Oscar's Blacklist

McCarthyism ravaged their movie careers, but it didn’t keep a few writers from earning Hollywood’s highest award — in all but name.

Q: What scripts won Oscars for blacklisted writers?

Roman Holiday (1953): Dalton Trumbo wrote the story for this Audrey Hepburn-Gregory Peck romance, but co-screenwriter Ian McLellan Hunter, who acted as Trumbo’s front and was himself under suspicion at the time, won the Best Story Oscar.

The Brave One (1956): As ”Robert Rich,” Trumbo wrote this heartwarming story of a Mexican peasant boy’s friendship with a bull. It wasn’t until 1975 that the statuette officially found its rightful owner.

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957): Best Adapted Screenplay for David Lean’s WWII epic (starring William Holden, above) should have gone to Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman, but went to Pierre Boulle, the novel’s French author.

The Defiant Ones (1958): Nedrick Young won an Oscar under the name Nathan E. Douglas for his script with Harold Jacob Smith of this escaped-convict drama starring Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis.