Budd Schulberg Dead at 95

Veteran screenwriter and bestselling author Budd Schulberg died Wednesday afternoon. His wife, Betsy, has said he died of natural causes at a hospital near his Long Island home.

The son of studio head B.P. Schulberg, Budd Schulberg’s 1941 novel, See Sammy Run, created a stir in film industry circles when it was first published. Schulberg was best known for the screenplay for the 1954 film, On the Waterfront. The movie starred Marlon Brando who won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance. On the Waterfront received seven other Oscars and is widely considered to be one of the most important films ever made. From The Los Angeles Times:

Budd Schulberg, who exposed the dark side of American ambition in his acclaimed Hollywood novel “What Makes Sammy Run?"” and won an Academy Award for his screenplay depicting the mob-controlled longshoremen’s union in the film classic “On the Waterfront," has died. He was 95.

Schulberg, a one-time Communist Party member who was ostracized in Hollywood after naming names before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the early 1950s, died of natural causes Wednesday at his home in Westhampton Beach, N.Y., his wife, Betsy, told the Associated Press.

The Los Angeles Times piece is here. The New York Times Arts Blog chimes in here, but promises that an obit will follow shortly.