Born in Brooklyn, NY; educated at Dartmouth. After graduation, he wrote regularly for the New Yorker and during WW II he served as a roving reporter for the G.I. weekly Yank. After demobilization he returned to magazine writing, then headed for Hollywood. He was blacklisted by the industry in the wake of the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings after collaborating on only one screenplay, KISS THE BLOOD OFF MY HANDS (1948), and did not work again in films for a decade. He worked uncredited on "You Are There" (1953, TV series), THE WONDERFUL COUNTRY (1959), A BREATH OF SCANDAL (1960) and THE TRAIN (1964). In 1976 he wrote the script for THE FRONT, a film that dealt with the blacklisting era. He has also written for TV. In 1980 he took a weak first stab at directing (LITTLE MISS MARKER). Other notable credits, alone or in collaboration, include FAIL-SAFE (1964), THE MOLLY MAGUIRES (1970), THE BETSY and SEMI-TOUGH (both 1978), YANKS (1979), THE LEGEND OF BILLY JEAN (1985) and "Miss Evers' Boys" (1997, TV - teleplay). In 1994, he received the Writers Guild of America East Lifetime Achievement Award, and he is also author of the books Keep Your Head Down and Inside Out: A Memoir of the Blacklist. He is an adjunct Professor of Screenwriting at the Columbia University Film School, and an advisor at the Screenwriting Lab at the Sundance Institute.  Writing (Best Screenplay written directly for the screen) 1976: THE FRONT 1 nomination, 1 Award