1938–1949: Early career Brooks wrote sports for the
Philadelphia Record and later joined the staff of the
Atlantic City Press-Union. He moved to New York to work for the
World-Telegram; shortly afterward he took a job with radio station
WNEW for a larger paycheck. As a newsman for the station, he reported and read stories on the air and provided commentary. Brooks also began writing plays in 1938 and tried directing for Long Island's Mill Pond Theater in 1940. A falling out with his theater colleagues that summer led him to drive to Los Angeles on a whim, hoping to find work in the film industry. He also may have been trying to escape a marriage; a legal document indicates he was married at least part of the time he lived in New York. He did not find film work but was hired by the NBC affiliate to write original stories and read them for a daily fifteen-minute broadcast called
Sidestreet Vignettes. His marriage, in 1941, to
Jeanne Kelly, an actress at
Universal Studios, may have helped to open the door to writing for the studio. He contributed dialogue to a few films and wrote two screenplays for the popular actress
Maria Montez, known as the "Queen of Technicolor." With no prospect of moving into more prestigious productions, he quit Universal and joined the
U.S. Marine Corps in 1943 during
World War II. Brooks never served overseas during the war, instead working in the Marine Corps film unit at Quantico, Virginia, and at times at Camp Pendleton, California. In his two years in uniform he learned more about the basics of filmmaking, including writing and editing documentaries. He also found time to write a novel,
The Brick Foxhole, a searing portrait of some stateside soldiers who were tainted by religious and racial bigotry, and opposed to homosexuals. Brooks came into his own when he directed an original screenplay,
Deadline – U.S.A. (1952), for
20th Century-Fox, starring his friend Humphrey Bogart. Based on the closing of the
New York World, the film was part
gangster picture, part newspaper drama. At its core was an issue Brooks cared about: the consolidation of the newspaper industry and its effect on the diversity of voices in the press. The film remains one of the more highly regarded dramas about American newspapers. Brooks directed four more films before achieving an unqualified hit with
Blackboard Jungle (1955) starring
Glenn Ford. Based on a best-seller by
Evan Hunter, the film was shocking for its time in its presentation of juvenile delinquency. It also offered a career-making supporting role for a young black actor,
Sidney Poitier, and early roles for actors
Vic Morrow,
Jamie Farr and
Paul Mazursky. Brooks chose to begin and end the film with the song "
Rock Around the Clock", bringing
rock 'n' roll to a major Hollywood production for the first time and sparking a No. 1 hit for
Bill Haley and the Comets.
Blackboard Jungle was nominated for an Oscar for its screenplay, and was MGM's top moneymaker that year. '' (1958) In 1955, Brooks was one of four American
auteur filmmakers named as "rebels" by the French magazine
Cahiers du Cinéma. Box-office success was what gave the writer/director more freedom at MGM, but Brooks also recognized that he would never have complete control of his films while under contract. He determined to avoid writing original screenplays and focused on adaptations of best-sellers or classic novels. He later noted that adapting a novel gave him a head start on developing the story structure required for a screenplay. He spent the rest of the decade at MGM, where his most notable film was an adaptation of
Tennessee Williams's sexually charged play
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). A huge hit for MGM – it drew more money and a larger audience than any other film Brooks ever directed – the film was a high point in the career of
Elizabeth Taylor and made a star of
Paul Newman. It brought Brooks his first Oscar nomination for directing and the first Best Picture nomination in his directorial career.
1960–1985: Work post-MGM '' (1965) set in Cambodia Brooks spent the last third of his film career working in relative independence. In 1958, he signed a non-exclusive, seven-year writer-director deal with
Columbia Pictures that was to earn him over $1 million. He followed the success of
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with an independent production for
United Artists of
Elmer Gantry (1960), based on the novel by
Sinclair Lewis. The story of a phony preacher, played by
Burt Lancaster, and a sincere revivalist, played by
Jean Simmons, was edgy for the time. As it had for
Blackboard Jungle and
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, controversy accompanied the film's release and helped bring people to theaters. The movie received five Academy Award nominations, including one for best picture, and won Oscars for Brooks' screenplay, Lancaster as lead actor and for
Shirley Jones as supporting actress. Brooks adapted and directed another Tennessee Williams play,
Sweet Bird of Youth (1962).
Ed Begley won a Best Supporting Oscar for his role in the film. While popular and well-received critically, the MGM production did not duplicate the success of the previous Williams film. A dream project followed, an adaptation for Columbia Pictures of
Joseph Conrad's
Lord Jim (1965), but the lavish film proved to be a misfire at the box office and with most critics. Brooks had spent years writing the script and planning the most expensive project of his career. He had assembled a stellar cast led by
Peter O'Toole,
Eli Wallach,
Jack Hawkins,
Paul Lukas, and
James Mason. While beautifully photographed in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia by
Freddie Young and scored by
Bronisław Kaper,
Lord Jim did not find the audience that had made
David Lean's epics
Lawrence of Arabia and
Doctor Zhivago such notable hits of the 1960s. To recover professionally from the failure of
Lord Jim, Brooks surprised Hollywood by choosing to adapt a minor western novel about a wealthy husband who hires mercenaries to rescue his kidnapped wife from Mexican bandits. Brooks worked quickly and within a year released
The Professionals (1966), which became Columbia's biggest hit that year. The film was made through Brooks and Al Horwits' new film production company, Pax Enterprises, Inc. The slick crowd-pleaser starred Burt Lancaster,
Lee Marvin,
Robert Ryan and
Woody Strode as "the professionals" with
Jack Palance as the bandit leader and
Claudia Cardinale as the kidnapped wife. The film received Oscar nominations for Brooks' screenplay and direction, and for
Conrad Hall's cinematography. It has been lauded as one of the most entertaining westerns ever filmed. and Brooks in 1968 Brooks landed the property of the decade when author
Truman Capote selected him to adapt his best-selling book
In Cold Blood. Once again rejecting the methodical pace that had slowed him with other productions, Brooks worked quickly to adapt the "nonfiction novel," as Capote called it. As a reporter, Brooks also conducted his own research into the murders of four members of a Kansas farm family and the lives of the two drifters responsible for the crime. Brooks rejected Columbia's suggestion that he hire stars to play the killers and instead cast two relative unknowns,
Scott Wilson and
Robert Blake. He resisted the studio on another point, shooting the film in black and white rather than color because he thought it was a more frightening medium. He used locations where the events occurred, including the house where the family had been killed. Again produced through Pax Enterprises,
In Cold Blood had a documentary style and was considered among the films of the mid-1960s that ushered in a more mature Hollywood style. Brooks received double Oscar nominations; cinematographer
Conrad Hall and composer
Quincy Jones also were nominated.
The Professionals and
In Cold Blood marked the apex of Brooks' career. In the two decades that followed, he wrote and directed just six more films. Of note was
The Happy Ending (1969), also made through Pax Enterprises.
Bite the Bullet (1975) was Brooks' return to the western and his final film made through Pax Enterprises. He based his original screenplay on the endurance horse races popular at the turn of the century. In 1977, he released another controversial film, an adaptation of
Judith Rossner's 1975 novel
Looking for Mr. Goodbar. Goodbar starred
Diane Keaton as a Catholic school teacher who searches for sexual satisfaction in singles bars. Brooks made the film on a tight budget, and its frank treatment of sex and its horrific storyline brought praise and condemnation and sold tickets. He ended his career with
Wrong Is Right (1982), a satire about the news media and world unrest starring
Sean Connery, and a gambling addiction film with
Ryan O'Neal and
Catherine Hicks in
Fever Pitch (1985).
Fever Pitch featured a story about a renowned Los Angeles sportswriter who becomes a sports gambling addict. Brooks himself had been a sportswriter when a young man. Both movies were critical and commercial failures. Brooks tried developing other projects in the last years of his life. He suffered from heart ailments and a stroke before dying at his home in 1992 at the age of 79. ==Personal life==