Waldo Salt - Overview

Date of Birth: Oct 18, 1914 Date of Death: Mar 07, 1987

Place of Birth: Chicago, Illinois, USA

Nationality: United States

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Full Biography

Although his name recognition was not as great as the Hollywood Ten's Dalton Trumbo and Ring Lardner Jr., Waldo Salt took the same unpopular stand of conscience as they, refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. The former drama teacher had received his first credit as a screenwriter for "The Shopworn Girl" (1938), reportedly worked uncredited on "The Philadelphia Story" (1940) and adapted "The Wild Man of Borneo" (1941) from a play by Marc Connelly and Herman Mankiewicz, among his projects, before World War II interrupted his career. Returning from overseas, he scripted "Rachel and the Stranger" (1948) and "The Flame and the Arrow" (1950), but the Hollywood blacklist would lock him out, stealing a decade from his working life. His next credit as Waldo Salt came for "Taras Bulba" (1962), adapted with Karl Tunberg from the Nikolai Gogol novel.

Salt fully hit his stride with the Oscar-winning script for John Schlesinger's "Midnight Cowboy" (1969), an emotionally shattering dramatization of James Leo Herlihy's novel. With the seamy... Read More

Filmography (10)

Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter's Journey (1990)

Into the Night (1985)

Coming Home (1978)

The Day of the Locust (1975)

Serpico (1973)

The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight (1971)

Milestones (18)

1990
Subject of Oscar-nominated documentary, "Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter's Journey"; aired on PBS in 1991

1983
Played cameo role as a male derelict in John Landis' "Into the Night"

1978
Received second Oscar for co-writing (with Robert C Jones and Nancy Dowd) the anti-war romantic drama "Coming Home"

1975
Reteamed with Schlesinger, adapting Nathanael West's novel "The Day of the Locust"

1973
Shared Oscar nomination with Norman Wexler for the screenplay for "Serpico", based on Peter Maas' book

1971
Adapted Jimmy Breslin's best-selling novel "The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight" for the screen

1969
Won Oscar for his "Midnight Cowboy" screenplay, based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy; first collaboration with director John Schlesinger

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