Ring Lardner Jr.

Ring Lardner Jr.
Los Angeles Times photographic archive - Digital collections — UCLA Library · CC BY 4.0 · source
Name	Ring Lardner Jr.
Birth date	May 9, 1915
Death date	October 31, 2000
Occupation	Screenwriter, author
Notable works	"Woman of the Year", "M*A*S*H"
Awards	Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay

Ring Lardner Jr. was an American screenwriter and author known for his sharp dialogue and satirical sensibility. He wrote screenplays for Hollywood films and television, collaborated with producers and directors across mid-20th century American cinema, and became a prominent figure in the controversies surrounding the House Un-American Activities Committee. His career spanned engagements with studios, unions, and countercultural movements that shaped postwar Hollywood.

Early life and education

Born in Chicago, he was the son of a noted sportswriter family with roots in American journalism. He attended schools in Michigan and studied at institutions that connected him to literary circles and to figures associated with The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. Early influences included writers and journalists such as Ring Lardner (his father), H. L. Mencken, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and contemporaries in the Chicago literary scene.

Career and screenwriting

Lardner began his professional life contributing to magazines and moved into Hollywood during the studio era, working for companies like MGM, 20th Century Fox, and Columbia Pictures. He collaborated with prominent directors and producers including George Cukor, Michael Curtiz, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and writers in the circle of Ben Hecht and Dalton Trumbo. His screenplays ranged from adaptations of plays and novels to original scripts, leading to projects with stars such as Katherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, and Katharine Hepburn. Lardner's credits included comedies, dramas, and wartime films influenced by the cultural milieu of World War II and the postwar period.

Blacklist and HUAC testimony

During the late 1940s and 1950s Lardner became entangled with political controversies tied to HUAC investigations and the Hollywood blacklist. He was one of the Hollywood Ten associated with Communist Party USA allegations and declined to cooperate with HUAC, invoking constitutional concerns tied to debates involving free speech advocates and civil liberties organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union. Lardner was cited for contempt, faced imprisonment, and saw his studio contracts terminated by entities like RKO Radio Pictures and Warner Bros. His experience intersected with the careers of contemporaries such as John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Dalton Trumbo, Herbert Biberman, and public reactions shaped by figures like Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover.

Later career and awards

After the blacklist era eased, Lardner resumed screenwriting work and contributed to projects that engaged filmmakers from the New Hollywood generation as well as television producers for series such as M*A*S*H adaptations and projects involving creators like Robert Altman and Gene Reynolds. He won major recognition, including the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on a screenplay associated with stars and filmmakers of the period. His later collaborations involved studios and production companies including United Artists, Paramount Pictures, and independent producers who had ties to the revival of American cinema in the 1960s and 1970s. Lardner's awards and honors placed him alongside contemporaneous screenwriters who received accolades from institutions such as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and guilds like the Writers Guild of America.

Personal life and legacy

Lardner's personal life intersected with cultural and political communities in New York City and Los Angeles, involving friendships with writers, actors, and activists. He maintained connections to literary circles that included figures from The New York Review of Books, Harper's Magazine, and theatrical communities tied to Broadway and regional theaters. His legacy is reflected in discussions of censorship, artistic freedom, and the history of American cinema, often appearing in studies alongside scholars and critics such as Eric Bentley, Kingsley Amis, Christopher Hitchens, and historians of McCarthyism. Institutions and retrospectives at places like the Museum of Modern Art, American Film Institute, and university film programs examine his work in relation to the blacklist era and the evolution of screenwriting craft.

Category:American screenwriters Category:Recipients of the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay