Guy Endore

The Oscar-nominated screenwriter Guy Endore -- who served as one of the "fronts" during the time of the Hollywood blacklist until he too was blacklisted -- was born Samuel Goldstein in New York City on the Fourth of July in the year 1900. His father, Isidor Goldestein, was variously a coal miner, inventor and investor who hailed from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The family was poor and when young Sam was four years old, his mother -- Malka Hapern Isidore -- committed suicide.

After his wife's death, Isidor changed the family name to Endore and had his children committed to a Methodist orphanage. He eventually sold an invention that made him wealthy enough to send Guy and his siblings to Vienna, Austria to be educated. They were raised under the tutelage of a Catholic governess. After five years, their father disappeared from their lives and the children were sent back to Pittsburgh.

The hard-up Samuel Guy Endore managed to get enough money to attend New York's Columbia University, where he graduated in 1923 with his baccalaureate degree. Reportedly, he had rented out the bed in his room to another Columbia undergrad and slept on the floor. He took his master's degree from Columbia two years later. His wife was the former Henrietta Portugal, whom he married after completing his studies.

Guy Endore moved to Hollywood in 1935. While his credits are few (he had four in 1935, but they dropped off after that), he made a successful living as a screenwriter in Hollywood until he was blacklisted in the 1950s. He liked occult subjects and worked on such genre horror films as Mark of the Vampire (1935), Mad Love (1935), The Raven (1935) and The Devil-Doll (1936). One of his favorite subjects was hypnotism. His hypnosis-based novel "Methinks The Lady" was made into the classic film noir Whirlpool (1950) by producer-director Otto Preminger in 1949.

Endore was attracted to leftism While at Columbia. He had suffered his share of hard times and half-a-decade after he finished his M.A. in the flush years of the Cal Coolidge "The Business of America is Business" years, the country was mired in the Great Depression. He joined the Communist Party and wrote articles for the New Masses and other communist publications.

Endore was never subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee but he was eventually blacklisted. Eventually, he used his wife's brother-in-law as a front, Harry Relis. He himself had been a front for Dalton Trumbo before he was blacklisted.

In 1945, he was nominated for an Oscar for the screenplay of Story of G.I. Joe (1945). His last credit was the 1969 TV movie Fear No Evil (1969).

Guy Endore died in Los Angeles on February 12, 1970. He was 69 years old.