Daniel Fuchs (writer)

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Daniel Fuchs (born June 25, 1909 in New York , † July 26, 1993 in Los Angeles ) was an American writer and screenwriter .

Life

youth

Fuchs was the fourth child of Jewish emigrants who came to the United States as adolescents. The father came from Russia , the mother from Poland . Fuchs spent his early childhood on the Lower East Side , where his father ran a kiosk. When he was five years old, the family moved to the district of Williamsburg in Brooklyn to. The new environment shaped him and had a great influence on his later literary work.

Fuchs demonstrated his literary inclination at an early stage. At high school he was the editor of the school newspaper , at City College that of the student literary magazine. During a stay at a summer camp in Massachusetts , where he worked as a swimming instructor, he met his future wife Susan. The two married in 1932 and later had three children together.

writer

In 1931 excerpts from "A Brooklyn Boyhood", a story in which Fuchs had processed experiences of his youth in Williamsburg, under the title "Where Al Capone Grew Up" in the New Republic appeared . Editor-in-chief Malcolm Cowley recommended that the young author develop his descriptions into a novel. Because his work as a primary school teacher took too much time, Fuchs was only able to implement this in the summer vacation of the following year. The result was the novel Summer in Williamsburg , in which a first-person narrator describes the life of the district's Jewish population. Summer in Williamsburg was published in 1934.

In quick succession, Fuchs wrote two more novels, Homage to Blenholt (1936) and Low Company (1937), which were also printed. The latter novel, the somber evocation of a world full of crime, is considered his best work. Although Fuchs moved the setting here from Williamsburg to the fictional Neptune Beach (easily identifiable for New Yorkers as Brighton Beach ), the three novels together are known as the "Williamsburg Trilogy" (more rarely: "Brooklyn Trilogy"). They received good to very good reviews, but hardly found any readers.

Disappointed with the failure, Fuchs gave up work on a fourth novel and sold excerpts from what had already been written as short stories to magazines such as The New Yorker , Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post . Upon invitation, he briefly tried his hand at screenwriting in Hollywood , but returned to New York a few months later, disaffected. He processed the experience in the short story "Dream City or the Drugged Lake" (1937).

Screenwriter

After one of his short stories was filmed for the first time in 1939, Fuchs went back to California in 1940 , this time permanently. During World War II , Fuchs served in the Navy and worked for the Office of Strategic Services . During this time his career as a professional screenwriter began. He wrote his own scripts, worked on them or provided templates that were converted into a script by others.

The first film that saw his name appear on screen was The Big Shot , a gangster film starring Humphrey Bogart in 1942 . Among the best-known films that Fuchs helped create are representatives of the film noir : The Man with the Scar ( Hollow Triumph ) from 1948, the Robert Siodmak film Daring Alibi ( Criss Cross ) with Burt Lancaster in the leading role from 1949 and Unter Secret command ( Panic in the Streets ), directed by Elia Kazan , from 1950. The little known The Gangster (1947), another film noir for which Fuchs wrote the screenplay, was an adaptation of his own novel Low Company .

Although Fuchs was never one of the greats in the field, he was successful as a writer in Hollywood. He gained his greatest recognition for the film Tyrannische Liebe ( Love Me or Leave Me ), which was made in 1955 under the direction of Charles Vidor with Doris Day and James Cagney in the lead roles. When processing the life story of the singer Ruth Etting , Fuchs wrote the template and worked on the script. He was awarded an Oscar in 1956 for the template and was nominated for the script. During this time he continued to write short stories, mostly for The New Yorker . The last film script he worked on was for the western Vom Teufel ritten (1958).

Later years

In 1961 the "Williamsburg Trilogy" was reissued. The three novels now appeared in one volume and attracted greater criticism. Since then, they have been reprinted several times, together or individually. Fuchs reworked a rejected script in his fourth and final novel, West of the Rockies , which appeared in 1971 but was unsuccessful. In addition to short stories, he wrote a number of autobiographical texts, most of which appeared in Commentary . They can be found in the anthology The Apathetic Bookie Joint from 1979. The autobiographical novella "Triplicate" was also published for the first time. An anthology of the Hollywood stories by Fuchs was published in 2005, with an introduction by John Updike .

Daniel Fuchs died of heart failure in Los Angeles in 1993 at the age of 84.

Works

prose

  • Summer in Williamsburg. A novel . Vanguard Press, New York 1934.
  • Homage to Blenholt. A novel. Vanguard Press, New York 1936.
  • Low Company. A novel. Vanguard Press, New York 1937.
  • West of the Rockies. Knopf, New York 1971, ISBN 0-39446-987-9 .
  • The Apathetic Bookie Joint. Methuen, New York 1979, ISBN 0-41600-061-4 .
  • The Golden West. Hollywood Stories. Selected by Christopher Carduff, introduction by John Updike. David R. Godine, Boston 2005, ISBN 1-57423-205-3 .

Movies

  • The Day the Bookies Wept. USA 1939. Director: Leslie Goodwins. Script: Bert Granet and George Jeske based on the story "Crazy Over Pigeons" by Daniel Fuchs.
  • The big gangster . Original title: The Big Shot. USA 1942. Director: Lewis Seiler. Script: Daniel Fuchs, Bertram Millhauser and Abem Finkel.
  • A woman's confession. Original title: The Hard Way. USA 1943. Director: Vincent Sherman . Screenplay: Daniel Fuchs and Peter Viertel based on a story by Jerry Wald .
  • Spy on the Orient Express. Original title: Background to Danger. USA 1943. Director: Raoul Walsh . Screenplay: WR Burnett with the participation of William Faulkner and Daniel Fuchs based on the novel Background to Danger by Eric Ambler .
  • Between two worlds. Original title: Between Two Worlds. USA 1944. Director: Edward A. Blatt. Screenplay: Daniel Fuchs based on a play by Sutton Vane.
  • The gangster. USA 1947. Director: Gordon Wiles. Screenplay: Daniel Fuchs based on his novel Low Company .
  • The man with the scar . Original title: Hollow Triumph. USA 1948. Director: Steve Sekely . Screenplay: Daniel Fuchs based on a novel by Murray Forbes.
  • Daring alibi . Original title: Criss Cross. USA 1949. Director: Robert Siodmak . Scenario: Daniel Fuchs based on a novel by Don Tracy.
  • Under secret orders . Original title: Panic in the Streets. USA 1950. Director: Elia Kazan . Screenplay: Richard Murphy based on a story by Edna Anhalt and Edward Anhalt , adapted by Daniel Fuchs.
  • The prisoner of the Ku Klux Klan. Original title: Storm Warning. USA 1951. Director: Stuart Heisler . Script: Daniel Fuchs and Richard Brooks .
  • Taxi. USA 1953. Director: Gregory Ratoff . Screenplay: Daniel Fuchs and DM Marshman Jr. based on the story “Sans laisser d'address” by Alex Joffé and Jean-Paul Le Chanois.
  • He always chased blondes. Original title: The Human Jungle. USA: 1954. Director: Joseph M. Newman . Screenplay: Daniel Fuchs and William Sackheim based on a story by William Sackheim.
  • Tyrannical love. Original title: Love Me or Leave Me. USA 1955. Director: Charles Vidor . Script: Daniel Fuchs and Isobel Lennart based on a story by Daniel Fuchs.
  • A heartbeat to eternity. Original title: Jeanne Eagels. USA 1957. Director: George Sidney . Screenplay: Daniel Fuchs, Sonya Levien and John Fante based on a story by Daniel Fuchs.
  • The last chord . Original title: Interlude. USA 1957. Director: Douglas Sirk . Script: Daniel Fuchs, Dwight Taylor and Franklin Coen based on a story by James M. Cain .
  • Ridden by the devil. Original title: Saddle the Wind. USA 1958. Director: Robert Parrish . Screenplay: Rod Stering with the participation of Daniel Fuchs based on a story by Thomas Thompson .
  • The other side of the coin. Original title: Underneath. USA 1995. Director: Steven Soderbergh . Screenplay: Steven Soderbergh based on the scenario by Daniel Fuchs for the film Daring Alibi (1949).

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Fox, Daniel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American novelist and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH June 25, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH July 26, 1993
Place of death los Angeles