He was 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 for A Face in the Crowd.


It is a rags to riches story chronicling the rise and fall of Sammy Glick, a Jewish boy born in New York's Lower East Side who, very early in his life, makes up his mind to escape the ghetto and climb the ladder of success by deception and betrayal. It was later made into a long-running Broadway musical.

After his name was given to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951, Schulberg voluntarily told HUAC that he had been a member of the Communist Party and named other members. His experience with the party and his first novel informed his decision to testify. In 1965 Schulberg established the Watts Writers Workshop in the Watts district of Los Angeles after the riots there, and in 1971 he founded the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center in New York City.

Schulberg continued writing throughout his life. At the time of his death, he was working with Spike Lee on a script about boxers Joe Louis and Max Schmeling. A memoir, Moving Pictures: Memories of a Hollywood Prince, appeared in 1981.


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