid $50,000 for what it assumed to be Ian's (but was really Trumbo's) first draft, and hired him to do a rewrite... The result, much to Ian's (and Trumbo's) surprise, was a wonderful movie, starring Gregory Peck and the unknown Audrey Hepburn.

(2) Ring Lardner Jr., I'd Hate Myself in the Morning (2000)

In 1955, having finished my book, I needed work that was more immediately and predictably remunerative, and a producer named Hannah Weinstein came through for me, as she did for many others. Hannah, the former executive secretary of the leftish Independent Citizen Committee of the Arts, Sciences, and Professions, was living in England and running a TV production company. Her first project was a series starring Boris Karloff and written by the blacklisted team of Abraham Polonsky and Walter Bernstein; only moderately successful, it was not renewed for a second year. Now she had another venture in mind, for which she approached me and Ian Hunter...

We were grateful, as well, to find that Hannah had chosen, for our maiden effort in the new medium, a literary property filled with stimulating possibilities. Set in medieval England and filmed largely in around Hannah's appropriately historic estate, Foxwarren, outside London, The Adventures of Robin Hood gave us plenty of opportunities for oblique social comment on the issues and institutions of Eisenhower-era America. And the series was a great success. Using our pilot script and a preview of episodes to come, Hannah sold the package to networks on both sides of the Atlantic; with Richard Greene in the title role, Robin Hood ran for four years, generating profits for everyone concerned and perhaps, in some small way, setting the stage for the 1960s by subverting a whole new generation of young Americans.

(3) The New York Times (7th March, 1991)

Ian McLellan Hunter, a screen and television writer who won an Academy Award for the 1953 film "Roman Holiday," died on Tuesday at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. He was 75 years old and lived in Manhattan. He apparently had a heart attack while seeing a doctor at the hospital, his wife, Alice, said....

Mr. Hunter taught in the dramatic-writing program at New York University for 20 years. For the last two summers, he was a screenwriting adviser at the Sundance Institute in Utah. He was a longtime member of the council of the Writers Guild of America, East.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a son, Tim, a film director; his sister, Aileen Hamilton, and four grandchildren, all of Los Angeles.