The blacklist began to weaken in the late 1950s and ended for Bernstein in 1959 with That Kind of Woman, starring Sophia Loren. He was soon working on The Magnificent Seven, the Hollywood adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s classic Seven Samurai, and Marilyn Monroe’s last film that never finished , Something’s Gotta Give.
In the 1970s, Bernstein was able to use his own story for what became his most acclaimed project, The Front, starring Woody Allen as a stand-in for blacklisted writers and featuring Bernstein’s friend Zero Mostel, who also had been ostracised in the 50s. Bernstein received an Academy Award nomination in 1977 and a Writers Guild of America prize for best screen drama. Around the same time, Allen gave him an acting cameo in the Oscar-winning Annie Hall.
Screenwriter Walter Bernstein, among the last survivors of Hollywood’s anti-Communist blacklist whose Oscar-nominated script for “The Front” drew upon his years of being unable to work under his own name, died Saturday. He was 101.
NEW YORK - Screenwriter Walter Bernstein, among the last survivors of Hollywood’s anti-Communist blacklist whose Oscar-nominated script for “The Front” drew