What Made Sammy Run? Legendary writer Budd Schulberg did and now the creator of On the Waterfront is gone at 95.
Budd Schulberg who defined Hollywood hustlers with his iconic novel What Makes Sammy Run? was born into Hollywood royalty, the son of Paramount Prexy BP Schulberg.
What Makes Sammy Run? pubb’ed in 1941 follows the seamy misadventures of Sammy Glick (born Shmelka Glickstein) as he wheedles, steals, schmoozes and claws his way up the golden ladder from NY tab office boy to major Hollywood kingpin.
He was dismayed to later discover many wanna-bes used Glick as a role-model (see Sidney Falco in Sweet Smell of Success).
"I grew up hating him," he said. "Now I’m being made to feel as if I’d written a how-to book: How to Succeed in Business While Really Trying."
But his enduring legacy, among his many books, plays and screenplays is On the Waterfront which catapulted Marlon Brando into superstardom as dock worker Terry Malloy filmed on location in Hoboken, NJ.
For that, Schulberg wrote one of cinema’s most enduring lines of dialog: "I coulda been a contender – instead of a bum – which is what I am – let’s face it."
And he was No Face in The Crowd either.
Schulberg served in the forerunner of the CIA during WW2 – the OSS.
He was an ardent supporter of Bobby Kennedy’s 1968 Presidential bid and was voted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame for his newspaper expose of boxing that became Humphrey Bogart‘s last film The Harder They Fall.
Adios amigo, see ya at Ciro’s.
