Edward Anhalt

Biography

Edward Anhalt (New York City, 1914 - 2000) was an American screenwriter, producer and documentary filmmaker who worked in Hollywood for almost four decades. He won two Academy Awards, one for Best Story and another for Best Adapted Screenplay, which place him among the most recognised studio writers of his generation.

Before moving into film he worked as a journalist and documentary maker for Pathé and CBS-TV. During the Second World War he served with the Army Air Force's First Motion Picture Unit in Culver City, writing scripts for training films. Together with his wife, Edna Anhalt, he wrote pulp thrillers under the joint pseudonym Andrew Holt.

After their first screenplay credit in 1946 with Strange Voyage, the couple settled in Los Angeles. With Panic in the Streets (1950) they shared the Oscar for Best Story. After their divorce, Anhalt worked alone with notable versatility, adapting Irwin Shaw's novel The Young Lions and writing Becket, which earned his second Oscar. He also worked in television, receiving an Emmy nomination for the miniseries QB VII (1974).

His work is a good example of the dependable, professional craft of the studio screenwriter, valued more for skill than for a recognisable signature, and it remains a reference point for literary adaptation in American cinema.

Key films

• Becket (1964): adaptation of Jean Anouilh's play that earned him his second Oscar.
• The Young Lions (1958): adaptation of Irwin Shaw's novel about the Second World War.
• The Boston Strangler (1968): thriller based on the real case of the Boston murders.
• Jeremiah Johnson (1972): Western directed by Sydney Pollack, starring Robert Redford.