Martin Ritt

His 1958 film The Long, Hot Summer, based on three works by William Faulkner, was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. This was the first of three times that the director would be nominated for the honor. His 1963 film Hud earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, and his 1965 John le Carré adaptation The Spy Who Came in from the Cold won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. Two of his subsequent films, Sounder (1972) and Norma Rae (1979), were both nominated for Best Picture Oscars. Ritt directed many of the biggest stars of his time, including 13 of them to Academy Award wins or nominations - Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Neal, Richard Burton, James Earl Jones, Jane Alexander, Paul Winfield, Cicely Tyson, Geraldine Page, Sally Field, Rip Torn, Alfre Woodard and James Garner. Four of his films (Edge of the City, Hud, Sounder, and Norma Rae) have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant.

• Name — Martin Ritt • Born — 2 March 1914 • Birthplace — New York City, New York, U.S. • Died — 8 December 1990 • Place of death — Santa Monica, California, U.S. • Children — 2 • Occupation — * Director • producer • actor • Years Active — 1950–1990

• Illustration — Poster for Power, a Living Newspaper play for the Federal Theatre Project (1937) Ritt was born to a Jewish family in Manhattan, the son of immigrant parents. He graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. Ritt originally attended and played football for Elon College in North Carolina. The stark contrasts of the depression-era South, against his New York City upbringing, instilled in him a passion for expressing the struggles of inequality, which is apparent in the films he directed.

After leaving St. John's University, Ritt found work with a theater group, and began acting in plays. His first performance was as Crown in Porgy and Bess. After his performance drew favorable reviews, Ritt concluded that he could "only be happy in the theater." Ritt was hired as a playwright for the Roosevelt administration's New Deal Works Progress Administration with the Federal Theater Project, a federal government-funded theater support program. With work hard to find, social inequality obvious, and the Depression in full effect, many WPA theater performers, directors, and writers were influenced by the radical left and Communism. Ritt was among them. Years later, he stated that he had never been a member of the Communist Party, but he had considered himself a leftist and found common ground with some Marxist principles.

Ritt joined the Theater of Arts, then the Group Theatre in New York City. There, he met Elia Kazan, who cast Ritt as an understudy to his play Golden Boy. Ritt continued his association with Kazan for well over a decade, later assisting—and sometimes filling in for—Kazan at The Actors Studio. He eventually became one of the Studio's few non-performing life members.

During World War II, Ritt served with the U.S. Army Air Forces and appeared as an actor in the Air Forces' Broadway play and film adaptation Winged Victory. During the Broadway run of the play, Ritt directed a production of Sidney Kingsley's play Yellow Jack, using actors from Winged Victory. They rehearsed between midnight and 3 am after the Winged Victory performances. The play had a brief Broadway run and was performed again in Los Angeles when the Winged Victory troupe moved there to make the film version.

• Illustration — The May 7, 1948, issue of the Counterattack newsletter After working as a playwright with the WPA, acting on stage, and directing hundreds of plays, Ritt became a successful television director and producer. He produced and directed episodes of Danger, Somerset Maugham TV Theatre (1950–51), Starlight Theatre (1951), and The Plymouth Playhouse (1953).

In 1952, Ritt was caught up by the Red Scare and investigations of communist influence in Hollywood and the movie industry. Although not directly named by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), Ritt was mentioned in an anticommunist newsletter called Counterattack, published by American Business Consultants, a group formed by three former FBI agents. Counterattack alleged that Ritt had helped Communist Party-affiliated locals of the New York-based Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union stage their annual show. Also cited was a show he had directed for Russian War Relief at Madison Square Garden. His associations with the Group Theater, founded on a Russian model, and the Federal Theater Project (which Congress had stopped funding in 1939 because of what some anti-New Deal congressmen claimed to be a left-wing political tone to some productions), were also known to HUAC. He was finally blacklisted by the television industry when a Syracuse grocer charged him with donating money to Communist China in 1951. He supported himself for five years by teaching at the Actors Studio.

Unable to work in the television industry, Ritt returned to the theater for several years. By 1956, the Red Scare had decreased in intensity, and he turned to film directing. His first film as director was Edge of the City (1957), an important film for Ritt and an opportunity to give voice to his experiences. Based on the story of a union dock worker who faces intimidation by a corrupt boss, the film incorporates many themes that were to influence Ritt over the years: corruption, racism, intimidation of the individual by the group, defense of the individual against government oppression, and most notably, the redeeming quality of mercy and the value of shielding others from evil, even at the cost of sacrificing one's own reputation, career, or life.

Ritt went on to direct 25 more films. Producer Jerry Wald signed him to direct No Down Payment (1957) with Joanne Woodward. Wald later used Ritt on two adaptations of William Faulkner novels, both with Woodward: The Long, Hot Summer (1958) with Paul Newman, a big hit, and The Sound and the Fury (1959) with Yul Brynner, a flop. In between, he directed The Black Orchid (1958) at Paramount and 5 Branded Women (1960) in Europe. Ritt directed Paris Blues (1961) with Woodward and Newman. He made one more film with Wald, Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962), in which Newman played a supporting role. Ritt and Newman's next collaboration was 1963's Hud, starring Newman as the eponymous character. The film was a major financial success, and both men received Academy Award Nominations. It was also the first of four films that James Wong Howe would shoot for Ritt, and the second film for which he would win an Academy Award for Best Black-and-White Cinematography. The duo's fifth film together, The Outrage (1964), is an American retelling of the Kurosawa film Rashomon starring Newman, Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom, Edward G. Robinson, Howard da Silva, and William Shatner, and reuniting the pair with Howe. Like Kurosawa's film, Ritt employed a flashback structure in his film, and Newman traveled to Mexico and spent time speaking to local residents to study the accents. In spite of the pair's creative efforts, the film did not find the same success that Hud had had. However, their next collaboration, Hombre (1967), was a major financial success, but would prove to be the last film Ritt made with Newman. During this period, Ritt branched out by directing The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) with Richard Burton, a Cold War thriller based on the John le Carré novel. He ended the '60s with the Kirk Douglas-starring mafia film The Brotherhood (1968).

• Illustration — Ritt in 1979. In the 1970s, Ritt won acclaim for movies such as The Molly Maguires (1970), The Great White Hope (1970) (earning Oscar nominations for James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander), Sounder (1972), Pete 'n' Tillie (1972), and Conrack (1974) (from Pat Conroy's autobiographical novel). He also made a return to acting, playing Uncle Morty in a PBS production of Awake and Sing! and Hans Bärlach in End of the Game. After Warner Bros. Pictures bought the film rights to First Blood in 1973 Ritt was hired to direct from a screenplay by Walter Newman, featuring Paul Newman as John Rambo and Robert Mitchum as Sheriff Will Teasle. However his version of the film was not made. In 1976, Ritt made one of the first dramatic feature films about the blacklist, The Front, starring Woody Allen. The Front satirizes the use of "fronts", men and women who (either as a personal favor or in exchange for payment) allowed their names to be listed as writers for scripts actually authored by blacklisted writers. The film was based on the experiences of, and written by, one of Ritt's closest friends, screenwriter Walter Bernstein, who was blacklisted for eight years beginning in 1950. Ritt ended the decade by directing Casey's Shadow (1978), starring his Awake and Sing! co-star Walter Matthau, and Norma Rae (1979), which won Sally Field her first Oscar for Best Actress.

Ritt and his wife Adele had a daughter, film producer Martina Wernerand, and a son, Michael.

Ritt died of heart disease at age 76 in Santa Monica, California, on December 8, 1990.

• Year — Title — Role — Other notes • 1944 — Winged Victory — Gleason — as 'PFC. Martin Ritt' • 1975 — End of the Game — Hans Barlach • 1979 — Norma Rae — Factory Worker — Uncredited • 1985 — The Slugger's Wife — Burly De Vito

• Year — Title — Functioned as — Network — Other notes • Dir. — Pro. • 1949 — The Billy Bean Show — ABC — 1 episode • 1950 — Danger — CBS — 2 episode • 1950–51 — Somerset Maugham TV Theatre — CBS NBC — Director; 4 episodes Producer; 3 episodes • 1951 — Starlight Theatre — CBS — Director; 1 episode Producer; 9 episodes • 1953 — ABC Album — ABC — 1 episode • 1957 — The Alcoa Hour — NBC — 1 episode

• Year — Title — Role — Other notes — Ref. • 1951–52 — Danger — 6 episodes • 1952 — CBS Television Workshop — Episode: "Rocket" • City Hospital — Episode: "Angel in the Infield" • 1954 — High Tension — Episode: "The Pulse of Murder" • Spotlight — 5 episodes • Frontiers of Faith — Episode: "The Last Rabbi" • 1956 — Robert Montgomery Presents — Hugo Green — Episode: "Aftermath" • 1972 — Awake and Sing! — Uncle Morty — TV movie

• Year — Title — Venue — Notes • 1944 — Yellow Jack — 44th Street Theatre, New York — as 'PFC. Martin Ritt' • 1946 — Mr. Peebles and Mr. Hooker — Music Box Theatre, New York • 1947 — Yellow Jack — International Theatre, New York • 1948 — David's Crown — Broadway Theatre, New York — Production supervisor • Set My People Free — Hudson Theatre, New York • 1950 — The Man — Fulton Theatre, New York • Cry of the Peacock — Mansfield Theatre, New York • 1955–56 — A View from the Bridge — Coronet Theatre, New York • A Memory of Two Mondays • 1956 — A Very Special Baby — Playhouse Theatre, New York

• Year — Title — Role — Venue — Notes • 1937–38 — Golden Boy — Sam — Belasco Theatre, New York — Also assist. stage manager • 1939 — The Gentle People — Polack • 1940 — Two On An Island — Samuel Brodsky — Broadhurst Theatre, New York • Hudson Theatre, New York • 1942 — They Should Have Stood in Bed — 2nd Man — Mansfield Theatre, New York • 1942–43 — The Eve of St. Mark — Pvt. Glinka — Cort Theatre, New York • 1943–44 — Winged Victory — Gleason — 44th Street Theatre, New York — as 'PFC. Martin Ritt' • 1953 — Maya — Ernest — Theatre de Lys, New York • Men of Distinction — August Volpone — 48th Street Theatre, New York • 1954–55 — The Flowering Peach — Shem — Belasco Theatre, New York

Ritt directed Field in two more films: Back Roads (1981) and Murphy's Romance (1985). Between these two films he also directed Cross Creek (1983) about Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, author of The Yearling. It was nominated for (but did not win) four Oscars, including Best Supporting Actress Alfre Woodard and Best Supporting Actor Rip Torn. In 1987, Ritt again used extensive flashback and nonlinear storytelling techniques in the film Nuts, based on the stage play of the same name, written by Tom Topor. The film was considered a box-office disappointment in relation to its budget, although it did not actually lose money. Ritt's final film was Stanley & Iris (1990).

• Year — Title — Functioned as — Starring — Studio/Distributor — Other notes • Dir. — Pro. • 1957 — Edge of the City — John Cassavetes, Sidney Poitier, Jack Warden, Ruby Dee — MGM — Based on the teleplay "A Man Is Ten Feet Tall" by Robert Alan Aurthur • No Down Payment — Joanne Woodward, Sheree North, Tony Randall, Jeffrey Hunter — 20th Century Fox — Based on the novel by John McPartland • 1958 — The Long Hot Summer — Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Franciosa, Orson Welles — Based on The Hamlet; "Spotted Horses", and "Barn Burning" by William Faulkner • The Black Orchid — Sophia Loren, Anthony Quinn, Mark Richman, Ina Balin — Paramount Pictures • 1959 — The Sound and the Fury — Yul Brynner, Joanne Woodward, Margaret Leighton, Jack Warden — 20th Century Fox — Based on the novel by William Faulkner • 1960 — 5 Branded Women — Silvana Mangano, Jeanne Moreau, Vera Miles, Barbara Bel Geddes — Paramount Pictures — Based on Jovanka e le altre by Ugo Pirro • 1961 — Paris Blues — Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Sidney Poitier, Louis Armstrong — United Artists — Based on the novel by Harold Flender • 1962 — Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man — Richard Beymer, Diane Baker, Corinne Calvet, Paul Newman — 20th Century Fox — Based on The Nick Adams Stories by Ernest Hemingway • 1963 — Hud — Paul Newman, Melvyn Douglas, Patricia Neal, Brandon deWilde — Paramount Pictures — Based on Horseman, Pass By by Larry McMurtry • 1964 — The Outrage — Paul Newman, Laurence Harvey, Claire Bloom, Edward G. Robinson — MGM — Western remake of 1950 Akira Kurosawa film Rashomon • 1965 — The Spy Who Came in from the Cold — Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner, Peter van Eyck — Paramount Pictures — Based on the novel by John le Carré • 1967 — Hombre — Paul Newman, Fredric March, Diane Cilento, Richard Boone — 20th Century Fox — Based on the novel by Elmore Leonard • 1968 — The Brotherhood — Kirk Douglas, Alex Cord, Irene Papas, Luther Adler — Paramount Pictures • 1970 — The Great White Hope — James Earl Jones, Jane Alexander, Hal Holbrook, Chester Morris — 20th Century Fox — Based on the play by Howard Sackler • The Molly Maguires — Sean Connery, Richard Harris, Samantha Eggar, Frank Finlay — Paramount Pictures — Based on Lament for the Molly Maguires by Arthur H. Lewis • 1972 — Sounder — Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield, Kevin Hooks, Taj Mahal — 20th Century Fox — Based on the novel by William H. Armstrong • Pete 'n' Tillie — Walter Matthau, Carol Burnett, Geraldine Page, Barry Nelson — Universal Pictures — Based on Witch's Milk by Peter De Vries • 1974 — Conrack — Jon Voight, Paul Winfield, Hume Cronyn, Madge Sinclair — 20th Century Fox — Based on The Water Is Wide by Pat Conroy • 1976 — The Front — Woody Allen, Zero Mostel, Michael Murphy, Herschel Bernardi — Columbia Pictures • 1978 — Casey's Shadow — Walter Matthau, Alexis Smith, Robert Webber, Murray Hamilton — Based on The New Yorker article "Ruidoso" by John McPhee • 1979 — Norma Rae — Sally Field, Ron Leibman, Beau Bridges, Pat Hingle — 20th Century Fox — Based on Crystal Lee, a Woman of Inheritance by Henry P. Leifermann • 1981 — Back Roads — Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, David Keith, Michael V. Gazzo — Warner Bros. Pictures • 1983 — Cross Creek — Mary Steenburgen, Rip Torn, Peter Coyote, Dana Hill — Universal Pictures — Based on the memoir by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings • 1985 — Murphy's Romance — Sally Field, James Garner, Brian Kerwin, Corey Haim — Columbia Pictures — Based on the novel by Max Schott • 1987 — Nuts — Barbra Streisand, Richard Dreyfuss, Maureen Stapleton, Eli Wallach — Warner Bros. Pictures — Based on the play by Tom Topor • 1990 — Stanley & Iris — Jane Fonda, Robert De Niro, Swoosie Kurtz, Martha Plimpton — MGM/UA — Based on Union Street by Pat Barker

• Year — Film Feature — Oscars — BAFTAs — Golden Globes • Nominations — Wins — Nominations — Wins — Nominations — Wins • 1957 — Edge of the City — 2 • No Down Payment — 2 • 1961 — Paris Blues — 1 • 1962 — Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man — 5 • 1963 — Hud — 7 — 3 — 3 — 1 — 5 • 1965 — The Spy Who Came In from the Cold — 2 — 6 — 4 — 1 — 1 • 1970 — The Molly Maguires — 1 • The Great White Hope — 2 — 3 — 1 • 1972 — Sounder — 4 — 2 — 2 • Pete 'n' Tillie — 2 — 1 — 1 — 3 • 1974 — Conrack — 1 — 1 • 1976 — The Front — 1 — 1 — 1 • 1979 — Norma Rae — 4 — 2 — 3 — 1 • 1983 — Cross Creek — 4 • 1985 — Murphy's Romance — 2 — 2 • 1987 — Nuts — 3 • Total — 30 — 5 — 18 — 7 — 28 — 3 Oscar-related Performances Under Ritt's direction, these actors have received Oscar nominations and wins for their performances in their respective roles. • Year — Performer — Feature Film — Result • Best Actor in Lead Performance • 1964 — Paul Newman — Hud • 1966 — Richard Burton — The Spy Who Came In from the Cold • 1971 — James Earl Jones — The Great White Hope • 1973 — Paul Winfield — Sounder • 1986 — James Garner — Murphy's Romance • Best Actress in Lead Performance • 1964 — Patricia Neal — Hud • 1971 — Jane Alexander — The Great White Hope • 1973 — Cicely Tyson — Sounder • 1980 — Sally Field — Norma Rae • Best Actor in Supporting Performance • 1964 — Melvyn Douglas — Hud • 1984 — Rip Torn — Cross Creek • Best Actress in Supporting Performance • 1973 — Geraldine Page — Pete 'n' Tillie • 1984 — Alfre Woodard — Cross Creek