Screenwriter Norma Barzman, who received her begin in the course of the Golden Age of Hollywood and was blacklisted along with her husband in the course of the McCarthy period, died Sunday in Beverly Hills, her son Paolo confirmed. She was 103.
Barzman and her husband, fellow screenwriter Ben Barzman, moved to Europe as did many different Hollywood progressives who got here beneath McCarthy’s scrutiny. The couple and their seven kids lived in London, Paris and Mougins, France between 1949 and 1976. Ben Barzman died in 1989.
Norma Barzman was additionally lively in getting credit restored for blacklisted writers whose movies had been launched with a “entrance” identify, corresponding to her movie “The Locket.” In 1999, her writing credit score was restored on the 1953 movie “Luxurious Women,” which had carried the identify of the entrance Ennio Flaiano.
Barzman spoke out in protest when Elia Kazan, who was a witness earlier than the Home Committee on Un-American Actions, was given an honorary Oscar in 1998, and was instrumental in serving to to prepare an exhibit on the Hollywood Blacklist on the Academy in 2001.
She authored “The Pink and the Blacklist: The Intimate Memoir of a Hollywood Expatriate,” which was launched in 2003 and paperwork her expertise as a blacklisted author.
She recounted her experiences within the L.A. Occasions in 2014. “However even in Europe, the usgovernment saved these exiles at shut vary,” Susan King wrote. “After acquiring her FBI information, Norma Barzman ‘found they adopted us in Paris. We moved round lots, they usually knew each phone quantity and each deal with. They knew the whole lot we did from 1949 to 1954 till we purchased our home in Paris.’ And to complicate issues, the U.S. Embassy took away her passport in 1951 for seven years.”
Barzman additionally wrote the story “What Nancy Wished,” which Sheridan Gibney tailored into the script for the 1946 psychological thriller “The Locket.” She was given a co-writing credit score years later. The movie stars Laraine Day as Nancy, a girl who’s about to be married when one other man visits her fiancé, claiming to be her former husband and alleging that she is mentally disturbed. The movie is recognized for its use of flashbacks.
Amongst her different credit had been the script for the 1946 Warner Bros. romantic comedy “By no means Say Goodbye,” starring Errol Flynn and Eleanor Parker as a divorced couple whose daughter tries to deliver them again collectively.
Barzman wrote the 1953 French-Italian comedy movie “Ending College” and later penned the Italian tv sequence “Il triangolo rosso,” which ran from 1967-1969. She made on display screen appearances as an actress in “Theatre 70” (1970) and “Pajama Social gathering” (2000).
Barzman was born on Sept. 15, 1920 in New York Metropolis. She was briefly married to mathematician Claude Shannon; they lived collectively in Princeton, N.J. earlier than divorcing. She then relocated to Los Angeles alongside her mom and took courses at The College for Writers, which had leftist members.
Barzman is survived by seven kids, together with her son Paolo Barzman, who’s a movie and tv director-writer.
