Richard Brooks

Born on May 18, 1912 in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, USA), Ruben Sax –his real name– came from a family of Jewish Russian emigrants. When he graduated from Temple University, he worked as a sports reporter for various newspapers, before recycling himself as a writer for various shows for NBC.

He also directed a play and wrote two novels, but eventually moved to Hollywood, where he became a screenwriter for low-budget movies. He debuted with the script for Men of Texas , a middling western.

After spending a season in the ‘marines’ when the US became involved in World War II, Brooks resumed his career as a screenwriter with brilliant works such as John Huston ‘s Key Largo , as well as reviewing some other people’s writing, as happened with Outlaws . , by Robert Siodmak , where he did not appear in the credits.

He owes his leap into directing to the great Cary Grant , who advocated for him to be hired for Crisis , a drama in which the star of Con la muerte en las talones starred with José Ferrer . Van Johnson was an aspiring writer who marries a beautiful young woman in the French capital after the end of the war, in The Last Time I Saw Paris , an adaptation of a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald that hit the billboards, but not so much. as Semilla de Maldad , prototype of the cinema of conflictive institutes, with Glenn Ford and a Sidney Poitier who became very famous with this title.

Although the latter was based on a book by Evan Hunter , Brooks did not dare bring first-rate novels to the screen until the late 1950s, when he made the film The Brothers Karamazov , the text by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman were a married couple in low hours in the outstanding Cat on a Hot Tin Roof , based on the work of Tennessee Williams . Again with Newman she shot Sweet Bird of Youth , another work by Williams. She won her only Oscar, for best screenplay, for adapting Sinclair Lewis in The Fire and the Word , with a brilliant performance asBurt Lancaster , who reprized his orders in The Professionals , an exemplary western based on a lesser – known book by Frank O’Rourke . Peter O’Toole was the lead in Lord Jim , based on the novel by Joseph Conrad .

Arguably Brooks’ best work was In Cold Blood , due to the complexity of making Truman Capote ‘s masterpiece a film . The writer had revolutionized the literary field by novelizing in a realistic style a real event, the cruel murder of the Clutter family at the hands of two thieves. Although it was very difficult to turn 500 pages into a movie, Brooks himself took it upon himself to craft a script that condensed the story well, and kept the spirit of the author, by trying to delve into the psychology of criminals and not show their brutality until the very end. final.

Divorced from the actress Jean Brooks , with whom he spent a few years, he joined the British Jean Simmons , whom he had directed in the aforementioned El fuego y la palabra . With the latter he had a daughter, but they finally divorced in 1977.

In the latter phase of Brooks’s career, he made few films, but continued to hold his own, for example with the western Bite the Bullet , with Gene Hackman and James Coburn . Warren Beatty headlined his comedy Dollars , and Diane Keaton starred in his drama Looking for Mr. Goodbar . He retired from movies in 1985 after the failed drama Foul Play in Las Vegas , with Ryan O’Neal . He died of heart failure on March 11, 1992, in Beverly Hills.