Sunday night, July 18, 1982. The funeral. Michael Blankfort died. He had finished his 14th book and was carrying it under his arm at the accident. 74 years. Twelve highly acclaimed novels; one biography, theatrical plays; a horde of movies, collaboration on the film version of The Caine Mutiny, which he told me he actually wrote. An academy award nomination for Broken Arrow, which he told me he wrote but did not, after his death it came out that he’d served as a Front for Alfred Maltz one of the Hollywood 10. The Juggler, (1952) his novel that Stanley Kramer turned into the first Hollywood movie shot in the new State — a remarkable career as a writer, art collector and public man, president of the Screen Writers, Guild, vice-President of the Motion Picture Academy. And remarkably unknown to the public at large.
