Born Harry McNab Peter Brown in Portland, ME; educated at Harvard University. He worked briefly for Time and The New Yorker magazines, then, toward the end of his WW II Army service, began writing war stories. His novel A Walk in the Sun (1944) was turned into an excellent motion picture by Lewis Milestone in 1946. Much of his writing for the screen deals with war (SANDS OF IWO JIMA, 1949; ONLY THE VALIANT, 1951; THE SNIPER, 1952; ALL THE BROTHERS WERE VALIANT, 1953; D-DAY THE SIXTH OF JUNE, 1956; et al.), but he also wrote, alone or in collaboration, screenplays for other types of dramas and Westerns, such as THE WAKE OF THE RED WITCH (1946), THE VIRGIN QUEEN (1955) and OCEAN'S 11 (1960). In the early 1960s he moved to Mexico, where he wrote several novels, including the autobiographical A Quiet Place to Work.  Nominated for Writing (Motion Picture Story) 1949: SANDS OF IWO JIMA  Writing (Screenplay) 1951: A PLACE IN THE SUN (w. Michael Wilson) 2 nominations, 1 Award